Why I love Austin:

I woke up today and went to Barton Springs. I swam in a cold, wonderfully refreshing natural body of water, and I read my book, learning about the Ottoman Empire's international situation in the first decade plus change of the 20th century. Then I went to work, my part time gig serving beers on a party boat on Lake Austin. It was a UT graduation party hosted by a most openly gay kid named AJ, who invited all of his 20-something year old (flamingly) gay friends and their hot, available female cohorts, who had no one to focus their attention on but me and the three other straight guys at the party, a.k.a. the only ones who ordered beer instead of "frozen margaritas." This caused me to rethink my stance on Brian's idea. After this party, while the boat was taking over an hour to cruise back to its dock, we put it in neutral, jumped off the roof and swam in Lake Austin underneath the full moon, while we were blaring Lee Scratch Perry dub tracks from the P.A. and counting our blessings to be alive. There wasn't another person in sight. It was perfect.

But now we're flashing forward to the very end of the night, when I'm walking past my office building (the one for my real job, one that doesn't allow me to go swimming at the end) on Lavaca. I'm walking past my office building at 2:15 in the morning because I'm coming back from a bar in the general vicinity of where I work, which means I park for free, in the garage. I will walk five thousand miles to take advantage of free parking.

I always wonder if anyone has ever noticed this by watching the CCTV videos.

Bars close at 2 in most parts of America. I'm not sure what the policy is in Louisiana.

There are four of them, and they're walking towards us -- it's me and a friend of a friend named Nancy, my guest since Thursday, a fellow world traveler and an opportunity for me to try and chip away at the immense debt of hospitality I owe to humanity in general for the countless free places I've been given to stay in my day. Nancy is British, and she was 15 when I was born. She is the shit. All I hope is that I was able to show her a good time in Austin, a place she had never been until now. These four dudes from the Bayou helped in that mission, I hope.

"Yo," the ringleader says, "we're tryin' to find the PARTY around here, man! You know where one's at?" He spoke in that sort of ghetto-rural, but not quite full blown wigger accent, one that's quite common in many parts of the world where the local Dollar General doubles as the Friday night hangout.

"I think most of the parties are closed, man. It's already after two."

This did not seem to make much sense to them.

Neither did the empty coconut shell I was holding in my hand.

About 20 minutes before this, Andrew had found it on the street. I kept it with plans to turn it into an ash tray, just like the one Hunter and I had in Tanzania (which, ironically enough, came from a coconut shell we found on the ground). And I was tossing it up in the air to myself as I told these four guys from Louisiana that there were no parties to be found.

"Is that a coconut shell man?" one of them asked.

"Yeah man," I said. "This is Austin! Duh!"

"We're from Louisiana, man!"

(Which you already know.)

"Listen, y'all," I said, as my last words, "I do not know of any parties going on, but if you continue walking down this street, and keep asking people like you just asked me, I know that with your can-do spirit, you will find that party."

This led to raucous applause. I turned to walk across the street, just in time to see this:

"I'm goin' get my F***IN' DICK WET!!" And then he threw his bottle of water against the sidewalk and yelled, "Whooooo!!!"

Geaux get 'em, Tiger. Geaux get 'em.