Sunny days in Texas

It rained yesterday, it's raining today, and it's supposed to keep on raining all the way through Saturday. Though I do not appreciate what the rain does to my hair, I'm still really glad it's raining--because I literally cannot remember the last time it rained like this, and the drought is just awful. Apparently in North Carolina they're on severe water usage restrictions and actually talking about closing businesses that use excessive amounts of water. And it's raining there too, now, as it is on most of the east coast.

Which is why this weekend is the perfect time for our trip to Austin. Torsten and I are flying out tonight and staying through Sunday night, to go to my (now our) friend Matt's wedding. The weather in Austin is supposed to be sunny with a few clouds, highs in the seventies, lows in the fifties all weekend. In other words, perfect.

This will be our first plane flight together, and can I say that for once I am actually looking forward to a flight? Four hours on a plane and yet when I get uncomfortable, it'll be okay because the person next to me is someone I can actually touch without it being awkward. I can lean on him if I want to sleep and he won't mind--in fact, I think he'll actually like it. Even if I drool on him. Well, depending on what shirt he's wearing. If it's his favourite sweater, he may get annoyed about the slobber.

This will also be the first wedding that we've attended together, and also the first-ever American wedding for Torsten and the second-ever wedding, period, for me. It should be good for Torsten, who expressed shock when I helped him pick out a nice outfit for the wedding, and actually suggested that the guests at our wedding wear jeans. My shriek of horror cured him of that idea, I think, along with the subsequent tirade about how this is our only wedding and it's a special occasion and it should look that way and it would feel dismissive to have our guests in jeans and most people (or women, anyway) LIKE the excuse to wear fancy clothes and the photos would look like they were taken at a rodeo and we might as well just not have a wedding at all if our guests are GOING. TO. WEAR. JEANS. Followed by several long, desperate gulps of air.

Okay, that might be a slightly dramatized representation of the discussion we had about the jeans. But suffice it to say, our guests will not be told that dress at our wedding is casual. And there had better not be anyone there in jeans. But I do think that attending this wedding together will help both of us get a firmer idea of what we do and do not want at our own wedding, especially for Torsten as it will help him visualize American weddings a bit more clearly. Although what he's really excited about is the (yes, casual dress) BBQ rehearsal dinner, to which all out-of-town guests are invited. He claims he's not going to eat between now and tomorrow night in order to be able to stuff the maximum possible amount of barbecued treats down his throat.

Also, I've never been to Austin before and Torsten has never been to Texas before, but we've heard that Austin is an amazing city, which is why we're leaving tonight instead of tomorrow night--we plan to spend tomorrow and Sunday checking out the town. I haven't actually done any research into stuff to see or places to go, though. Does anyone have any recommendations? Whether or not you've actually been there, of course. Hearsay is a totally acceptable form of advice.