Day 2 (first half) - March 26th - Thursday

Gloomy with Thunderstorm luring..

So much for the 88 degree forecast, but it's okay, I'm well prepared for any kind of weather.

The plan was to wake up at 8 and leave at 9 to ahve a day of campus visit, but since Bryan and I both overslept, our day got pushed back to around 10. Which is fine, because the weather is kind of depressing, even though the temperature is just right, walking around campus really wouldn't have taken 3 hrs.

Lunch was great, we went to this place called Crown and Anchor Pub right outside the campus of UT. Had a jalapeno cheeseburger and got introduced to a new beer, the Woodchuck, have to say, really smooth, with a hint of apple cider taste (later on I found out that it's actually called a hard cider, hence the cider taste), but it's all good, a very good beer to go along a burger during lunch.

Bryan has class, so it's pretty much just down time in the computer lab right now, so maybe a little recap about the campus. It's way bigger than UCLA, but not as big as I thought. Their fountains definitely trump ours, and they love giving out free stuff!! So far I got a free rose for Holocaust day and was offered a free orange UT string bag...maybe I should walk around more and see what else I'll get offered.

The highlight is probably seeing that gigantic (once biggest HD stadium TV screen in the world), too bad it's not on, but I can imagine how bright and annoying that big will be, haha. There are more Asians here than I had imgained, and Texan really don't dress any differently than Californians, maybe the girls are less scandelous, actually, I don't know about that yet... But yea, if it wasn't for the random patches of orange-ness and the random sculptures of longhorns, I would think my flight took a detour and brought me back somewhere in Cali.

I should really find out more about the history of Austin, so I have two choices, wander around campus and try to find a decent museum, or use this time to cough up the 500 word essay I need to finish by the end of this trip...mm...decisions..decisions...

So I stayed in to write, b/c it was pouring outsides, but within 20 minutes, the storm cleared and now it's super hot. Bryan said in the morning when we left, "Jon, you're gonna regret wearing that pair of jeans in this weather..." and I thought he was being ridiculous for saying that.

Well, we ended up going to a free museum, it was nothing like a Getty, but nonetheless still very nice. It was very comprehensive with a focus on Americas/Latin artist. One of my favorite piece of the whole afternoon was a gigantic display. It's hard to explain, but it's a layer of golden glowing pool of pennies (never knew how luxurious a pool of pennies together will look). On top is a bunch of lights hiding within many cattle bones and in the middle is a line of communion cookies stretching from the bones to the pool of pennies. It's the author's expression of his protest toward early catholic colonization which destroyed basic agricultural model of life in order to built churches and gain financial rewards; hence the cattle bones leading to a pool of money with the communion cookies as the linkage.

As a side note, Bryan is not the best person to go to a museum with. With that said, he was a great host to show me to the museum, but he was pretty much mentally gone after we walk in. He has the ability to make you feel guilty for lingering on a piece of art. If you want a preview of the rest of the museum, Bryan would be the perfect person because he would have been through the whole museum by the time you're finished with your first gallery. Alright, Bryan deserves some credit, at least he wasn't one of those people who just sits and stare at the ceiling with the look on their face that says "i can't believe I'm here, the ceiling with nothing is indefinitely more interesting than anything else offered here". With all that said, it was a lot of fun!