beers and bars

Last night I met up with some friends and we hit some bars.

Damn I love the bars in Austin.

We started off at Shoal Creek Saloon, then went to the Mean Eyed Cat and then finished at Deep Eddy. A night of slightly divey, cozy and fun bars. I love a bar (as opposed to a pub) that has a bit of a rough edge to it, but only in looks, not in clientele.
Luckily Austin has lots of those. Mean Eyed Cat is dedicated to Johnny Cash and has a really great vibe. Deep Eddy has been around FOREVER and is one of those places that used to be so smokey that you would enter into it and you'd be covered in a fug of tobacco within seconds of entering. When we moved to Norway I bought a t shirt from there, threw it in our shipment, and over two months later, when we were unpacking, the t shirt STILL smelled so strongly of smoke that I had to wash it to get rid of it. (I admit I also cried a little when that happened because it just reminded me of home so much and I was SO damned homesick.) Deep Eddy is now pretty much smoke free due to Austin's new non smoking ordinance, but smoke is so imbedded into the building that I sort of think the tobacco residue actually holds the place together.

So anyhow, I really had planned to be home by about 11pm last night, but Patty kept telling me to have "just one more" in her adorable, Patty way, and so I kept having just one more until next thing I knew I was on my way home at almost 2am. Oops. One of the beers I tried "just one more time" was this new microbrew called "Fireman 4" and I have to say, that is one of the BEST tasting beers (blonde ale) I have EVER had. Holy moly what a great beer. It has layer upon layer of flavor and manages to be smooth and crisp and complex all at once. YUMMEEEE.......

I slept HARD until 9:30 this morning, and only woke up because I had to pee and thought it was 6am.

Had breakfast at Kerbey Lane this morning with another friend for a bit of a catch up and a hangover removal. I am really proud of how we are all growing up, getting our shit together and moving on with our lives. I've always known I was very lucky in my friendships and relationships with people, and it is so good to know that the friendships still stand, we still all enjoy hanging out and never are at a loss for ways to relate. Best of all, everyone is even COOLER than when we started out.