South Congress Ave

First stop on South Congress Ave was to the best food stop we made while in Texas, 2013 Truck by Truckwest taste off winner "Hey!....You Gonna Eat or What?". The founder, Eric, was ecstatic to come out and greet us. He explained each and of his appetizing dishes and the ingredients that they consisted of. 

I went with the sandwich titled "The Shine Monte Cristo". A beer battered crust filled with smoked ham and turkey accompanied by some homemade cherry and fig jelly and fresh chips. This was by far the best meal I had in Texas and the most filling! I could only finish three of the four pieces of the sandwich and some of the chips. This food truck is somewhere I strongly recommend you visit if ever in Austin. 

Graffiti park

Living most of my life mostly in Illinois and Missouri, most could understand why I've never seen a graffiti park before. After leaving South Congress Ave., on this cloudy Sunday afternoon, we found this park filled with all ages demographics of people taking pictures, simply exploring, and even some finishing up their own addition to the park. During 45 minutes of climbing all over the park, I found dozens of creative paintings and artwork camouflaged into years of layered graffiti.

“Every artist was first a amateur.”

—	Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lately, I've been looking for a way to express my creative mind. Over Christmas break, my mom had a Coolpix L820 sitting around the house that has hardly been touched. After looking more into the camera, I found out it was one great for beginners like my self and was easy to get started with. Since cameras are to expensive to buy on a whim, I jumped at the opportunity to start a hobby as a photographer. This trip was filled with tons of opportunity for practice. I blended right in with the dozens of photographers scouring the walls of the park, taking pictures of all the art work. I hope people enjoy my pictures from the graffiti park and the rest of the trip!

“Art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take risks.”

—	Mark Rothko

Just in addition to the graffiti park, I found this picture on a building that was pretty dope. Some pretty intricate work to be on the side of a building, for sure.

Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit, Christian housing ministry that builds and repairs houses, with help from volunteers, allowing them to provide the housing at more affordable rates. 

Habitat was the service theme of the week. Tuesday through Friday we volunteered with the organization 8:oo am to 3:3o pm. Tuesday and Wednesday we set away at retiling the floor for a whole house. It was a simple process, glued the new tile over what was previously set. This task was far from as easy as it sounds as we had to cut intricate patterns into to fit around doors and edges around the house. Since these edge pieces took more time we didn't get to finish the house we started between Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, we were able to come into a house that was about the same spot in progress as the one we left on Wednesday. We worked hard and diligently through Wednesday and was able to finish the second house we worked on. This is included washing up all the dried up glue left on tiles, mopping, and painting the baseboards. It was very fulfilling feeling, knowing we put the last touches on a house before a family moved in.

Remember the Alamo!

“From the fire that burned their bodies. Rose the eternal life so sublime heroic sacrifice. Which gave birth to an empire state.”

After we visited the Alamo, we visited The River Walk. Against our luck, it was a pretty chilly day in San Antonio, so we speedily walked through several blocks of the walkway. I still managed to get some good pictures along the way.

Last day of service

On Friday, our last day of service, we moved from tiling to working on more beginning framework of some houses. The houses were all almost ready for framework and mechanical inspections needed to move forward with construction. Since most of us aren't crafted construction workers, a lot of the stuff we were doing seemed minor but the houses would have failed otherwise. Since it was our last day, everybody dug in and made sure to get as much work done as possible. As ready as everyone was to get back to Columbia, we didn't want to leave saying we slacked off and we definitely didn't...

MAB San Antonio1

MAB San Antonio1. This was the name given to the group of 12 strangers brought together with the purpose of traveling to San Antonio, TX to work with Habitat for Humanity. After the first few meetings where everybody sat spread out in the room, nobody would talk, and a couple of awkward icebreakers, I would have never assumed this group was going to end up being so compatible and full of personality. There was not one dull personality on this trip. So, of course, personalities clashed at times. But we only had 8 days together, so we were quick to forgive, forget, and move on to the rest of the week ahead. We made many memories like sleeping on tile floors, to sleeping in rooms with the thermostat on hell. Like that moment whenever everyone really wondered were we going to have cold showers for the whole trip. Or that moment when our search for dinner led us to the front of the Austin airport and at least half of us were down to try and go eat at this place inside the airport. The many Miracle jokes of underground tunnels and outdated contemporary church signs that ensued promptly upon arrival on Tuesday to our new place of residence. Or the many rounds of act it out on Heads Up, where most of us got more into it than we should have. Getting so close with the Habitat worker, who was our age, that he came to the church where we stayed and ate dinner with us. It's so many funny moments and inside jokes that I could go for days. So to...

Ryan, the laid back site leader that was willing to talk to anybody about any aspect of life and genuinely be interested in every conversation.

Sam, the site leader who knew everybody on the planet, that could keep my head calm by just being there to talk when people were going crazy.

Haley who had a great personality, was always down to hoop, and provided great laughs to everybody at the expense of her crazy cousins facebook fight.

Hannah who was always smiling, never had a negative comment about anything, and the person who was constantly the first one sleep after community service each day.

Kelsey who was always so full of energy, had a smile that light up a whole room, and non stop funny comments.

Isaac, the only other guy on the trip who wasn't a site leader and possibly the funniest person on the trip, always kept us laughing smart remarks to every situation.

Taylor, who was always laughing, making jokes, or telling a embarrassing story.

Emily who was always smiling, full of energy, and kept the group "Starbin".

Meg being the almost the mom of the group, even though she was the youngest, she was always making sure everybody was good and seeing if we needed anything done during service.

Katie, the best copilot i could ask for, keeping me entertained with stories of her botched 21st birthday celebration and trip to Memphis.

Caroline who was singing every song on the way home an entertaining us with stories of her ex boyfriend problems that were more than anyone could probably imagine.

I wouldn't have rather spent this week with any other 11 people. I think it's safe to say I made 11 new friends this past week. Thank you guys for the memories, the adventures, and laughs. I love you guys...