Austin

SXSW was much more relaxing this year than last year - Mike wasn't putting on a show, so we got to wander around with nothing we HAD to do. There's always a little bit of anxiety that you're not at the *right* show, that something amazing is happening at the place next door. But since we didn't buy badges, we were depending on the kindness of friends who could get us into particular venues.

We watched between 8 and 12 hours of music a day - exhausting! But fantastic. Here's a photo of the XX from the deck of the Mohawk.

Just down the street, Broken Social Scene was playing Stubb's. Too many bands, not enough time!

We also met a tiny baby named Luca. He was only a week old. Here he is with his dad, Dave - don't they look exactly alike?

We stayed with a friend, Erin, and her son Elliot, who is about 10 months old.

Both Luca and Elliot were fantastically adorable.

We drank a lot of margaritas, ate a lot of queso, and saw more music than I will ever be able to process. Especially since we saw Gwar: heavy metal + costumes + lots of fake blood = confusion for me.

If I were a real blogger type person, I would talk about the different bands we saw and how I feel about them. But I am not, so instead I am just going to say that we got to see friends and hang out and walk our booties off wandering the city, and it was a damn good time.

I heart Austin.