My Trip to San Antonio

Just came back from San Antonio yesterday. I am not sure if this is going to be a common occurrence now but I feel like these days, I need to leave a trip to really internalize how much I enjoyed that trip. It is always hard to travel with other people and to travel for so long. It was only four days, but four days was my max. I was getting irritated but I think the reasons for that are more complex than just being with one person or being away from home for too long. But I'll expand on that later. 

It was a really nice trip though. I went with my best friend, D, and we did so much in those four days. My highlights, in no particular order:

• Getting drunk and going to a lights art exhibit.
• Going on a drive-thru safari.
• Walking through Market Square, catching some glimpses of live Spanish music, and eating tacos there.
• Eating at La Panaderia. Drank mimosas and stocked up on pastries there. They were all so good.
• Eating at  La Fonda on Main. Probably one of the best meals I had in San Antonio, in terms of both atmosphere and the actual food. 
• Going to a wine and martini bar by myself. Met cool people, drank amazing drinks. Overall, great vibes. 

And as I list all my highlights, I realize this is probably only half of all the things we did (if even), and it was already so much. No wonder I was so done by the end of it. 

I feel like a lot of my issues on the trip were all my fault though.

The first mistake I made was going to work the day of the trip. I should have just taken the day off but I was being goofy. I was just feeling uneasy about my standing at work and felt like it wasn't right to be away all those days. But I was at work for only a few hours in the morning and I felt like it was for nothing. I made this checklist for all the things I needed to make sure to pack. But it was for nothing because I was rushing so much that I couldn't even glance at the checklist. The most upsetting thing was not bringing my phone charger and having to spend almost $50 at the airport to replace them. I also didn't bring my toothbrush. And then I did this weird thing where I was about to pack something but ended up leaving them right next to the container I was going to put them in. I came home and my headphones charger and my eyebrow spoolie were on my bed, right where I had been packing my makeup and laptop bag. I mean, most of the stuff I left turned out not to be a big deal anyway. But I wish I had given myself a second to breathe and think.

Second of all, I bought a wig two days before the trip and never took it out of its package until an hour before I had to be at the airport. The hair itself was beautiful but the closure was atrocious. The part was thick as hell. The hair was meant to be worn as a middle part, but because of the thickness of the closure, it formed a cone at the top of my head. It needed to be plucked but there was just so much hair there that there was no way I would have been able to do that before the trip. I was so appalled because the wig looked so good on the mannequin when I bought it. But I guess someone finessed it before putting it on the mannequin head. 

I really wanted to wear long hair on this trip because I really wanted an effeminate, pretty vibe. I ended up taking an old mid-length synthetic wig, which was already getting really tangled at the ends. Every day the tangles got worse and worse. By the end, I had to wear the wig in an ugly bun because the ends were cutting up the back of my neck and it just looked like a matted hot mess. I'm never going on a long trip with an old knotty wig ever again. I would've much rather worn the new wig with the bad closure. 

The third mistake was trying to wear new sneakers for a trip where I'd be walking a lot. I bought a new pair of Vans, thinking they'd be my comfortable shoes and those things cut up my my ankles before I even got on the plane to San Antonio. I'm not sure how people wear these things. These are my second pair of Vans and I bought the first pair for my trip to Atlanta last year and couldn't wear them at all because they were too tight. So I sized up this time around, thinking I would be okay, but nope. I switched into these new sandals I bought, right before my first flight, and ended up wearing these sandals for the entire trip. And they were soooo flat. They were the kind of shoes you wear to go to the grocery store, to a barbecue, or on a short leisurely walk along the beach. Not shoes for going up and down a new city for an entire day. So my feet were torn up by the end of the trip. What makes this extra funny is that I got a really nice pedicure on the first day. All of my money went down the drain. 

I think if I had gotten these three things right, I would have had a lot better of a trip. But alas, it is well. I would love to go back to San Antonio again though. It's a very chill city. In some ways, it reminds me of living in Melbourne, FL, where things are a little slower and the weather is sweet. But there are other places in Texas I want to visit first.