Flugtag Flopped

This weekend Cody and I attended Red Bull's Flugtag event in downtown Austin. We've always seen the commercials and thought it would be a really fun and interesting event. We knew that parking would be a nightmare, so we headed down to Barton Springs early in the day to guarantee a parking spot and to recreate the fabulous experience from a couple of weeks ago. Barton Springs certainly did not disappoint! This time we arrived at Barton Spings with two floats..... this was the missing piece of the relaxation puzzle. We could have laid there all day! We planned the day perfectly.



We read online that the Flugtag was going to open the doors at 5 pm and the first contestants would go on at 6:30. We arrived at Auditorium Shores at precisely 5:00, only to find that they had been letting people in for hours and it was absolutely packed (strike one). Cody and I managed to find a little spot to sit with a pretty good view and were well prepared for the hour and a half wait in 95 degree heat. We packed sunscreen, hats, water, and an umbrella. They had a huge jumbo-tron set up to supplement the view, as very few could see the platform and the water, but they set it up on the West side of the park just as the sun was going down. We pretty much had to look directly at the sun to see the TV (strike two).


(Our awesome view before it was ruined)

At about 6:15 people started to file in and stand on top of people's blankets ruining the time of those of us who planned accordingly and arrived to claim our spots early. We were quite annoyed (strike three). But, the event hadn't even started yet, and though we were hot, crowded, and annoyed, we had waited this long and we weren't about to leave before the event even started! They introduced the judges--some guy from Desperate Housewives, the Mayor of Austin, and some other local celebrities. The national anthem was sang by Perry Farrell from the band Jane's Addiction (awesome!), too bad his mic was out the whole time (strike four). Soon after that everyone around us started lighting up, even though this was a non-smoking event, I started feeling sick from the heat and smoke.... but we waited this long! We were going to stay here until at least one person jumped off the ramp! Well, eventually they did jump off the ramp (after they played the wrong music twice)... and it would have been pretty funny if it wasn't for the fact that we couldn't see at all. We packed up our stuff, and left. At least we were able to rescue the evening by some awesome Mexican food at Matt's El Rancho (One of our favorite Austin restaurants).


(Matt's saved the day!)

We learned an important lesson this Saturday. Free outdoor events in the summer in Texas are to be avoided. They estimated the crowd at 85,000!

Sunday night made up for it all. We were treated to a fancy dinner by Cody's Mom and her husband Kevin. They took us out as payment for picking up the boys from the airport and watching them overnight. We went to the fanciest Italian restaurant in town! The food was amazing! It was nice to get dressed up for dinner..... I can't remember the last time we did that!

Cody always makes an effort to plan a really fun activity every week.... and this was one of the few that have been a bust. Luckily we had Barton Springs, Matt's El Rancho, and Vespaio to make this a really great weekend!