Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Car woes

I think I'm finally realizing the downfalls on not having a car. Don't get me wrong, I love my bike, and riding to work and home each day is kind of exhilarating. But, when we want to go out for, say, a movie, or a night on the town, or even to the grocery store, it is an all day ordeal. The round trip on the bus is a minimum 3 hours, and most of that is just sitting and waiting. So, it can be a pain in the ass to get out and do anything. That isn't to say that we haven't sucked it up and gone out for some fun, though.

The other night we got out and watched a live improv group called Girls Girls Girls. It's a local improv musical group, comprised of all women. They perform at theaters around town, and do improv musicals with ideas suggested from the audience. It was a very small crowd that night, but still alot of fun. They even chose my suggestion for that nights performance and did Library: The Musical! Hehe.
Before catching the show, we finally tried a great little restaurant on the East side called Eastside Cafe. They have a private garden where they grow most of the produce used in thier dishes. They have a wide variety of choices. When I told the waitress I was vegan and asked about my options, she pulled out a seperate menu with the heading "Vegan" I was so thrilled!

Candy and I shared the Pasta Pomodoro, which was penne pasta, topped with sauteed mushrooms and a tomato basil sauce, on a bed of fresh greens. It came with 1/2 roasted acorn squash w/ soy-ginger sauce (sooo good!), and we got 2 small dinner salads with their housemade Raspberry Vinnagrette. I would have to say this was one of the most pleasant meals I have had in a while. It fueled our 4 mile hike around the Eastside and through the ghetto (much better than waiting on buses) quite nicely. We will be going back!

Sunday night we went to a Vegan Halloween Potluck hosted by Team Feed Everyone They host a potluck every Sunday night. Anyone is invited, and it's all vegan! It was pretty cool, and a lot of fun. I brought a Butternut squash lasagna, and Candy made mini Chocolate Orange cupcakes. It was all devoured and everyone was raving about the food. We are going to try to make it a bi-weekly thing. It will be a great chance to meet people, and also a chance to get my creativity flowing, since every week is themed.

Can't you tell they have a death wish?

3 comments:

Vegan_Noodle said...

Oh my, I can definitely imagine challenges without a car. But good for you for toughing it out, very admirable :-)
Biweekly potlucks with a theme? Man you are lucky to be in Austin....

Anonymous said...

yup, not having a car can be a major hassle and that's why we end up never going out anymore over here. ah well. at least we're keeping healthy with all the biking, right?

Kayla said...

Austin is a rockin place!

Like I said, I do enjoy riding my bike. I definitely feel healthier, and enjoy contributing less pollution to our environment. I ama homebody by nature anyway, but sometimes a girl just wants to go out!