central texas

tuesday morning noelle and i went to another local institution: cafe cappucino's for breakfast. they make the most amazing pancakes if you are ever in town. from there we went to meet up with some people, and lazed about until lunch, which rolled around pretty quick. now, this meal i was quite excited about. i was going to meet gideon (see the picture of the cute couple from the wedding post) for a burger at a place i had never been: double-r burgers, which i had heard was delicious. and it was: it was one of those places that's practically falling apart and had a line out the door--sure signs in gideon's book as well as mine that the food is good. it's also not in the best part of town, but i felt ok with him, particuarly at lunch time. we had fantastic burgers and conversation--while i'm heading off to alabama next year, he's going to washington university in st. louis for philosophy.

after lunch i ran a few errands, including going to see jeff again--that's him to the left. around 3 i headed out of waco for my dinner date in college station with another one of my best friends, katie. college station is about one and a half hours from waco, and a clean shot down highway 6. this being texas, i almost had to enter the highway behind a tractor: luckily, though, i was able to pass him. on the way i passed through a couple really cute little historic towns. i wish i had time to stop and see them, but i had a deadline, and it turned out to be a good thing that i didn't stop at all. much as this picture belies, it began to monsoon on me a few miles out of college station, forcing me to drive only about 40 miles an hour, and even that was sketchy. beware: texans do not believe in drainage systems. on campus, this meant that if you didn't wear galoshes you had water up to your knees, and on the highway this means that you are very likely to hydroplane. thankfully, i made it to college station in one place and on time.

now, why here? the town is home to texas a&m, which is a pretty big (and ugly) but good technical school. they are also somewhat crazy--they have intense rituals which usually kill a few students every year, and a pseudo-military student group which more-or-less runs campus. we baylor students don't like them much--they're our rivals, although texas at austin is a&m's rival. unrequited rivalry is what happens when you have a bad football team, which is king is texas. my friend katie is at a&m getting a phd in environmental toxicology, and has already started doing some sort of cancer research.

we had mexican for dinner and then headed to the bar section of town to go to the irish pub, o'bannon's, which katie had not yet been to. while a&m is nothing to write home about, the town wasn't that bad. the pub turned out to be your standard irish fare, with a good beer selection. it was also a pretty good place to talk, since it was early-ish on a summer evening. i was so happy that i was able to see katie, even if only for a few hours, but by 9 i needed to head back to waco, fearing that i would run into more rain, which i did. all in all, a great day spend with friends in new and old places.