I love Austin!

I started my Saturday in the afternoon with no plans. All I knew is that it was a nice day and I wanted to be outside. Who knew I would be out until 2 (or 3 a.m. with DST)?

Adrian and I first headed out to the Drag (Guadalupe street right by UT) for some pearl smoothies from Coco's Cafe. Some of the first friends we met in Austin introduced us to Coco's and now Adrian and I crave their pearl drinks. I wasn't quite a fan of boba drinks until I tried their Pina Colada smoothie. Yum!! Now, I try a new flavor every time I go. I ordered a peaches and cream smoothie, Adrian a blueberry smoothie, and we headed out to walk down the street. Obviously, most of the people on the street are students, and boy do they keep getting younger. After we exhausted our drinks, we headed to a park right by the river.

I'm not sure what the park is called, but it is right across the river from downtown. There were people running, walking, canoeing and playing with their dogs. Part of the park is a dog park so the dogs were unleashed and playing with new friends. Austin is one of the top spots for dogs; I feel like pretty much every one has one (and I'm still wanting my Italian Greyhound — one day when I have time). I loved seeing the variety of dogs from the small Chihuahuas to the Great Danes. We walked up and down the river, enjoying the weather and the view.

As the sun started to go down and we got a little hungry, we decided to head over to South Congress and Home Slice for some pizza. Home Slice is one of the top pizza joints in Austin. They make awesome N.Y.-style pizza (their eggplant pizza is pretty amazing). We've gone a few times and even became friends with one of the servers. After eating, we headed off to my favorite cupcake company in Austin, Hey Cupcake. Moist cupcakes with cream cheese frosting —Yes!

While we continued checking out the artisan market and stores on South Congress, Adrian's friend called and invited us to hang out downtown on 6th street. Sixth street is a strip of bars where the local college kids and tourists congregate on the weekends. Our first experience there was Halloween when we had only been in Austin a few days; the phrase utter chaos comes to mind (OK, that might be an exaggeration). For the particularly busy weekends, the street is shut down for a few blocks and people hop from bar to bar. Why I hadn't planned on going out, I figured it was as a good a time as any to experience 6th street (Halloween doesn't count as a true experience since we walked slowly with the crowd for a couple of blocks and then went home. Way too many people for my taste.).

Even though it was only 9 p.m. when we got to 6th street, the place was already busy. In addition to the college students, people were in town for the South by Southwest Film Festival and other conferences based around the event. For the rest of the evening we hopped bar to bar meeting interesting people along the way. I did like looking at the decor and themes of the various bars (oh, the designer in me). Overall a pretty good time.

After such a busy day, Adrian and I crashed into bed and fell right asleep. What a relaxing and busy day it turned out to be.