Going to San Antonio!

Mentioning Broadway in San Antonio will almost always get the same response. You’ll immediately be told stories of prostitutes. *One* time I was told about how Broadway was the place to cruise as a teenager, but most of the time it’s all about the prostitutes.

In classic San Antonio style, the merchants have apparently embraced the reputation and started playing with it.

Yup. That sign says “Get serviced here”. Utterly appropriate and hilarious.

This one weirds me out. “Get Nailed”? What the hell? Is it a nail salon or a piercing parlor? Maybe it’s a massage parlor?

Coming from Arkansas, I never got to see graffiti much until I moved to San Antonio and now I’m kind of fascinated by it. I understand that graffiti is illegal, a problem, and an eyesore, but that doesn’t change my opinion that some of it is just plain fun.

Driving down Main street is a good place to find the fun graffiti. There must be an artist living in the neighborhood because we found several fantastic pieces while living there.

Below is one that made me laugh:

The original piece is the scrunchy faced paper bag, all the other noise came along later. Isn’t he funny? What an idea to paint a scrunchy faced paper bag on a metal box!

“Hug” is great as well. There’s always at least one painted along Main south of the Monte Vista neighborhood and always in the same style.

There’s another artist who does beautiful stencil work. I’ll be sure to post a picture next time one is up.

The weather here is Great!

Heheh are you fascinated yet? San Antonio is bizarre. I moved here from central Arkansas so the idea of 80 degree weather a week out from Thanksgiving isn’t terribly unusual but the consistency of it is!

With the warm temperatures, Chris and I are tempted to make a trip down to the beach for the long weekend. That got me to thinking of our trip down over Labor Day.

I’d never been beach camping before and was a bit concerned about how it would go. Not only had I not been camping for over a decade, I was afraid all that damn sand would make me crazy!

As you can see, it kind of did!

We went camping on Mustang Island and it was just short of perfect. Plenty of fresh running water, reasonable cost, good friends, and lots of sun and water.

We did have to buy a new tent though

There’s Chris getting ready to take it down on the last day.

Word of advice, when you set up a new tent for the first time, make sure you can read the directions and everyone’s sober! We rolled into camp at 9.30 pm to be met by our engineering friend who had gotten into the wine a little too much. New tent combined with no light and a drunk engineer makes for good times…when all you have to do is hold the lantern and watch!

There’s a picture of our creature friend. I have no clue what she is, but she loved to eat our sunflower seeds and bite the boys ankles. That was fantastic-the guys would be eating and suddenly “Squeee!” She kept us endlessly entertained.

Camping on Mustang Island was fantastic. I’m thoroughly addicted to beach camping and have refused to go camping anywhere else. I happily plan to camp down there at least a few times a month next summer!

It was surprisingly terrifying! The zombies walked in a shambling horde, quivering and drooling through the largest tourist area of the city. What do you call zombie balls?

The beginning of the Horde was relatively small:

But they just kept coming!

There were baby zombies:

And rock god zombies (no, he’s not a zombie Zaphod Beeblebrox. That’s a chicken eater zombie behind him. Pretty clever, eh?):

Zombies milled around for a little bit in front of the Alamo, assembling their zombie brains before moving on to terrify other tourists:

The zombie walk was on October 20, 2008 and was the first ever of its kind in town. From the turnout, I’d say there will be lots of zombie walks to come!

The sheer number and variety of zombies was cool as hell. I think my favorite was the zombie with the blood spraying mohawk.

Ha! Look at the tourists staring at him!

I admit, Paesano’s never really registered on my radar until earlier this week. Coworkers have raved about it, but nothing they said really caught my interest. Chris and I went there as part of a group, and the only preparation I had was the reviews of coworkers and to look at the website.

All I can say at this point is, “Meh.”

The restaurant is supposed to be high (ish?) end Italian, and the prices and wine list certainly back that up but the delivery really didn’t do it for me.

The shrimp paesano is what I had and yes, it was very good. The balance of the meal was tipped to the south by the accompaniments though.

Served first was bread, olive oil with seasonings, and a small dish of olives. Good unsurprising choices, but nothing made me rave. The fruit bread got high remarks from my dinner companions, however.

The salad was sad. That’s really all I can say. A white plate of plain greens, dressed with some bland white dressing. I believe the server called it the ‘House Vinaigrette’ but I won’t hold her to it.

Receiving the shrimp paesano was pretty exciting. It is served in a large dish, 5 plump shrimp swimming in a light yellow sauce. The shrimp was lightly breaded which added a nice texture, but the sauce was fun. The first bite wasn’t so great, I got hit in the mouth with lemon and nothing else. The second bite dropped the lemon and gave a feeling of warmth. The following bites combined the lemon and the warm, and I’ll admit that I ate every bit of this dish which rarely happens.

Pasta with marinara sauce was served on the side and well, it was pasta with marinara. Fresh basil sprinkled on top, yes, but otherwise just a decent solid dish.

Overall the meal was merely okay. I don’t believe I’ll crave eating there.