Catching up on life a bit since my whole world has been crazy, once again, the past few months.
To start with, I’ve been studying for the LSAT since last October and finally took it in February! Wow. What a brutal test. I’m pretty satisfied with my results and can’t wait for the next steps of my journey. Throughout the past few months, I’ve also celebrated my birthday, gone to basketball games, and even won a giveaway!
Kicking this post off with New Years! I bought tickets to what is supposed to be one of the most prestigious New Year parties in Austin: Speakeasy’s Legendary New Years. Speakeasy is at a prime location off of 5th and Congress and features an amazing rooftop terrace. Fast forward to that night and it was full of pop hits from the late 2000’s and guys that looked like Jon Bon Jovi. This is not what spending $50 for a party should feel like! My friends and I got dressed up and had a good time catching up, since they used to be my roommates and we haven’t seen each other in so long, but honestly the party was kind of annoying, if anything else. I was able to finally wear a black satin dress that I bought back when I lived in Dallas (2015?) with my pink fur coat. We do take some pretty good photos though:
Following New Years, I always spend time getting ready for my birthday! I didn’t do anything too crazy this year since I wasn’t seeing my family, but I went out to a few places with friends to celebrate!
To start, my friend and I had a joint birthday dinner (her birthday’s at the end of December) at one of my favorite places in Austin, Elizabeth Street Cafe. It’s a cute little Vietnamese restaurant featuring amazing pho and behn-mi. It’s definitely pricey though, so it’s really great for dates and special occasions. We also had to wait a little while because everyone was packed inside that evening since it was freezing cold that evening.
The following weekend was my actual birthday, and lucky for me it fell on a Saturday! Starting off the weekend, I went out to East Sixth with a couple of friends. We spent the entire time at a couple of my favorite places, Hotel Vegas and Volstead. The bars are actually connected since they share the backyard area, so it’s fun to hop back and forth between the two! Hotel Vegas is geared towards more of a hipster, rock vibe while Volstead features old rap and r&b hits, which makes it fun to have a little variety. I also wore this super cute outfit that I had been planning on wearing for the longest time, but never did. It features a plaid skirt from Nordstrom (check it out below!).
I always like to have lowkey days on the actual day of my birthday, so I didn’t do too much other than go out to dinner and drinks with a couple friends. We went to Via 313 Pizza and Hole in the Wall, so it’s safe to say I had a pretty chill night. I had actually never tried Via 313 before, but they had amazing deep dish pizza that I would have to recommend.
The next day, I got to have brunch and drinks with one of my old roommates. It was so great to catch up and she spontaneously asked if I wanted to go. We went to this relatively new restaurant downtown called Caroline. I hadn’t heard anything about it, but I’ve driven past it several times on Congress, so I was pretty excited to check it out. To start, I had a Marshmallow Latte, which I didn’t even know was a thing, but it was really good and not too sweet like I thought it would be. For my actual entree, I got chicken and waffles. Once I saw they had them on the menu, I died and knew that’s what I had to get. I feel like I enjoy any form of chicken and waffles, good or bad, but here they were exceptionally good! I usually crave 24 Diner’s chicken and waffles, but I have to say I’ve craved the ones at Caroline too now.
At the end of brunch, our waiter handed us coins for free mimosas upstairs. Every time I’ve seen the restaurant, I’ve noticed the second floor terrace/ I had wanted to check it out anyways for this reason, but this gave me an even better excuse (free drinks!). We went upstairs and the layout is pretty cute. The restaurant is actually connected to the Aloft Hotel, so you’re actually at the Aloft’s terrace area when you go up the elevator. It features indoor and outdoor seating with cute modern accents. My favorite part was going outside with the fake grass and sitting by this huge glass fire pit. It felt amazing too since it was a pretty cold afternoon.
The funniest thing happened later in January. I went grocery shopping at HEB and I won two free tickets to the Texas Stars Hockey Game. How you win tickets from grocery shopping is something I don’t know. They were only valid on a particular evening however. I’ve never actually been to a hockey game, nor have watched it, but I’ve always wanted to see what it’s about, so I was excited to go. The stadium where they play is out in Cedar Park so my friend and I took a mini road trip out there to go to the game.
Once we got there, I think we were at the stadium for a total of thirty minutes. The fans were pretty rowdy and the sport itself is a lot more violent than I imagined! The game itself wasn’t bad, I just didn’t know what was going on and lost interest. We felt we had our fill and left fairly quickly.
The following weekend, I was asked to help chaperone a UT fraternity party in West Campus. At first I was thinking definitely not, but later I actually warmed up to the idea of reliving my glory days, but this time actually sober. My friend and I were actually planning on going bar hopping afterwards, but we started to enjoy the party and stayed longer than expected. I got to run into some old and good friends too!
We then ended the night at Elephant Room, a downstairs Jazz club downtown. I secretly love jazz and once I heard about this place, I knew I wanted to go. It’s very private, but not too upscale to where you can have a good time! The band that was playing this night played some common classic rock songs such as Hotel California by the Eagles. I really enjoyed it, especially if you’re looking for a chill night but still want to dress up.
The day after was a day I had been counting down to: the UT vs. OU Basketball Game. This was a highly anticipated game and I was so excited when one of my managers from my internship asked if I wanted to go. Believe it or not, we beat OU after being behind for quite awhile in the game! The spirit was crazy and I was so excited we won! And the best part is I got to wear a new pair of Steve Madden booties.
I know every girl is guilty of entering some kind of giveaway on Instagram, whether it’s reposting or simply commenting on a photo. So, doing my daily ritual of commenting on any giveaway I see in my feed, I actually won one! I won the Native Hostel x OK Cupid giveaway through @365ThingsAustin. How crazy is that?! The only catch was, you get a free night stay and get to attend their party only on Thursday, February 8th. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue. But I was signed up to take the LSAT on Saturday, February 10th, and I was studying pretty hard core the week following up to it. I debated for awhile if I wanted to take the night off since I actually won such a great prize or if I wanted to stay at home and study.
I probably lost a couple of points on my LSAT, but I decided to attend the party and get my free night’s stay! I mean, could you blame me? I had never been to Native Hostel, but I’ve only heard good things. This isn’t an ordinary hostel, but a luxury hostel (is that a thing?). I never heard anything about actually staying there, but they offer a bar and lounge area.
When getting there, I was really surprised about the quality of the hostel. I really felt like I was in a hotel! If you ever have been to the Van Zandt, the interior feel of Native Hostel is very similar. The inside features stone walls, custom tile, and an excessive use of dark reds and black. The actual hostel portion of the building was very luxurious too and had super comfortable beds! It was very clean and taken care of well. The only thing I could imagine being a problem is that you have to share the room with others that you probably don’t know. Luckily, the girls we met were really nice and it was their first time staying there too. I could definitely imagine situations where it wouldn’t be this good though.
The party itself was also a lot of fun! They had a DJ spinning rap hits and were serving really good cocktails. We also, of course, spotted the photobooth at the party and OK Cupid was promoting a free $50 giftcard if you posted the photo to Instagram. Trying my luck, I posted the photo and won! Talk about being on a winning streak.
Although we said we weren’t going to stay out really late (especially because I wanted to do some last minute reviewing before my LSAT and chill out the next day), we stayed out until about 2am!
The big day was here, the LSAT. I studied so hard for four months straight. I had always wanted to be a lawyer growing up, but once I got to college and studied Computer Science, I really didn’t have time or even the ability to consider careers outside of technology. Because of this, I didn’t realize that I wanted to attend law school until after I started working full time and studying was definitely a challenge. I somehow managed to work eight hour+ work days and would go study at coffee shops either after work or on the weekend. I was so dedicated that I was reading approximately 150-200 pages each week. It took me a good three months, but I had read and practiced through a total of 1,000 pages. By the time I got to the fourth month, I began doing actual practice tests. That meant four straight hours of answering questions and timing myself.
I definitely felt prepared for the LSAT, but I wasn’t at the place I wanted to be. My score improved dramatically- from getting around half of the questions right per section to getting over 3/4 of them right. I was able to study very hard and survive this almost five hour test, so I’m proud of myself for that.
And the best part was that afterwards, I treated myself to Miltos. I discovered Miltos a couple months ago, despite being literally right down the street from campus. It’s now one of my favorite Italian restaurants in Austin! I definitely recommend the Fettuccine Alfredo, it’s absolutely amazing! Afterwards, I also did a little shopping across the street. I went to Buffalo Exchange and found a vintage Dooney & Bourke purse that was in amazing condition for a pretty good price! I also went to Nice Kicks, which opened their Austin location less than a year ago, and found these amazing light pink Jordans. I’ve never owned a pair of Jordans and I never contemplated buying any until I saw these. They were absolutely perfect and matched my style completely. Although I was 100% sold, I still wanted to think about it since it was a lot of money. Of course, a couple days later, I headed back and bought them as a post LSAT treat yo self present to myself.
A few days after my test, it was Valentine’s Day! As one of my least favorite holidays, I went out to celebrate with my friends. We started by going to Caroline, once again. I had loved it so much on my birthday and thought it would be a perfect place to go downtown and celebrate with friends. This time, my experience was a little different since I went for dinner rather than brunch. I ordered a margarita and the halibut this time (because it’s Valentine’s Day, so treat yo self) which I have to say was really delicious! Afterwards, we went upstairs to check out the terrace again. It was so much nicer this time because the weather was warmer and you didn’t have to bundle up or run to the fire.
We then drove over to Irene’s since they were having a $5 drink special (one beer and shot for $5) and apparently they were giving out Kendra Scott too. We didn’t win anything from Kendra Scott, but I tapped into my college self and downed a shot of rum!
We also attended the Austin Bumble party at The W, which sounded like a promising plan for Valentine’s Day. They actually did a really good job setting up the event and were handing out yellow roses and free drinks if you matched with someone on Bumble and brought them with you to the bar. I didn’t do that part, but I got my free roses and took photos with my friend at their photo booth!
The following weekend, I went to another UT basketball game, this time against OSU. This game was absolutely insane. The score kept going back and forth, and once it looked like it was over, the other team came back around. We actually won this game in the last remaining seconds, honestly by luck! I also got really lucky and got almost front row seats since I was in the student section and got there hella early. It was also exciting because I got to break out my new Jordans at what better place than a UT basketball game.
Every March, there’s an annual kite festival close to downtown Austin. I know what you’re thinking, who has a kite festival? Especially since it’s hosted by the city of Austin. It’s actually a really cool event where everyone goes out and buys kites and basically celebrates the start of spring at the park. It’s so much fun to see literally hundreds of kites in the sky all at one location. This year, I went out and bought a pineapple kite that turned out to be really unique and fun to fly.
Shortly after the kite festival, I was hit by the unbearable news that the Torchy’s Tacos trailer truck on first street was closing down this week. Me being the Torchy’s addict that I am (seriously, somebody needs to check me in), I was seriously sad that one of the original locations was closing. When What Where Austin posted that there was going to be a closing party with free tacos, beer, and queso. Of course, I couldn’t pass that up! We went to the event and it was crazy! There were so many people and the line wrapped around and went out to the sidewalk. We waited about an hour and a half just to get tacos in the end. The good part was that literally everything was free (thanks Torchy’s!) and my friend and I were able to switch out of the big line for tacos so one of us could wait in the smaller lines for queso and beer. We’d then come back to eat and drink while waiting in the taco line. Aside from the waiting, it was a super fun event and I’m really happy they took the time to host it!
Last but not least, I took a little relaxation time before the crazy storm of SXSW. A sweet friend of mine gave me a gift card to Viva Day Spa to celebrate taking my LSAT so I was able to get an AMAZING massage. I heard nothing but great things about this spa, and they have a really nice location at the Domain. I’ve never had a massage in my life prior to this, but it was such a relaxing and luxurious experience. It started with a sauna session, dry brushing, and ending with a full body massage. Let me tell you, this is an amazing experience or gift for anyone!
It’s been a busy 2018 so far and I’m so happy I’m able to share my experiences thus far! I’m planning on keeping up with my blog more often than I have. The LSAT took a lot out of me, so it’s been a struggle to do anything outside of work and studying!
I’m also super excited to share my SXSW experience, which will be in the next post so stay tuned!
xx,
Rachelle
