America dwarfs us like ants. Our British tendency to stroll from sight to sight while exploring is pointless here; if you ask an American how far away a place is, and they reply with “Oh, just 5 minutes away”, be warned, this is not the British five minutes’ walk, it’s a five minute drive.

The road from Guadalupe down to San Antonio, the first of our two Texan cities, only added to our feelings of insignificance, as we were entirely surrounded by oil trucks along the route.

After a stressful weave between potholes and lorries for a few hours, we were in the mood for comfort food: we made a beeline for Torchy’s Tacos in San Antonio, racing against time to reach them before closing. We kicked off with a life-changing chile con queso dip to go with our nachos – but more on that in the upcoming food post!

In San Antonio, the locals have cleverly based their tourist area around a square of river in the centre of town. The Riverwalk, as it is known, is perhaps a counterexample to the earlier gripe about not being able to stroll around American cities. We stopped by La Villita, a cluster of independent art shops and cafes, where we learned of La Fiesta, a citywide party, where locals buy medals to pin to their jackets – sadly this would be on after we’d left.

Near the Tower of the Americas

A snippet of the Riverwalk

Onwards, we visited the Spanish Governor’s Palace and the Alamo (where Mexican ruler Santa Anna cruelly dispatched a group of Texan defenders, inspiring an uprising from wider Texas which would ultimately lead to the state’s independence).

The facade of the Alamo

The Spanish Governer’s Palace

The historic market – Brits aren’t the only ones who love a bit of bunting

For the most part, the Riverwalk was teeming with touristy restaurants and bars, which we made use of that evening!

A (relatively) short drive took us over to our second Texan city, Austin, the day after.

It quickly lived up to its reputation of edgyness; the streets were lined with food trucks and graffiti-strewn bars. A pit-stop at a food truck selling meat-filled tortilla cones, and we were ready to sightsee.

Much of the afternoon was spent in the botanical garden, toddling and sketching, ahead of our main plan for Austin: an escape room. My old colleagues in London got me this experience as a leaving present, which was super sweet of them and shows just how well they know me! Our room was gold rush-themed; safe to say, we had a whale of a time, and managed to escape with a few minutes to spare!

We would even go as far as saying it was the best escape room we’ve ever done (and we’ve done a fair few in our time). If you’re in Austin (or a few other locations they have in the US) we would certainly recommend trying out The Escape Game. If you’re reading this, thank you, work guys 🙂

Post-escape, we went in search of the famous Austin bats. Every sunset, the millions of bats that inhabit South Congress bridge, over the Colorado river, emerge like clockwork, putting on an unbelievable display of coordination.

For dinner, we sampled some delicious barbecue food at Ironworks, and enjoyed a nightcap on 6th Street.

Our second day in Austin started at McKinney Falls State Park; if we were locals in Austin, we would bring our dog to this place for walks (if we had a dog…).

Mainly, this was the place where we realised we could go take showers without paying the usual campground shower-premium!

Buoyed with confidence from this find, we set up camp in a fairly central park in Austin, heading out to the trendy East César Chávez Street for dinner. This place is a hipster’s dream choc full of independent boutiques, independent breweries, and more independent sources of food than you can shake a stick at. It was just like being in Shoreditch back home in London.

Our first stop was Blue Owl Brewery for a tasting sesh of their sour beers. It turns out sour beers aren’t really our thing as by the 7th (taster sized) beer neither of us could distinguish any flavour beyond the intense sourness.

No matter, more food and drink was waiting to be tried and after a lot of debate we sat ourselves down in the Zilker brewery for a pint. When the drinks arrived Aleks looked a little suspicious of the pint that had been placed in front of him, it looked a little small. Turns out that “everything’s bigger in America” doesn’t apply to pints; over here they’re about 17% smaller.

After a carbtastic feast of Hot Mess fries and mac’n’cheese, we were ready for sleep. Despite a seemingly eternal traipse back to the car, we started congratulating ourselves for being the geniuses that we are, camping in this city park for free – how had no-one else decided to do this?!

Well, the police officer that kicked us out of the park certainly took the wind out of our sails. A night sleeping in a Walmart car park was on the cards instead…