My philosophy professor had asked me if I'd like to help out at her booth in the Green Living expo. We'd be working mainly with children, but we'd also be promoting the Texas Nature Project (her organisation). Originally I had planned to recruit two friends from work... one of them being the owner of a car that could conveniently drive us to Austin (1 hr away). Unfortunately, both of them had decided to attend the Oyster Bake* on Saturday, so it was a nono for them. I still wanted to help out my prof, so I decided I get there by bus. I looked up the schedules and asked my professor if she could pick me up from the bus station at Austin (she had been staying there since Friday).
Now, I don't have a car-heck, I don't even drive. So I woke up at 5am, trying to make it to the public bus stop by 5:50, so that I'd be at the bus station by 6ish (with plenty of time to buy my 7:10am ticket)...but I was 5 mins late T____T so I took the 6:30 bus and got to the station at 6:40... and almost had a heart attack when this elderly and rude couple took ages to buy their tickets (and there were still 4-5 persons before me). It was 7:09 when I finally had my ticket, so I made a run for it. Fortunately, the bus still took a while to leave.
I slept all the way to Austin... and before anyone scolds me, I have to say that I don't fall asleep 100%. Half of me stays alert and I sleep hugging my bag, so the faintest movement can and will wake me up. Years of traveling on bus does that to you.
I was scheduled to arrive at 9:15, but we got there at 8:45 (half an hour of precious sleep lost ;___;). The bus station there was much nicer than in SA...honestly speaking, Greyhound in SA is embarrassing. I called my prof and she said she was on her way already. She was very happy that I'd come, and now I too am happy I did.
The Expo started at 10am, and we made it there with perfect timing.
It was actually fun. Interacting with the kids was re-freshening, the expo had interesting booths (there were pweety toys and naturist food and cool green-life techie stuff) , my prof had taken awesome wildlife pictures (the animal biologist in me was happy) and included cool visuals (hummingbird nests, ostrich egg, snake skeleton, antlers, feathers...) aaaand I got free food XD. They gave me $20 for lunch and at the end (7pm) my prof took me to eat out. We both agreed that we loved Jap food, but that anything we came across would also be fine.... but we were driving downtown on a Saturday...and there was nowhere to park. Fortunately I spotted a sushi-bar near a parking lot. We went in and it was a nice, animated place. Unfortunately, it was very slow. We started panicking at 7:45, when our food wasn't there yet, since my bus left at 8:15 (or so we thought). We ate super fast and drove to the bus station (we got a bit lost but it was ok, because we found out my bus actually left at 8:25)
We drove off, and made it to SA at 9:55pm. I'd arranged for a friend to pick me up and drop me off at school. Oyster Bake* ended at 11:00pm, so I made it in time to spend the tickets I had left from Friday.
And so ends the first post in this blog...I might tweak it a little later on, but I just wanted to put this on record.
*For more info on Oyster Bake, refer to my other blog 'Ghost of a Rose' (in my profile). The post isn't up yet, but it will be later on
