About two months ago, Will and I started thinking about what to do after his graduation. If you live somewhere like LA or New York, you understand that rent without a job is absolutely impossible. Half of what I make each month goes to rent (and I get a very good deal!). At the end of May, our lease in this house is up and we have to figure out the next step.

The plan had been for Will to get a job out here and we would do one more year in California before setting out for somewhere new. But we weren’t sure a job for Will was going to come and so we started looking at other places. We got out a map and crossed off any state we wouldn’t want to live in. Between the two of us, we crossed off almost all of them. And while there are some places in the Northern states we might want to try someday, for now it was important to stay near family, which meant the Southwest. A lot of factors were tossed around but, after a bit of discussion, we decided to set out sights on Austin, TX!

All of a sudden the plan became moving half way across the country in two months to a place where neither of us had a job or knew a soul.

It was kind of exciting at first. The idea of new possibility. But it really started to weigh on me as the days went by and the stress of it all was terrible. On top of the quick transition, I would be up and quitting my job when they needed me the most. Everyone I tell this to told me not to feel bad (“they don’t pay you enough for you to feel bad”) but I believe in building relationships and I don’t turn my back on people who have been good to me. As we’ve gotten busier and busier at work, the guilt has grown to match.

And then one day last week, out of no where, a possible job for Will appeared in California and we started to think again about the timing of this move. After discussion and number crunching, we have decided that, job or no job, we are staying here for at least another six months.

Whew…what a load off my shoulders. All of a sudden I’m not trying to figure out how to move three states away on a budget of $0, just how to move one city away (and that’s like three blocks in SoCal terms).

This also made our trip to Austin – the one that had originally been to find a place to live – a little less purposeful. And a lot of work for a weekend that didn’t need to happen quite so urgently anymore.

We arrived at the airport on Friday evening, both tired from a long day, a long drive through LA traffic and the anticipation of four hours of travel ahead of us. Add on to it a tense phone call between Will and his dad and we found ourselves in line to get on the plane asking the other if we actually wanted to go.

It’s a strange thing to get on an airplane when neither person wants to. We both kept talking about how we would just rather go home but neither of us made the call to get off the plane and, before we knew it, the cabin doors had closed and we were in it whether we liked it or not.

Luckily there were friendly puppies to greet us at Will’s parent’s house in Dallas.

Yes, we flew into Dallas because a) it’s cheaper and b) we are too young to rent a car 🙁 so we needed to borrow one. Unfortunately this meant we had to do three and a half hour drive down to Austin before our trip even began.

In order to maximize our time in Austin, we got up at 5 am (after having arrived at midnight) to hit the road. Keep in mind that’s 3 am California time. And like always happens, Starbucks was no where to be found on the wide open country roads so we made the necessary call to get gas station coffee. The horrors! But, man, we needed it! The machine spit off some brown liquid and then a whole lot of water so I topped it off with some Irish Cream flavored cappuccino to compensate. It tasted bad and bad for me but it kept me wide awake for the next ten hours so I’m not going to bitch too loudly.

While west Texas is painfully boring to drive through, central Texas is actually really pretty. There may be no mountains anywhere in sight and there are one too many churches for my taste but the plains and sleepy towns are beautiful. I asked Will what they circular grass things were. “You mean hay barrels?” You can see I’m a city girl through and through.

We planned to eat at only local restaurants so we brought out Siri to find breakfast when we hit the suburbs of Austin. She directed us to a donut shop and while I don’t eat donuts, it sure was the most popular place in all of Round Rock. I have to say I can see why.

Everyone and their mother was there, including the town cops who were using their radios to take breakfast orders. I’ll take that to mean not much crime in Round Rock.

Will ordered a dozen donut holes and the cops seemed shocked that’s all he wanted. I don’t know about you, but a dozen donut holes seems like a ton of food to me. I guess I’m not adjusted to the Texas food consumption standards yet.

I was told that Siri did a fine job picking out the breakfast spot as these were demolished quickly.

We looked at some houses in Round Rock. I think the rent on this is less than what we will pay for a one bedroom apartment in SoCal. I’m going to try to not think about the comparison too much.

Our next stop was UT Austin, a school we are both looking at for the next step in our educational plans. For Will, it’s a Master’s in Computer Science and for me it would be a Dietetics Program. Not sure if I want to go for the Master’s or not.

We met some friendly faces as we strolled campus.

And some intimidating chemistry equipment that I hope won’t be a part of any Chem 101 I have to take.

UT also has some funky and things like this Asian-styled seating in the student union. Funky things seem to abound in Austin.

The famous view down the lawn…

I couldn’t get it quite right but the building down at the end is the Texas state capital building and there is a statue on top that corresponds to a state a little ways down the UT lawn. Or maybe it’s this statue here. Will did his best to narrate but I don’t think he knew exactly either despite the many years of Texas history he took as a student in Dallas.

Even though it was only 11am by this point, we had been up since 5 and I’d only had the gas station coffee and a granola bar. So we headed over to “the drag” to find one of Austin’s many famed eateries for lunch.

When we were driving on to UT, we saw a place advertising pizza, wings, falafel and gyros. While all typical foods you would find in a college community, you don’t really expect them to go together.

Enter Arpeggio Grill.

Because Will and I eat so differently, we are very used to eating at two different restaurants or even at different times of the day. There is a lot of watching the other eat in our relationship. A restaurant that offers food we can both enjoy truly is few and far between. So we decided to give Arpeggio Grill a chance, just because it was ballsy enough to offer something for both of us.

It was pretty empty but I think that’s because college students don’t eat lunch at 11am. Very colorful interior, although I don’t love wall murals in restaurants.

The pizza for Will came out first. Looked decent.

And it turns out it was. This wasn’t just some reheated frozen piece of cardboard. You could tell they made their own crust and even the pepperonis had a unique flavoring. The Mediterranean influence really came through.

With the pizza being so good, I was worried my falafel sandwich would be the one not to come up to par.

All in all it was pretty good. They nailed the falafel, not too moist, not too dry and the seasonings were perfect. Where they lacked was the composition of the sandwich, which needed a much larger spoonful of hummus in order to add some moisture. And the pita was smeared with butter, which I am not a fan of and consider it to be a cheap trick to bring out flavor that doesn’t actually exist.

Over all, this place was good and what made it even better was that this whole meal, along with a drink, only cost $10! That’s what the pizza alone would have cost to us normally. While I would have made some adjustments to mine, like I said, finding a restaurant that even offers something both Will and I will enjoy is rare so I have to give this one props for the great menu choices.

And that’s where I will leave you for now. Up next, 6th street, the hotel that just kept getting worse and the drinking chess club.