TEXAS

This week Phil and I took a trip to Austin, TX to learn the ways of the south.
Basically, our plan was to eat a weeks worth of tacos, hug our NH pals Willie & Alethea, and take in a little bit of music from the end of SXSW festival, which ended last weekend. We succeeded in all of these things, not to mention coming across some supercool record shops, vintage stores and clothing boutiques and one of the best parts of the trip - running into a couple bonus folks from mother NH rather unexpectedly that we hadn't seen in 10 years. (check out my lovely friend Luke Wyland's music - Au - who we got to see play in Austin. I really love this).

Austin is a great city - full of art and design and good food. It's the birthplace of the original Craft Mafia, the live music capitol of the country (self proclaimed), and there are affordable ("affordable") houses with yards and flowers and cacti within a short walk of downtown. There are christmas lights strung around empty lots to make outdoor cafeterias and food trucks are multiplying like bunny rabbits. What they lack in good bagels, they make up for in really fricking good tacos & bbq (so I hear. That night, I ate my weight in peach cobbler).
I liked how much space there was... I'm trying to come up with a segway here for why Baltimore is ultimately a better place to be - but like comparing Bmore to most hip cities, you'll have to excuse me for not having one on the tip of my tongue. I won't lie. Austin is the formerly-rural-living-gone-city-life-vegetarian-music-lovin'-indie-crafters wet dream.
However. What Austin has in defined personality (Art, Music, Vintage old timey southern hipness) Baltimore has in possibility.
Since we've scared off most hipster-lifers with shows like The Wire, we aren't overpopulated yet with bird-themed indie shops or businesses. All the same, we've got a blossoming arts, music & crafting community, and I like being a part of the beginnings of that. I don't mind being one of the only folksy tshirt screenprinters in the city. It makes me feel unique. I also (tentatively at least) don't mind living with my house superglued to my neighbors, because our friends in tiny Maryland are big old Texas sized amounts of cool.

But oh god we need better tacos.