Quick Stop in Austin

From Vienna, we flew back to Newark and then onward to Austin for a few days. We wanted to have a bit of time in the USA for some “nomad tasks” tasks before heading to Mexico.

We settled into a hotel in Downtown Austin, right near our son Danny’s place. Steve did our laundry (task #1), and I completed our health insurance enrollment for 2025 and double-checked all our upcoming travel bookings (task #2). We also picked up a small box of warm-weather clothing that we had shipped from New York City to Austin, repacked our bags for Mexico, and shipped our winter coats and other cold-weather clothing to Tampa (task #3). We’ll be in Tampa before heading back north to the cold weather.

One of the big challenges of traveling light is having the clothing for significant changes in temperature. Also, it’s tricky to have a wardrobe that both fits in a small backpack and works well for both hiking and fancy restaurants or theaters. Anyway, we’re still learning, and we keep tweaking our packing lists.

I also rested a lot in Austin, nursing a cold I had caught on our last day in Vienna. Fortunately, my symptoms were mild, and I was able to enjoy our dinners with Danny - one at his place with his roommate Yash, and the other at The Kitchen (Elon Musk’s brother’s new restaurant) with his girlfriend Mei.

It was a short and sweet visit, and I took just a couple of photos: a beautiful wood-mosaic wall at our hotel, and a clever vending machine in a different hotel lobby nearby.