Happy New Year

Had a mellow first New Year's Eve in Austin. Although we were feeling a little lazy, we motivated ourselves and went downtown around 7:00 to catch some of the Austin First Night festivities. Turnout was impressive. Thousands of people were out to catch the strange procession down Congress Avenue and Cesar Chavez Street. To make the event more family friendly, the organizers planned to set off fireworks twice -- once at around 7:45, and again at midnight. Lots of people had gone downtown with their kids in tow and waited around for the first set of fireworks. Rachel and I, meanwhile, had walked in a large circle trying to find a friend of ours, and were still making our way back to our intended fireworks-viewing spot on the South 1st Street Bridge when the fireworks began atop one of the larger buildings downtown. We quickly rushed to a better viewing spot on the bridge. By the time we got there and watched for maybe a minute, the fireworks died down. Everybody around us kept waiting and assumed more were on the way -- but that was it! Maybe 4 minutes long, I must say that it was perhaps the weakest and most disappointing display of fireworks ever. Even the young kids knew as much to feel ripped off! The two guys on the bridge making large balls of fire with some sort of gasoline-infused tube that looked like a didgeridoo made for a more impressive show. As with many things in Austin, the spectacle really was the people in the crowd.


Fire juggler and fireworks


Next we stopped at the Ginger Man for a beer. The Ginger Man is a great mellow pubs which would fit in perfectly in any city -- and indeed there are three other Ginger Man pubs in Texas, plus "cousin pubs" in NYC and Greenwich, CT. Plus it has an amazing selection of beers on tap. There have been rumors flying around that it might be closing soon, so the fact that we had been there recently (actually the night before) didn't stop us from returning.


Beer selection at Austin's Ginger Man Pub

Our final stop was for pizza. Although my Austin pizza expectations were very low when we got here, I had read somewhere that a place called Salvation Pizza was serving thin crust pies based on the same recipe used at Harry's Pizza in our old home town, West Hartford CT. So we just had to give it a whirl. When we stopped in to pick up our pies, we asked about the rumor. The woman running the place confirmed that indeed it was the same recipe -- and that she is the daughter of Barb and Mark, the operators of Harry's and its progeny, Barb's Pizza. The pizza was nearly identical to the pies we used to get all the time from Harry's! And Salvation is pretty close to our house. So 2008 started on a very positive (and tasty) note.

Nice looking pie

Happy New Year!