There’s this street in San Pedro, Garza Garcia which I drive on to get to my house. And at the far end of that long street you can see a mountain, dead at the center, looming over part of my city. The mountain is called “la M,” due to its letter-m shape. I’ve lived in a house that sits at the bottom of the M since I was born, and every day since I’ve had a car I’ve driven up that street and looked up at that gorgeous mountain. Sometimes, without reason or destination, I take my car out and drive on that street just to see it. To me, that mountain means I’m home.

I never thought when I got to Austin that I would feel about anything the same way I do about that mountain. However beautiful the city of Austin may be, it wasn’t what I’d grown up with. And as much as I loved living there right away, after my first semester at UT and my first Christmas break back in Monterrey, I could tell Austin didn’t feel like home yet.

I stopped looking for something in Austin that I could use to identify with the feeling of home and, instead, realized everything else the city has to offer. In a way, for me, Austin became a place for reinvention. A place for meeting people that were honest but eerily nice. A place for meeting people that were incredibly passionate about things that I was passionate about—something that was very difficult to do back home. I met writers and singers and photographers and tiny, obscure bars home to amazing music.

And it struck me the most after my father came to visit me for the first time and we walked down Guadalupe St. that he mentioned how “funny” people looked, how “odd” characters there were walking down that street. It’s true—in Austin, I found characters.

From the eyes of a Regia.

After my father said that, I thought of this bald black man that—no matter the weather—wears a long, black leather trench (a la The Matrix) and walks down the Drag. He’s not there everyday, but whenever he is, I remember the first time I saw him. It was August 2008 and I’d been in Austin for two days. Not having been familiar with the streets yet (and being the useless map-reader that I am), I walked in circles and could only find my way back by noticing this man wearing a leather trench in the middle of August standing in the corner of 24th and Guadalupe. And then I thought of Sasquatch Dave, who wears his tie-dyed shirt and palm-tree sunglasses everyday, holding up a piece of cardboard with quotes such as, “If I had your life, I’d be pissed too.” And this woman that works at CVS who will find something to talk about with any customer, and every week, when I’m there buying my magazines, she’ll say Reese is far better off without Ryan, or “I wish they’d leave Jessica Simpson alone, she looks great even with the weight on!”

They’re characters. And my dad, being the cynic (or realist) that he is, told me they’re people who nobody notices and that’s why they have to find a way to stand out—so that you’re forced to notice them. They want attention, he said. But well... I see it differently. It might be true, what he says. They might be starving for attention. But maybe they want to be such a character because they like to create themselves into something or someone people like me will remember. Or a character someone like me will talk or write about someday, or a type of symbol that will remind a person like me... of home.

Because of course it isn’t just my mountains that made my home, home. It’s the people that live on the edges of those mountains that gave me stories to talk about, or reasons it was so hard to leave home for college. And slowly, living in Austin, a city full of caricatures and unforgettable places, I began to miss Monterrey—and those people and mountains and everything else—a little less.

It wasn’t til the end of this past semester that I realized I didn’t want to leave Austin for the summer. After such an incredible semester—full of concerts and new people, finding the best chocolate chip pancakes in the world and leaving for impromptu roadtrips in the middle of the night—I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay and drive around the city at night with the friends who slowly and amazingly became my family. I wanted to stay and gape at a new band with a completely different sound that reminds me about the wonderful power of music. I wanted to stay and read the mails I get from grateful people for my positive reviews. I wanted to stay and walk to Starbucks every day, sit and watch the Drag Rats beg for cigarettes, or look at how the girl who works at Einstein Bagels leans over so discretely and steals a subtle kiss from her girlfriend.

I did leave Austin for the summer. Even after such a great semester, I did miss my family, and my friends, and my mountains, and my house that I’ve lived in forever. I did miss (real) Mexican food. I missed my room being magically cleaned up every day, and my closet not being a mess. I missed Diet Coke in a glass bottle and being able to smoke indoors, and the tree in my backyard. I missed the smell of my mom’s perfume and the books that fill my bedroom that could never fit my whole apartment in Austin.

But, even though I knew it was time to go home for the summer, while I was driving out of Austin, I looked around at everything. Everything that I now identified with a second home. Driving away from the city down the I-35, I looked back at the Frost Bank tower, which I nicknamed “the Gotham City building” soon after I arrived in ’08. And I thought of Sasquatch, and the UT tower that lights up in bright orange after a win, and the magazine editor who somehow found me through my barely-read blog and took a chance on me as a writer, and the girl in my class with an unbreakable love for Nicholas Sparks books, and the jewelry store in South Congress that I can never not spend any money in, and the trees that line up my street and make my daily walks all the more enjoyable—and I thought of home.

"From the Eyes of a Regia" is a column by Austin Vida writer and Monterrey, Mexico, native Eugenia Vela. She moved to Austin a year and a half ago to attend the University of Texas, and From the Eyes of a Regia is her quirky, fun and brutally honest collection of observations and experiences as a "regia" (slang for "girl from Monterrey") living and studying in the U.S.

"From the Eyes of a Regia" is a new feature column by Austin Vida writer and Monterrey, Mexico, native Eugenia Vela. She moved to Austin a year and a half ago to attend the University of Texas, and From the Eyes of a Regia will be a quirky, fun and brutally honest collection of her observations and experiences as a "regia" (slang for "girl from Monterrey") living and studying in the U.S. for the first time.

From the eyes of a Regia.

The truth is I didn’t want to come to Austin. I didn’t want to come to Texas, at all. Growing up with obsessive dreams of living as a writer-slash-Manhattanite when I was older, leaving home for the proudest state was out of the question. But my college counselor pushed. Oh boy, did she push.

According to her, Austin—and UT specifically—would “agree” with “my personality.” I had no idea what she meant. Just as those whom I’ve met here are surprised I’m a Mexican, what with my “perfect English” and the fact that I’m “pretty for a Mexican” (I know there’s a compliment in there somewhere) and not wearing a sombrero, I was just as surprised to learn that Texas is not, well, tacky Tex-Mex full of ignorant rednecks. Austin, I have come to learn, is not like that at all.

During my first year and a half as a journalism major living in this beautiful, and yes—weird—city, I’ve faced many surprises, most of them great.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that the Drag Rats now know me as the girl who’ll give them cigarettes every day ‘cause she’s never carrying any change. I’m almost used to the Nike gym shorts, sneakers and tie-dyed Tyler’s shirt uniform the blonde sorority girls wear daily. And even though I still hate the Greenpeace supporters who badger me on the streets at least once a week, I have slowly but surely learned amazing dodging tactics.

It’s all part of the charm. I guess when I think about it, there are a lot of things different here from what I’ve been used to all my life. After living in a city where you can’t leave the house without make-up and high heels on, it is sort of refreshing to know that if I wake up late, I can show up to Philosophy class wearing green pants, a red hoodie and a Spurs trucker hat without being judged. Actually, people would probably cheer for the Spurs hat. Little do they know I’ve never watched a Spurs game in my life.

And that leads me to a dreadful, terrifying fact for all Texans. Before I came here, I had never even tried, or was remotely interested in attempting to understand what is known as American Football. I know. A gasp has just been heard ‘round the state. But I’ve learned. I’ve been to games. I know now that Jordan Shipley is the future love of my life and that if you pay attention, football is kind of fun and entertaining.

I’m flattered to think you all care about what I’ve got to say. You probably don’t. But from my experience, people are fascinated to hear about the little things they barely notice, which for me are inevitable to point and pick at.

Like a trip downtown. That raises a lot of pointing and picking at. Like the way people dance. You know, a friend of mine from San Diego asked me if all Mexicans are born good dancers. No, we are not. We don’t start dancing spontaneously and on cue. Like everywhere in the world, if you go to a club back home there are your good dancers and there’s the spaz standing in the corner trying not to elbow anyone. But here, there’s this dance, this dance that I just cannot stop staring at. A dance everybody knows. The awkward jump with the fist pump, followed by grinding and dry humping dance. You know the one. When I told my friend from San Diego this, she told me I “ruined white people” for her. What was once just the way everybody (including her) danced, is now something she can’t stop staring at.

That’s why I’m here now. To notice things. To be aware. To find the charm in little things, like the small smile of a shy Plucker’s waitress that’s being hit on by a drunk frat boy at 2:30 in the morning. Or just to talk about the damn good show I went to on Friday where I listened to Los Bad Apples, Arthur Yoria and Rubik.

Everything’s an experience since I’ve gotten here. The day Obama got elected, when ecstatic students screamed in celebration around campus and drivers honked their way through the Drag. Even the two-syllable “daaayuuum” I got yesterday on Guadalupe and 23rd is quite the experience. Man, I love living here.

Check back often for more observations from the eyes of a Regia.