The main thing I remember about Albuquerque is that we got into a mini-fight in the car - the first (and only, at least so far) one. The city was scorching hot, and the Old Town mercifully tiny and mostly empty. We wandered around for a bit, and finally popped down for a Mexican breakfast at a nice-looking restaurant. Breakfast burritos are delicious. Actually, almost everything we'd eaten until that point was delicious. Food is definitely one of America's fortes.
As we were leaving, an oldtimer sitting at a table near us asked what language we were speaking - a question we get asked very often, and one we don't mind at all, since it serves as a perfect bridge to some interaction. When he learned we are Polish, he told us the story of his friend, a Polish soldier captured by Germans during WWII who survived the war because he was very good with machines and was put to work by the German army. After the war he came to the US and settled in New Mexico, of all places, running a machine shop, or something. I told him my grandfather's convoluted story in return. Then Gosia came back from the bathroom and we headed out.
I mention the bathroom bit because I just realized that that's probably the reason why this exchange actually took as long as it did. Usually when we strike up conversations with strangers, I take a step back to make way for Gosia's cascade of words. It's not a role I'm accustomed to, but I don't really mind it. It's kind of a time warp for me - going back to a time when I was far less outgoing and would just pop into a conversation from time to time to - hopefully - make a joke. It offers a certain type of comfort, and certainly takes some pressure off.
The drive from Albuquerque to Dallas was 700 miles. That's like driving across Poland, and then some. It took ages, and we lost another hour due to switching time zones, so we arrived at our destination past 1a.m. I mostly remember the approach to the Dallas-Fort Worth agglomeration. We were later told that the distance between the easternmost suburbs of Dallas and the westernmost suburbs of Fort Worth is about 40 miles. And in-between it's all city (though of varying density). We were driving through all that on a 8-lane highway, ducking under some underpasses and then circling around on others. There was also some roadwork being done, with new lane lines painted over the old ones, and flashy signs all over. It was a trippy experience that I thought would never end. "Ok, so I guess we're in Dallas. No, now we're in Dallas. No, now..."
It was also our first non-hotel night in the US. Our host was a very sweet Pajiban who gave us his own bed and braved our personalities. He had a rather unusual mustache, which he claimed was for a theatre role (he was supposed to be a circus ringmaster), but I don't buy it. Despite being exhausted we talked til about 3 a.m. He also offered me some amazing gin. I'm saying amazing because I drank it neat, and it actually tasted good. I returned the favor by setting my alarm clock several hours late (I compensated for the time change, but added an hour instead of subtracting, or the other way around), which resulted in us having absolutely no time to hang out the next day, even though he specifically took he morning off to take us to breakfast. That felt shitty. He said he was coming to Austin for a day or two though, so at least there was that.
He also pointed us to the breakfast place he wanted to take us to. Apparently he lives in a gay neighborhood, which he claims is pretty much the only nice area in Dallas - a sentiment we've since heard repeated over and over again. (I mean the part about Dallas not being great, not about gay neighborhoods being the creme de la creme.) This meant that we had our breakfast in what seemed like a very laid back restaurant/club manned by pretty handsome and uniformly bearded waiters. A gay(ish) club that serves breakfast - and very good breakfast at that - kind of broke my brain a bit, but in a good way.
We left Dallas around 2 p.m. and headed for Austin, and SXSW.
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