As I mentioned on yesterday’s post, the day was drawing to a close and the sun was starting to set… I was lugging around a huge bag of purchases from the day, and was getting pretty hungry.  Although you may not think it when you see my whaley thighs, I can forget to eat when I’m really excited, and I hadn’t had anything since that grody egg-and-cheese bagel.   I thought I would walk back to the hotel and grab dinner at the restaurant, so I started walking back.  Then, three fantastic things happened:

FANTASTIC THING NUMBER ONE:

I had this self-imposed goal to find a really cool pair of vintage cowboy boots while over in Austin.  This is so that, when I wear this fantasy pair of ‘really cool vintage cowboy boots’ when I’m in Toronto, I can say “Yeah, I got them while I was visiting Austin.  No big deal.”  Which OBVIOUSLY,  would make them extra-cool.  

Although I had seen hundreds of pairs of boots, I clearly have some kind of swollen-cankle-slash-deformed-calf disease that has not yet been diagnosed, because nothing fit me.  Either they were too big, or the ankle was too narrow, or the ankle was too big and they kept sliding off when I walked… DAAAAMMMMN YOOOOOU BOOOOOOTS!   So, I was walking down the street and I saw this rickety old hand-painted sign that said “VINTAGE BOOTS” with an arrow.  In my mind, I thought

“This is either a lure to bring tourists into some kind of back-room Deer Hunter-esque russian roulette trap, OR, I’m going to find me some SICK boots.”  

Fortunately for me, it was the latter.  Since the sun was setting, I caught the guy as he was packing up.  I ran over like some kind of whaley-thighed, deformed-footed crazy person –  I assume he smelled the desperation from a mile away, because he stopped, calmed me down, and helped me find TWO pairs of amazing boots.

These broken-down black motorcycle-cross-cowboy boots that make me look bad-ass; and

These oxblood cowboy boots with an eagle sewed into the front.  An EAGLE.

Natalie’s feelin’ pretty good at this point.  I bag up my two pairs of boots and continue walking towards the hotel – I have my DSLR on me so I tried to snap some arty pics, but lugging around 45 pounds worth of boots and clothes restricted my ability to ‘commit’ to my photographs:

Then I came across the second fantastic find of the evening…

FANTASTIC THING NUMBER TWO:

While taking pictures, I glanced through the window of this old-timey 60′s themed diner called ‘Snackbar’ and noticed this good-looking bartender serving drinks… I keep walking, walking, walking… I stop… I think…

“What the hell am I doing?  Go have dinner in THERE with THAT GUY!”

So I did, and I met a whole crew of extremely friendly, extremely good-looking Austin hipster-esque bartenders and servers who are more than happy to discuss my trip and suggest places for me to frequent while exploring Austin.  They were showing old 60′s Batman reruns with no sound, which brought me back to my elementary school days, when I used to come home after school and watch Batman and Gilligan’s Island instead of playing with actual friends.  Memories.

The guy at the bar recommended the steak tacos, which were very, very, very good.  I also ordered a Lone Star beer, and since it was happy hour, it cost about $1.50.  My brain subsequently exploded, and my mouth subsequently consumed about 10 beers.  Lone Star beers also have little messages in the cap to decipher… this one says:

“Half-ing a bang-up dime”  

After finishing the steak tacos, my whaley thighs were still screaming for more food, so I decided to go with another of the bartender’s recommendations and get the “Okonomiaki”, which is this amazing spicy egg-sesame-something concoction.  The food at this place was REALLY good considering it’s modest decor and laid-back appearance, and the bartenders were still entertaining me, so I was feeling pretty awesome.

There was an older man sitting at the bar with me who eventually smiled at me and slid down the bar next to me to strike up a conversation.  He was super-nice and we ended up having a one hour conversation about music (he designs layouts for country music musicians like Willie Neslon), politics (he was very concerned that Candians hated Americans due to their conservative views), and Austin (he’s lived there his whole life).  Great conversation, but I think it turned into a bit of a hit-on situation at the end when he offered to “go have dessert with me somewhere else”.  I politely declined, and the innocence of my trip to Austin remained intact.

After settling up at Snackbar, I moseyed on back to the hotel – drunk, full of tacos and egg, and all vintaged-up.  Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any better, when I got back to my room I found fantastic thing number three:

FANTASTIC THING NUMBER THREE:

In case you can’t see – that’s a dark chocolate cowboy boot filled with spiced pecans, some white chocolate and dark chocolate cookies and goodies and the BEST SALTED CARAMEL FUDGE that has ever existed on the face of the earth.  Large pimpitude, indeed.

The whole day couldn’t be ALL amazing, or the fabric of the space-time continuum would likely implode.  There needs to be a balance of good and bad to ensure that the world is at peace…. on that note…  It was Saturday night, I was having an amazing time, so I thought I would be a crazy partier and go out on the town to a bar by myself and continue being social and making new friends.  So I got all gussied up:

And went down to 6th Street, which I had been told by NUMEROUS people was the “place to be” on a Saturday night.  I don’t know who these people thought I was, I’m guessing they thought I was a slutty, bleached-out hair college girl who cannot hold her liquor.  Because this is what I saw:

Suffice it to say… I walked once up and down the street and went back to the hotel to take a long bath.  Much better.

Stay tuned for tomorrow when you get to see inside the most brain-meltingly cool reclaimed and vintage housewares store that I think I’ve ever seen ever.