PDX to SA Compares: Halloween

Here’s the simplest thing I can say about Halloween this year: now THAT was a party.

Last Halloween, we had a blast at a showing of Rocky Horror in (where else) the closest thing Oregon has to a Transylvania, Eugene.  There was hooting and hollering and random costumed party-hoppers stopping us on the street to perform lines pertinent to their costumes.  The show itself inspired us to attempt Eddie and Columbia the next Halloween, which is precisely what we did:

Hot patootie, bless MY soul.

Last year’s costumes were a bit more demure:

It was more, we're just here for the show.

Let’s just say this: what we made up for in costumes this year, we also made up for in total all around party-tude.  Let me set the scene: one of Kyle’s (awesome) co-workers owns a house in the country (no really…there’s country here).  But we didn’t have the party at his house, oh no.  He has another smaller, for lack of a better name, party house on his property, complete with a pool, a full kitchen and bedroom, gameroom, fire pit, and grill that you could roast a whole swine on.

Oh no, this? Just our spit, in case we have an additional pig to roast.

And this party is chock-a-block full of people: people from Kyle’s hospital, our host’s teenage kids and what seemed to be half the Texas class of 2014, little kids in costumes, and of course the requisite farm dog and cat wandering about.  There’s a fire pit to congregate around (oh yes, forgot to mention: most of the action is outside.  Good thing my outfit had PLENTY of fabric) and thumping music “the kids these days listen to” echoing through the forest surrounding us.  Literally if you walked more than 50 feet in any direction, you would be lost to the world and we would be forced to finish your beer.

As for the costumes, they were altogether impressive.  Our favorite costumes and people at the party had to be these lovely folks:

The sultan and his concubine, complete with excellent false boobage courtesy of eBay.

Everyone was in a great mood and we had such an awesome time.  There was also a point in the night that involved a “Pepsi Challenge” with two types of tequila, so take that for what it’s worth.

Other than the Halloween party scene, turns out there are some commonalities between our two fair cities when it comes to a love of zombies.  Granted, this year’s zombie activity was technically in Austin, but it involved someone from SA (namely yours truly) so it totally counts:

Portland zombies...

...Austin zombies. Photo credit: NoNo Joe on Flickr (click to see original photo).

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A tour of downtown SA

Apparently, a vital part of living in the fine US of A is having your vital papers. The brings to mind infinite lines of tired, grumpy people queueing at the DMV only to be turned away for not having their mother’s maiden name engraved on a parchment scroll signed by Governor Perry. I embarked on completing the task of getting not one, but TWO of my vital identification created in two days: a Texas Driver’s License, and a US Passport.

To be honest, the trip to the DMV (or DPS as it’s called in Texas – why? Because things are different down here.) was boring as hell and not really worth telling the tale of. The trip to get my passport, however, brought me to downtown SA, where there are prettier buildings and more statues.

The Bexar (pronounced "Behr" like the floor stain) County Courthouse, which I was told by a coworker has been under repair like this for several years.

City Hall, where they kindly redirected me to the courthouse. Everyone there was wearing suits...and it was over 100 degrees outside. G-ross.

The view facing away from the Courthouse. You can barely tell it's Texas! Oh wait, there's the Mexican restaurant...

Yes indeed folks, it's San Antonio himself.

San Fernando Cathedral is the oldest continuously functioning religious community in Texas. And yes...it's Catholic.

Read and learn.

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This is the Alamo. Please do remember it.

The Oregon Trail is much shorter here. Y'know, cause everything else is bigger.

UPDATES

So we’ve both been working full time for over 2 weeks now, and it feels fantasmic.  I’m learning the always applicable art of auto insurance and KS has been earning his stripes as a night shift nurse.  We both feel extremely lucky and fortunate to be gainfully employed in jobs we can say we still love even at the end of 4 12-hour shifts.

RP has settled in pretty well.  He pants (ha, just like his NAME) a lot and drinks extra bowls of water on the regular, but there are dog parks like they’re sent from heaven and one of us is usually home to spend time with him during the day/night.

We miss our Oregon friends and family quite a lot, and I’ll be the first to admit that I sometimes sit around listening to NPR, drinking organic coffee and imagining rain falling outside.  But we have some wonderful biffles close by in Austin, and we try to get up to visit those lovelies whenever possible.  Also the weather…let’s be honest: it’s pretty kickass.

THE ALAMO (yeah, you’re going to want to click that link)

Yup, we went there.

And the thing about it isn’t that it’s small (which is what everyone says and is entirely true), it’s that it’s SMACK DAB in the middle of the city!  We were walking past a row of oddity museums (Ripley’s, a wax museum, the Tomb Rider) on one side, and a bevy of snow cone dealers on the other, and all of a sudden, KS points and says, “There it is!” And I wouldn’t even have believed him if I hadn’t thought, “Wow, that looks like all the picture on every credit union, car dealership, and piece of currency in this city.”  (Oh yes, Texas has it’s own form of currency.  The Texas dollar is worth 3 euros, 10,000 yen, and a few pesos thrown in.  Good luck with that whole failing economy thing, rest of America.)

I thought the Alamo was pretty cool.  Having history right in the middle of a major metropolitan city is cool (albeit a bit surprising, as I’ve already noted).  We saw a history of the Bowie knife, a list of people who survived (I confirmed that Davy Crockett was not among them), and got an overall education of what the war was all about.  No, I’m not going to tell you, because really I’m still just a little confused.  Go learn it for yourself.

We also wandered around downtown to the River Walk (el Paseo del Rio) and to the Tower of the Americas, which is basically a smaller space needle complete with a rotating restaurant and overpriced tickets.

The Torch of Friendship is a symbol of Mexico and America working together in harmony. After that whole Alamo thing, anyway.

Yep, pretty much the space needle.

An overhead view of the fountains by the Tower.

It was even prom night. Girls were navigating this terrain in heels!

This water wall made us feel right at home.

Para ti, senorita KK.

KS bonded with the natives.

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Benign Observations of a New World

Seriously, Texas: you are so awesome in so many ways.  We’ve had an excellent first week getting settled into our little apartment and prepping KS for his first week of women’s work–I mean–ER nursing.  So far so good: he’s made it to work on time both days and only had 2 unsuccessful IV attempts.  Apparently veins are made of jello in Tejas.  He’ll have a detailed update for our nursing friends come later this week.

While KS has been off stamping out pestilence and warding off disease (shout out to Dr. V), The Pants and I have been on the poop spot and new job hunts, respectively.  And update on this scene will come when we have definitive news, as I don’t think the general public has much interest for my opinion of how much the email auto-responders like my credentials.

So instead, here are a few observations we’ve made about Texas and San Antonio thus far.  Keep in mind that San Antonio has 1.3 million people.  Think about that for a second–one period point period three period MILLION people.  That’s a lot of peeps to feed, entertain, transport, and keep from generally rioting, which means there are plenty of things to do and see.

• FOOD:  The obvious first highlight for us has been the food (or comida as we’ve grown to call it).  Highlights so far have included (links are to the Yelp pages where I have invariably provided a review.  What?  I have no job yet!):

Henry’s Puffy Tacos: They fry the MFing shells till their crispy and, yes, puffy.

And beans "charro" style, which means they have too much eyeliner on and like to shimmy a lot.

Taco Cabana: The cheapest, fastest, 24-hour enchilada platters and queso around.  We thought it was good, but apparently we’re gringos.  SURPRISE.

Salsa bars. They are everywhere.

Chacho’s: There are various tiers of Mexican food around these parts (I’m using my own numbering system–patent pending).  Tier 3 is the TC (see above) at which a true Mexicano would eat only when drunk out of his mind and with a gun to his head.  Tier 1 contains the taquerias that look like crack dens but contain rotund grandmas in the back making tortillas by hand and make ingredients like lengua (tongue) and tripe (cow stomach lining) delicious and edible.  Chacho’s is decidedly in Tier 2 for me: a step up from the TC, but not as authentic as it gets.

We ended up getting queso too, let's be honest.

The Malt House: $3 double hamburger basket that came back to bite me in the intestines later.  But with burgers, mexican food, and fried chicken under one cafeteria-style roof, it’s hard to complain about a little indigestion.

• ENTERTAINMENT: It’s Fiesta week!  This is literally a week-long party where fun stuff is going on every night.

Check out the always wonderful KK’s summary of the festivities for the deets.  WARNING: here be genuine line dancing.  And KS kicking my ass at the Cha Cha Slide.

• THE ROADS: Drivers here are many, as there is literally no way of getting anywhere without taking a car.  You could try to bike, but you’d get struck by a vehicle (most likely a truck).  You could take the bus, but you’d probably kill yourself while waiting the agonizingly long time for your ride.  The freeways are also many, as are the lanes.  You know that Mulholland Drive ride at Disney’s California Adventure where your car takes turns at exactly 90 degrees and leaves your stomach in the chevron while continuing on to the next dip in the track?  That’s what the lane changes are like here.  Whipping across 3-4 lanes just to get on to the freeway.  Drivers are overall tolerable, I think.  They actually want to get places, which is refreshing.  However, they can be flat out wusses in the strangest situations, like during a stop at a yield sign to merge onto an access road.  That’s how you get a bent bumper in Texas.

And there's that too.

• LIQUOR: They have it at Costco.  That’s all.

Overall assessment: going to a new place is one of the greatest decisions we’ve made.  We’re totally outside our comfort zones in careers, social life, and driving elements, but we’re totally up for the challenge and learning.  And the booze…did we mention the booze?

The view from our apartment patio looks pretty rosy. Shoutout to Kim's mom for the coffee mugs!

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