March 3rd: Austin (Eventually)

Back in March, we had a long weekend free for Mark's birthday. His pick for a birthday trip was Austin, Texas, so on a dreary Sunday, we packed up the car and made our way up to Dulles.

We made it to the gate and found out the flight was overbooked. They were offering a LOT of money for people willing to rebook and go the following day (I think $800 each at one point), but since we were limited on time, we stuck with the original plan. We eventually boarded, pushed back...and taxied around reeeeeally slowly before returning to the gate because the plane was broken.

Everyone deplaned and hung out at the gate, waiting for an update. They gave us free snacks and drinks while we waited, which was pretty cool!

A little while later, they sorted out whatever the problem was and we got to reboard. By then, it had started to snow, so we also had to deice before heading to the runway to depart. That was easily one of the longest takeoffs I've ever had at Dulles; I think we used nearly 8,000 feet of runway before we finally lumbered into the air. That's about as bad as the A380!

It didn't take long to climb above the clouds, and the flight to Texas was nice. I spent the time sightseeing and rereading a book on my Kindle.

We eventually landed, grabbed our bags, and got an Uber to...

...our apartment for the next few days. Not a bad view from the balcony!   :)

We hung out for a little bit and got settled in, then decided to go find some dinner. There was a nearby ramen place that had really good reviews, but the line stretched way out the door, so we poked around a bit more to see what else was in the area.

We wound up at Il Brutto, a tasty Italian place. We managed to get some sweet seats up by the pizza oven, and started out with some super tasty ham and cheese...

...and I got a burrata pizza (because I kind of had to once I knew it was a thing). Everything was really good; I'm glad we wound up here for dinner! (And if you haven't already guessed, there will be a LOT of food and drink pictures from this trip.)

They even brought us limoncello with our check. We wrapped up here, made a quick stop at the apartment to drop off our leftovers, then headed back out to explore a bit more.

Our next stop was Whistler's for a drink. The old fashioneds were tasty, but it was LOUD inside. We finished our drinks outside, then moved on.

The next bar, Grackle, was a bit more low key and had a really cool vibe. We each got a drink, and grabbed a table to hang out for a bit.

Part of our hanging out involved hiding a shiny purple egg for a group doing a scavenger hunt, which was pretty funny. One of the hunt organizers came up to us early on and asked us to keep the egg; they explained that someone would come ask for it, and we could made them do whatever we wanted for them to earn it. Katie wound up coming over to ask for the egg; she did a decent impression of Olympic curling, and we gave her the egg.   :)

We hung out a bit longer, then made our way back to the apartment for some sleep. We had lots of exploring (and eating) to do!