As I write this I am looking out over the grey Austin Downtown skyline, as shown in the picture on the left. In fact I'm feeling quite at home as the conditions are suitably English - grey, a bit damp, but not cold. What you see in the picture is 6th and 7th streets, the epicentre for the SXSW music festival. 6th street especially is lined with bars and venues, all of which come 6pm will be blasting out music at high volume. In fact I can hear music already (it's about lunchtime) even up on the 12th floor of my hotel! There are venues all over town as well, but I'm pretty much in the centre of things here in my hotel and can easily walk (at my usual fast pace) to everywhere I need to go.

I arrived in Austin last night (Tuesday) at about 11pm. I felt like I had been on the road for ever! I left Swindon at 8pm on Sunday, and despite a night at the Stansted Hilton, and a night at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, I hadn't had a great deal of sleep.The airport was chocka with people arriving for sxsw - fans, bands, music industry types. I was lucky in that the chap I was sitting next to on the plane was getting picked up at the airport by his girlfriend and very kindly offered me a lift to my hotel as he lived nearby. So I got a bit of a short guided tour from some locals. I finally fell into bed at about 12:30am.

After a solid night's sleep that has put paid to the jetlag (I hope),this morning I went down to the Convention Centre and picked up my registration badge, which has to be worn on a lanyard around the neck to gain entry to all the venues. Everything was a bit chaotic, but after an hour or so of queuing the not-at-all inexpensive badge was mine. It came with a goody bag of stuff, mainly promotional stuff for bands, and venues, but also some cds and oddments, including 2 condoms! I suppose this is a music bash after all. Sex & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll and all that. I'll stick to the rock'n'roll. (For now anyway...............)

I think I'll head down towards the convention centre as there's a stage there with bands all afternoon, get some lunch, and try and work out which venues I'd like to take in this evening, and which bands are must-see items. Apparently most places will be open until 2am so it could be a late one!