for some reason it comes as a surprise to some people but…. i LOVE texas. honestly take me to any random place that’s not where i live and i’ll have a ball 7/10 times. even though my dad and i don’t talk, i love to tell people “my daddy’s from texas” just to have that connection to texas (not my dad). but also my oldest sister lives there and she’s cool too so. also i’ve spent the last two easters in texas for some reason???

i’ve tried to make it to texas at least once a year for the past four year just for shits and gigs i guess; but i have yet to fail myself and i don’t plan on letting that happen either! even though texas in my personal opinion isn’t has honky as places like nashville, i still love to use it as an excuse to wear all my honky clothes and accessories. from boots to bolo ties and fringe, i wear it all. i even have a pair of chaps just for the hell of it.

i am not new to this.. i’m true to this. my halloween costume wasn’t even a costume it was just clothes i’ve collected.

anyways!!!! what we’re here for: texas!

once upon a time jorge and i were in the back room at work, working, like any other day. and then charli xcx decided that she wanted to go on a mini tour and one of the few places she was going was austin for not one… but TWWOOOOO nights. you don’t get it. this was a NECESSITY for us to make it to austin. jorge is the biggest charli fan i know and i’m the honkiest girl he knows.

to be honest, what really happened is jorge and his man, dillon, got their tickets for the concert after it was announced and i just told jorge that i was tagging along because i love texas. i was going for nothing more than the vibes.

but nothing we plan ever comes without bumps. there was a moment that we were scared dillon wouldn’t be able to go and it would just be jorge and i but that was quickly resolved. and then the timing worked out perfectly that amy could join us even though she still had school. but then the real tragedy occured. a mere WEEK before our trip… jorge gets food poisoning. not in like the normal 1-2 day sickness, diva was out for a solid WEEK. jorgie is more responsible than me when it comes to money planning so a tough call had to be made. jorge and dillon could no longer make it.. which calls for a moment of silence for what could’ve been. everyone take a one minute reading break…

although the girlies couldn’t all make it, we made the absolute best with the company we had and had an absolute ball. i think i could confidently say that this trip is up there in the top five, maybe even top three. i don’t know- all the matters is that we had an absolute BALL.

we were the honkiest girls in the airport and EVERYONE knew we were headed to austin. i wish that you could see my jeans fully because they’re swag as hell (thank you azul) and the best part about my little tux is that azul gave me the pants maybe 2-3 years ago and i found the blazer at a thrift store in vancouver last year, the wash is exactly the same, and the brand on the blazer is star and the jeans are skyy. also a canadian tux is basically two sides of me coming together… canadian…. and honky. basically the whole fit was written in the stars.

obviously to kick off easter sunday we had to go to the airport bar… at a crisp 8am!!!! this picture was ACTUALLY taken at 8:54am so i guess that makes it better by almost an hour?

i typically try to fly as early in the morning as possible and with oakland being my perferred airport.. most the time that i’m there, the only thing open is peet’s which is not really my jam. so when i saw that 1. stores were actually open and 2. there was a new OAK restaurant… it was mando to go. and so that brings us to forge’s pizza and beer (apparently they’re from napa.)

you guys know that when i see mezcal, i drink mezcal. so there we have it… the “adventure thyme,” bosscal joven mezcal, st. germaine, lime, thyme, agave, and black pepper. she’s not your typical mezcal cocktail…. she’s sweeter. she may even be the sweetest one i’ve had yet, but not in a bad way. maybe sweeter mezcal for breakfast and a smokier one for dinner? the st. germain really stole the show here so maybe next time i’d only ask for half. and sadly my man skimped me on the black pepper rim so… it wasn’t to it’s full extent but, it was damn good.

now you know miss amy knows how to pick a drink so when she ordered the “lychee morning,” i almost had to switch my order. tell me freinent blanc de brut, lime, lychee puree, and mint doesn’t sound refreshing as hell and perfect for a morning pick me up? well you’d be WRONG because amy said it was super sweet and bubbly, but bubbly in a way where you clould taste the bubbles…. very overpowering of the lychee and it was too damn sweet. but everything is worth a try i’ve come to learn.

sadly we only drank because we ate leftover modern china garden in the backseat of amy’s mom’s car on the way to the airport #budgetqueens and i regret it because the tater tots and pizzas looks and smelled so damn good.

off topic: whoever had aux at the oakland airport on april 20, 2025 around 8-10am… you know how to do your job. ONLY BANGERS

honestly, even though i travel a lot, after my trip to nyc in 2021 when i got motion sickness on a plane for the first time… i am anxious as HELL at the airport to the point where i make myself sick before the plane can even make me sick. and also when mareane and i almost died flying to hawaii in march… surprisingly didn’t help with that anxiety hahah /s. it makes traveling sort of uncomfortable but it’s the price you pay to do the thing you love. but by the luck of the draw this plane ride was calm as hell and i was able to sleep basically the whole time.

once we landed the weather was perfect, our bags came quick, and we didn’t have to wait long for our surpise guest to show up. you may already know who it is from my main instagram but if you don’t know, now you know. mr rhonnel villaro, the man, the myth, the legend, left our graces at the broadway plaza aritzia and moved to texas liiiiikkee 2 years ago. and i PROMISED him that i would make it out there for him one day (i usually go to dallas but after this i fear i may be an austin girl) and i did! i hate broken promises and i love an excuse to go anywhere. the one silver lining to jorge and dillon not going (even tho i wanted to rip my hair out and cry) is that nelly got to stay with us so the party didn’t stop.

for some reason whenever i stay at one of my parents timeshares, they’ll go all out for me, but never them. like in portland the front desk liked us so much, they took a photo with us, printed it and gave it to us along side little branded tumblers and candy and in our room we got a bottle of sparkling grape juice (it sucked being 20.) this time we walked in a screamed. they made us a full charcuterie board paired with a HELLLLLLAA good temparnillo, and stocked the fridge with cokes and water for us. they also gave us a box filled with lip/face/eye masks, keychains, and bottle openers. not to mention there was a foosball table???? what did we do to deserve sucha thing? i don’t know but i’ m not gonna question it.

to celebrate our win (the trip making it out of the group chat) we popped open the wine and god DAMN was she good. in my wine tasting book it says that fine wine is any wine worth tasting, it doesn’t need to be hundreds of dollars and age for decades. and i think that like a good cheese that saying pairs well with this wine. it is a 2022 uro toro la enfermera temparnillo for only $12. it was so well balanced so there was absolutely nothing to complain about. the best part was i drank most of it myself and i didn’t get a wine headache!! small wins baby.

that bottle of wine was really just a pregame for what mischief we had coming up. so we drank our wines, put on our dresses, blew the outlets out in the bathroom, did our hair in the other bathroom, and threw on our heels and headed to wanderlust.

now what is wanderlust you may ask? well wanderlust WINE CO. is a wine speakeasy hidden underneath a matcha shop and get a load of this….. IT’S A CAVE. i saw this on tik tok and knew that we had to go. it would be so off brand of me, tastingwithtata, a self proclaimed wino to not go wine tasting… IN A CAVE? the only other cave i’ve been in is mammoth cave in kentucky aka the longest cave system in the world so this cave had a lot to compete with.

originally we pulled up to the wrong wanderlust because they also do a barbie experience apparently?? but don’t make the same mistake as us and go to the right place. luckily for us i’m a punctual queen and we made it on time still. a bonus was also our uber driver (strange/cool dude honestly) was telling us all about austin and explaing all the happs in the city. he never left a moment silent. he just like me fr.

ANYWAYS we pull up to the speakeasy and it looks like a closed matcha shop because 1. no one was there except for one singiular guy, 2. it was dark as hell in there, and 3. no where on this building did we see it say wanderlust. so we go inside and say we’re there for the cave and the lonesome guy leads us back outside, down some stairs, and into the downstairs of the matcha shop building where we’re greated by a man with a ponytail. he told us where the bathroom was and then slid a barn door behind him open and revealed THE CAVE. i wish i could add sound effects.

the cave looked pretty damn realistic and then you touch the wall and it’s just foam. nonetheless it was cool as hell. it also solved the question we had been asking all day.. “where do they have caves in downtown austin?”

what was different about this wine tasting than any one i’ve ever been to (a good handful honestly) is that our guy (i’m sorry i forgot his name) started by asking us what we were into and then curated a personal selection for each of us vs. just giving us the same thing. and this is where i failed you. i took a picture of all of the bottles…. but didn’t take notes because i SUCK. but what i do remember is that amy’s first wine of the night, the el bajio sparkling wine from mexico was top tier.

here’s what we tried:

el bajio sparkling, mexico

quinta da calcada alvarinho, portugal

duris reserva, portugal

grosjean valle d’aoste petite arvine ‘vigne rovettaz’, italy

chateau la rame bordeaux rouge, france

casa emma vignalparco chianti classico riserva, italy (we didn’t actually try this one but our sommelier recommended it because i told him i’m a big chianti fan)

fidora- ripasso doc monte tabor valpolicella ripasso, italy (i’m pretty sure that this is the bottle he said you had to let open up for twenty minutes otherwise it hurts to drink… but it was still good)

the wine tasting itself was amazing but jealousy took over once other people started to pull up. we chose to do only the wine tasting vs. doing the wine pairings with food because it was a LOT cheaper. but each time a server walked by with a plate of food our stomachs growled and we were about to get up and follow them to the kitchen.

but an hour and a half, 200 photos (i had to hold the lamp to make sure the lighting was a1), and 6 different wines later, it was finally time to reunite with nelly and get down in dirty (sixth street)!!!

also pictured below: amy informing rhonnel she was orddering chick fil a for us to wake to in the morning but she couldn’t english. and when i woke up in the morning to chick fil a in the kitchen i thought that the front desk brought it in for us or that i was in a dream so i just went back to sleep.

don’t think that we were gonna go out and party all night on an empty stomach. when in the trendy south aka nashville, dallas, austin, etc. you HAVE to visit the velvet taco. i should’ve taken photos but yet again i failed y’all. what’s good about velvet taco is that it’s basically just different dishes… but as tacos. my personal favorites are the chicken tikka masala taco, which is literally chicken tikka masala and rice… in a tortilla, and the chicken and waffle taco which is a waffle “tortilla” i guess and fried chicken drizzled with syrup. IT NEVER FAILS. and to wash it all down you obviously have to get the margarita. to top it off rhonnel wasn’t a fan of it before i came but then i put him on the top tier tacos and he even asked to go back (but it was def for the margarita.) when in doubt… velvet taco.

after dinner we hit dirty and oh man did we have a time. the best part about austin is that plane tickets and hotel might run you a few hundred but once you get there… all the drinks are free. i kid you not you walk down the street and all the bounces/”promoters,” but i don’t even wanna call them that cause they just stand there, will approach you and be like “you want a free drink?” and you say yes, they walk you in, you get your drink, and they leave you the hell alone so you chug your drink and get the hell out of there so you can hit the next bar. it’s my kind of city.

after a few bars is where the night gets spottier and there’s less to talk about because we signed nda’s so… all i can say is we met a crooked cop, got fake dollar bills thrown in our face, i disappeared, amy and nelly got giant margaritas (still sad i missed out), and we ended the night at 3am fighting with doordash over taco bell resulting in amy threatening her membership and receiving $40 in doordash credits PLUS a refund… i know that’s right.

sweet dreams and a sweet first night in austin. days like these are what makes life worth living.

ok so i told you guys i woke up and i thought that the front desk had brought us chick fil a in a dream so i went back to sleep but as soon as i woke up again i chugged a fat ass gatorade and i was ready to take on the day. and by take on the day i mean we planned to go shopping, go swimming at barton springs, all before we get margaritas and tattoos at nelly’s favorite spots (not the same place unfortunately), and take on another night.

first of all i got my dress in amsterdam when i was still on the fence about gingham but i’m glad that i bought it because i have yet to see it at an american zara and i’ve offically decided that i AM a fan of gingham.

we started our day off getting coffee at manana. guys i don’t know what’s wrong with me but i love diry chais but the caffeine FREAKS me out. i start to crawl out of my skin from anywhere between 5 minutes to 5 hours. it’s obviously worse when i don’t eat but even after my chicken minis, my “manana-fog” which is i guess their london fog (so not even coffee) made me anxious for like 2 whole days. will i ever learn my lesson? no cause i like the taste!

once we had bev in hand, we walked around south congress (SoCo) before heading to the domain and for once in history.. i didn’t have ANY luck shopping. cowboy hats? NO. boots? NO. reformation? NO. anthropologie? NO. i got NOTHING. and i’m an avid shopper so my heart broke. maybe i just need to spend more time shopping. it almost felt criminal because i left extra space in my bag.

once we parked at the hotel, we were trying to go in the elevator and we didn’t have our keys out yet but there was a trio of older ladies right in front of us so we followed them into the elevator lobby and into the elevator and they off rip were looking at us weird. and then we before the door closed one of the hotel employees joined us in the elevator and then they turn to us and start telling us we need a key to get in the elevator and just the hotel in general. and we acknowledge them kinda and then automatically start complaining about their floor on the 8th floor and how they have a view of a wall and they were pissed. all before we even have a chance to push the button for our floor so when the employee asked us what floor we were on we told him the 19th and then the old ladies were like “omg the penthouse i bet you have a view” i guess trying to make the employee feel bad and then they were like “we’re owners rah rah rah we deserve better than this” and then i had to hit them with the “we’re owners too”.. jaw dropped, elevator silenced, and we went to our room in peace. young people can be big baller brand y’all not just the old farts.

obviously we left cause shopping was wack and because amy needed to work on some homework. but that just gave me a chance to take a nap and try to feel in my body again! did it work? kinda. but now i was anxious about our next mission… barton springs. i was excited because it seems cool in the videos, but swimming in natural bodies of water is cool until you realize there are salamanders and even worse… FROGS. i even asked the concierge if they’ve seen frogs and salamanders there and they said yes frogs, no salamanders which was worse case scenario for me. but i’m a brave girl so i threw on my bathing suit and got my ass in the car.

now when we got there.. we were very unprepared. all we had other than bathing suits, flip flops, and ONE water bottle was ONE singular towel and a literal blanket from rhonnel’s trunk. but i guess we were saved by the bell because there was absolutely no parking. but that just gave us a chance to go to the pool! although we had a view of the pool, i didn’t know it was an infinity pool so once we got a glimpse i was juiced because i’ve never been in one. i’m glad that we went when we did because when amy and i were hanging off the ledge this little boy came up to us and was just yip yapping. but the best part was this: i asked him where he got his goggles from and he hit me with a “well actually i’m adopted so” and my jaw hit the floor. so obviously i started cracking up and he told me i was rude for laughing at him. whoever that kid was.. i loved him and i hope he has a good life with his new parents.

after our day in the sunshine, the time came for the sun to set and for the girlies to hit the town. how better to end the day than frozen margaritas and tacos? so that brings us to de nada, un regalo de cielo. on their menu they have mezcal margs but sadly they were sold out for the day so we stuck with the second best… strawberry/mango mixed marg. i could’ve had three and kept going. nelly and i both got the blue corn birria quesadilla and i’m not gonna tell you guys it was great and i loved it but it was decent. the magaritas were definitely the star and that’s all that matters. it also didn’t help that amy’s tortilla was stale.

regardless of food, the vibes were UP. obviously we lost our man pope francis, rip… a moment of silence in the chat please, so we had to pour one out and drink for him. how do we lose the pope on easter? j.d. vance. anywayyyys no more conspiracy theories. we played our favorite game, see who pops up on amy and nelly’s dating app, but the algorithm was OFF. so all the more fun! and where ever we go… photoshoot, and de nada’s was no different. during our photoshoot, music video portion, amy accidentally mooned the waiter cleaning up the outside patio and we didn’t realize until we ran the video back the next day. he got a good laugh out of it and i called him a giggle bot so for that i apologize.

somehow nelly and i had a whole engagement photoshoot unintentionally. i guess two bad bitches are just meant to be. i’m his handler now btw.

and obviously amy and i had to hit them with a scandalous shot for the magazine. #vogue

also my nose looks good as hell thank you mom for massaging it when i was a baby.

you take three bay area girls and put them in a car in texas… they go back to their middle/high school playlist and zoom down the roads of austin blasting mike sherm while on the way to get tattoos. in that moment everything felt perfect… until i hit a curb.. sorry nelly.

when we pulled up to east end tattoos i THANKED GOD we were the only people there. i say that like it wasn’t like 10pm. so we immediately got to work (amy told the artist her vision and he drew it) and within 15 minutes we were both in a chair. my tattoo is in an odd spot and i was really concerned with how wearing pants was gonna go afterwards and how much it would hurt but, pants aren’t a problem and it didn’t hurt a bit! win, win, win baby.

somehow some way, my girl amy was TURNT when we made it back to the hotel and the chair ended up on the floor backwards. wish i could tell you how but… i don’t know. but no matter what the girls must rally.

granted it was a monday night.. EASTER MONDAY (which is apparently a thing) on top of it so there wasn’t like a LOT going on. but we walked our asses to some bar that i cannot remember the name of for the life of me. but i literally told amy a couple hours before we went out for the night that the mission of the night was to find at least one photo booth. and in my drunkenness, i forgot i said that but when i turned my head… guess what i saw? A PHOTOBOOTH. if you look at my texas google maps, i have a BUNCH of photobooths bookmarked throughout town and this one was definitely not on there. luck was on our side this entire trip. i didn’t see nelly pay for parking ONCE other than at the hotel, and we never once got a ticket #prettypriviledge!!!!!!

anyways even though this bar is nameless in my mind, i loved it there. not only for the photobooth but because we made the bartender buy us shots and then take them with us. amy and i are very convincing girls… one time she made two boys kiss outside of white rabbit in the marina on new years.

while amycheeryolo and i were doing our cover shoot for vogue in the photobooth nelly informed us that he had to go deal with his nda situation so he would see us for our nightly doordash once we were done terrorizing the town.

the problem with amy and i is the vibes will carry us anywhere. i literally do not even remember leaving the bar but we were walking directionless back to the hotel even though we both had fully charged, working phones. but our walk was honestly a highlight because we had so many good laughs and we saw so many crazy sights that i wish i could remember. we only realized we were going the wrong way when we were directly under the indeed tower (which we could see from our balcony like HALF A MILE away.) all we could do was laugh and start walking back the other way… with directions this time!!!

and of course when we got back to the room, we crawled in bed and ordered a 6 piece nuggie a girl, and a basket of fries <3. chrisley know’s best in the background ALWAYS. this was the infamous night of “you don’t need to be worrying about me. you need to take that shit and GO. i ain’t dealin with this, c’mon miley let’s go” “nanny there’s something wrong with your dog.” “there ain’t nothin wrong with my dog, don’t worry bout her either. cmon miley” – chrisley knows best s5e20 08:06. i couldn’t figure out how to clip the scene so the dialogue and the time stamp is the best i can provide at the moment. but this moment rewired amy and i’s brain because i at least think about it twice a day and i say it ALL the time. looking back i have no idea what was so funny, maybe it was because it was 3am and we had been pounding the bevs? not sure but i loved it.

sweet dreams, another good day under the texan sun in the books.

sadly when we woke up it was our last full day in austin. to be so real all i remember from before noon was laying bed and then i think.. keyword THINK we got matcha (it could’ve also been after we left the domain that we got some at caphe.in coffee). i kinda just blacked it out because i was so anxious and dehydrated i wanted to die.

ANYWAYS! amy and i had tickets to a little art installation shabang kinda similar to amaze amsterdam but smaller and less high tech called wonderspaces. at first i thought that it was just 3 little light installations and a bar downstairs but i was happily surprised when it wasn’t. the coolest installation that i wish that we did was three different robots programmed draw you in different styles while you sit in a chair in the middle of the bar for 20 minutes but we didn’t ask about it (stupid as hell) and i think it was also like $20… so like the same price as the ticket to get it. fortunately and unfortunately they had a pretty cool bar with twists on classic cocktails like a rosemary whiskey sour. the unfortuante part was that we only drank water because we were fighting for our lives so we didn’t get to partake in their cool cocktails.

the exhibits upstairs are a hell of a lot cooler and trippier than the ones downstairs but the stairway up is very unassuming because it literally looks like a staircase to a backroom because its just concrete and white with no signage. i’m not sure if they change the exhibits but the movie at the very end was so weird but so captivating; if we hadn’t felt to sick i would’ve probably watched it like 3 times through. i think that and the projection on the little building sculpture made the $25 ticket worth it.

was wonderspaces worth it? same answer as amaze. cool for the vibes but do not shed a single tear if you miss it (it was cooler than the artechouse in chelsea, nyc i will say though.) but it was fun to stim out in there. keep in mind though, this is the last year the austin location is gonna be open.

we obviously HAD to get barbecue because duuuhhh texas and also amy and i are OBSESSED with ribs. there were so many good places to pick from so we had to stick to the basic choice: terry black’s barbecue. first of all i think wisconsin sprinter van drivers are stupid because this man in the parking lot did NOT know what he was doing and caused a traffic jam for literally no reason. not everyone should drive!!!! ANYWAYS at terry’s it feels like a texas road house got with an ikea. when you get there you get in line where you can pick your choice of water, sodas, beers, and apparel and then you get to what feels like an elementary school cafeteria lunch line where you pick your sides and then you hop in line again to grab your choice of meats. i’m skinny so i just got a shiner lemon shandy or basically a beer version of an arnold palmer, a quarter pound of pork ribs (literally one singular rib) and a cornbread for i thiiiiink maybe $20. after we grabbed our trays, i initially wanted to sit outside because i love outdoor dining but that quickly went downhill. as soon as we stepped outside the birds started circling and one of them even had the nerve to steal rhonnel’s mac and cheese (but shout out to the side bar ladies for replacing it for him). we had to fight for our lives to get back inside but luckily we were able to find a decent spot. charlene mausi if you’re reading this: do NOT go here the birds would fuel all of your nightmares.

long story short about terry’s: vibes are up, food is mid, beer is good, birds are bad

the food also could be mid just because i prefer a nice WET rib.

i’m a baby so i had to take a nap after my lunch. i used to compete in nap time races when i was younger (see who can sleep the longest) so it’s safe to say i’m not new to this, i’m true to this. andy by the time i woke up it was time to go out again!

originally we wanted to start the night at the flower shop because get this, they have mozzerella sticks AND a cheetah print pool table. i suck at pool but i would go stupid on a table with a fun print!!! the posted hours on google are 5pm-midnight but when we pulled up at 11… it was EMPTY AND LOCKED. which is crazy behavior honestly because it was brat night so ALL the charli fans were out looking for a good afters (us included even though we didn’t even go.) but it just give us another reason to go back to austin.

after that FLOP we decided to drop the car off at the hotel and walk a brisk 20 minutes and 0.8 miles (in my heeled boots because i’ve been practicing wearing heels) back down to dirty. we had 2 options for the night. go to the REAL afters at barbarella and pay a $10 cover and wait in the line that wrapped around the block (apparently the last person made it in at 1:30 and they close at 2…) or go back to mala fama aka the bar/club(very westwood vibes with the two different rooms) that we went to where i got the fake ones thrown in my face by a man named bruce.

as we decided our next move on our walk down to mala we got stopped by a guy from london who is a self proclaimed “better artist” than central cee who wanted to freestyle for amy and i. and OBVIOUSLY amy stopped to listen so we ALL stopped to listen. i don’t think that my man expected us to stop because once we gave him the chance to go he got stage fright and had nothing to spit so then amy recommended that he find a beat and then try again…. he tried and still nothing. so that’s when nelly and i decided hell no let’s go but then we got stopped by a guy who apparently was a stand up comedian inviting us to his show but he didn’t like when nelly asked if he was even funny so the invite was reduced to just amy and i. meanwhile all this is going on this london man is still trying to find a bar to spit so amy grabbed my hand and said “there’s johnny!!!” and we ran.

we pull up to mala fama for their “brat party” and we immediately turned right back around because the music wasn’t even brat vibes and there were no brats in the building except for us. so FLOP.

we walk to barbarella and collected free drinks from each bar along the way so we can gameplan when we finally pull up, but hell no the line is waaaaay to long. so we turned our asses back around and decided cheer up charlie’s was the move but we never ended up there???

after landing at chupacabra’s cantina and drinking a cherry lime cocktail, we decided we need to count our loses and end the night is the best way we know…. watching the conclave in honor of the pope and eat taco bell.

some parts of the day may have been a flop but even while they were flopping it was still so much fun. also it’s hard to be sad when you look so good! the lady in the fitting room at bershka in amsterdam… this outfit was dedicated to you because you made me buy this dress. i don’t know if i’ll listen to your advice and wear it outside of texas or nashville but she will be worn again or passed down to my children.

and finally our trip came to an end. we were able to score a late check out because #presidential, but when it was finally time to leave i needed a smoothie or i would die. i feel like a smoothie is always my reset button because everything after a smoothie just feels so right. thank you mamaka bowls for a bomb ass smoothie. the mac (mango, strawberry, pineapple with orange juce) is better than any jamba i’ve ever had. and if you haven’t learned yet, bev in hand + shopping time. so we drove back down to SoCo where we saw police officers in cowboy hats on horses (a lovely sight) and walked from shop to shop until it was finally time for nelly to go to work and us to go to the airport. but one thing about us… we’re bev girls so we stopped for matcha AGAIN from leche coffee before we could start our journey home. the cool thing about this now closed location is that there was thrifting downstairs and a really well decorated seating area upstairs. i’m not sure if any of the things up there were for sale but the vibes were up.

the seperation anxiety hit immediately and everyday i dream of going back. nelly if you’re reading this i’m coming back like every other month so you should consider getting trundle beds for us.

we did in fact get to the airport around 12:30ish for our 4:40pm flight but at least we couldn’t be late and miss our flight! and luckily enough for me one of the spots on my list that i really wanted to go to had a second location at the airport and it was the perfect place for us to kill time.

if you’re ever at the austin airport and need to kill time, head over to second bar + kitchen.

to start the drinks are AMAZING. all together i got empress 75 (empress gin, lavender, blueberry, lemon, and bubbles) and the east austin mule-jito (giffard fraise du bois, mint, and lime, obviously the titos and ginger beer vs. hui hui with club soda). the only thing that i for sure remember amy getting was the espresso martini. but you know as always her drinks were hellllllaaaaa good. but for once mine were better hehehehe. nothing beats a good airport drink. when i missed two flights to canada in the same day in december, i ended up having 5 drinks during my 8 hour airport wait. it was a long day.

the food and the drinks may be on the same level here which is a big win in my book. if one sucks it ruins the whole vibe so the fact that everything was good at the airport location makes me feel like the actual freestanding restaurants HAVE to be similar or at LEASSTTT a little bit better.

to start we split the chicken tendies and fries which were crisped to perfection. i kinda went to town on those bad boys but i was a smart girl and paced myself so that i was never too full and i always had something to peck at during our 4 hour wait. the shishito peppers were also bomb and our server knew we were fatties and brought bbq sauce alongside the normal aioli which changed the whole game. i didn’t even know that i liked shisito peppers until kramer gave them to me at bull valley and oh gosh ever since, my life has never been the same. per usual amy and i HAD to get the pomodoro pizza (pomodoro sauce, fresh mozzerella, and basil) and she did not disaapoint. i will say though, i wish that the crust was a touch bit thicker.

before we knew it 4 hours had passed and it was timew to hop on our plane back home.

in the end this was one of the best trips ever. even though we didn’t have a concrete itinerary and we didn’t even stick to our baseline itinerary that well which would normally freak me out… it was all good vibes.

i hope that you guys enjoy my austin story time and you’re inspired to love austin so that we can all go and be party girls. maybe one day i’ll be a texas girl for awhile and live in austin. i could see that. but until that moment, we will go where life takes us.

love u always.. xoxo,

tata

look at all the things we planned to do vs. what we actually did.