Wrapping it up in Austin

We ended our work at the JFO in Austin. I don't think any of us were sad to see that office for the last time. Our supervisors gave us the entire weekend off, Saturday AND Sunday, which was amazing. On Saturday we played another Denver team in frisbee and won. Afterwards we went to the Cathedral of Junk in Austin, which is this huge structure a guy has made in his back yard out of random junk he collects. I will put a link up to pictures once I upload them. It was pretty incredible.
On Sunday the team went to San Antonion to see what we could see there. It is a pretty interesting (and very touristy) city. We saw the Alamo and walked along the man-made river where there are a lot of shops and restaurants. Sunday night we went out to the Spider House (where we go a couple times a week) and hung out with friends, including one of my friends from high school, Amihan, who is home in Austin on her Christmas break.
On Monday we had to go into work to pack up our desks and get out processed. Our supervisors gave us Christmas goody bags and were sad to see us go. Monday afternoon a few of us went downtown to explore and eat at this delicious restaurant called the Kerby Lane Cafe. Afterwards I came back and slept for an hour or two and then our entire team went out to dinner. At the end of every project we get money to go out to dinner as a team, so we got a free and delicious meal. We did Secret Santa gifts when we got back to the hotel. I had Dani and got her a little texas cook book and a texas cookie cutter, both of which I purchased at the Alamo gift shop. Joe had me and gave me an assortment of fruits and vegetables which I think he got at Walmart. It was pretty cute. After that we went back to Spider House with some friends who came up from Galveston on their way back to Denver.
Today (Tuesday) we volunteered with Habitat for Humanity doing demolition. We spent most of the day ripping sheet rock off the walls and ceiling and tearing out insulation. We found a couple geckos that were hibernating in the walls and were pretty sleepy looking. I put one of them in my sweatshirt pocket to warm him up because I felt bad for taking away his hibernating place. Once he was warm he got pretty active and started crawling around. My friend asked to hold him so I picked him up by his tail to give him to her. Apparently geckos have the ability to detach themselves from their tails, which is what this gecko did. I had both it's moving tail and moving body stuck to my pants which totally freaked me out. It was a pretty traumatizing experience.

Tonight it's packing up and tomorrow we drive to Amarillo and then to Denver on Thursday. I can't believe this first round is actually over. We found out that our next project will be local. Only two teams from Americorps stay local. We will most likely be in either Denver or Boulder, but we could be anywhere in Colorado. I will write more when I find out what our actual project is.