Same city, different story

We love San Antonio, and we try to visit as often as we can. And, what we like to do when we go to San Antonio is basically cruise up and down the Riverwalk, watching people and eating Mexican food. When we found out that Andrew Pudewa, of the Institute for Excellence in Writing, was going to be speaking in San Antonio this past Friday night about how to help kids become competent communicators, we made plans to attend. The kids stayed with my parents, and we decided to make a weekend out of it.

We left the kids in Belton on Friday morning so we could pick up a purchase from Craig's List in San Marcos before noon. We arrived in San Antonio just in time for lunch, which was eaten at La Madeleine (that's French cuisine, not Mexican, in case you aren't familiar). But, with the weather frightfully cold, warm soup and a blazing fire sounded just right. Then, since we had already broken the Mexican mold, and since the speaking engagement wasn't close to the River, we decided on another non-Mexcian place, a recommendation from Diner's, Drive-Ins and Dives, for dinner. This "green" place, The Cove, seemed more Austin than San Antonio, and in addition to the restaurant also housed a car wash, pet wash and laundromat. 'Cause, you know, nothing's too fancy for a date night. It was interesting. And, delicious. And, we are already making plans to take the kids there the next time we are all in SA together, because it's just fun. After the excellent talk by Mr. Pudewa, in which he convincingly claimed that the two most important things you can do to nurture competent communicators is to read classic literature out loud to them (or have them listen to audiobooks) and have them memorize stories, poems and almost anything else that can be memorized, we finally made it down to our hotel (on the River) and found ourselves with late-night munchies, so we popped into the Italian restaurant in our hotel for snacks and dessert.

On Saturday, it was ridiculously cold, and we certainly weren't interested in venturing out to the Riverwalk. In fact, the only thing we really felt like doing was cuddling up and watching movies. So that's just what we did. We saw two different movies (Dallas Buyers Club and Last Vegas), at two different theaters, and then watched another (Paranoia) from the comfort of our hotel room later that night. We enjoyed them all, in completely different ways. Between the two daytime movies, we had lunch at Sea Island Shrimp House (again, not Mexican food, if you're keeping track), which was a place we enjoyed when we lived in Austin but haven't been back to since that location closed and was only survived by San Antonio locations. Saturday night, after enjoying La Merienda (happy hour) at the hotel, we finally made it down to the River to dine at Rio Rio. Only, instead of taking an obviously available outside table, we opted to sit inside--and still shivered through our dinner.

Sunday morning, we started looking around for a nice brunch but couldn't find one within a short walk of the hotel. So, we checked out and decided to try the Guenther House on the recommendation of the concierge. I'm sure it is wonderful, but with already growling tummies, we were unable to wait the hour and fifteen minutes they quoted us. So, we moved on to The Monterey, another joint with an Austinish vibe, and we were not disappointed.

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend. We tried lots of new things and may have found a few new favorites. And, it was just so nice to get away for a while. Shout out to my parents for allowing us the opportunity. I supposed they need a get-away themselves now.