#17 KEEPING IT WEIRD IN AUSTIN, TX
I am finally back from a week long stay at the beautiful Austin, TX! Sad to be back, but excited to blog about my crazy adventure. Like I mentioned in my previous post, this was my first time visiting Texas. The southern heat hit me so hard, that I came back a slight shade darker. But, I'm all bundled in clothes right now because it is chilly in NYC! By the way - Austin is extremely weird. There's so much art, music and history around you that you really can't get enough of. The streets at night compete with live music and the food is too much to handle... Everything in Austin is so spread out and the highways also never end! So here's how my week started... (WARNING: Lots of food!)
MONDAY, 10/9
For breakfast, we had tacos at Juan in a Million. He didn't warn me about the portion size. (Probably because he didn't want to share!) I got 2 tacos and he got the Don Juan. Neither of us finished our food and we were both so full. Since it was our first day there, we didn't mentally prepare ourselves for the amount of food (or fat) we were going to have later that day.
Our first stop after breakfast was the Graffiti Park. I loved it! I think my favorite piece that I found there was this "lucky" cat - it looked really pretty. We climbed up to the top of the walls and found a bunch of spray can bottles. We each picked one up and started tagging our stuff all over the place. By the way, I was getting bit by mosquitos all over my legs!! I think by the end of the day, or the next day, you could see all of them swelled up :( Albert caught me scratching like crazy so many times.
After the Graffiti Park, we went to visit the University of Texas. We spent about a good hour or so there. The campus is HUGE! I know this is sad, but I was comparing it to Stony Brook's campus - only because I went to school there. Honestly though, you just can't compare the two. UT is so much bigger and nicer. They have Chick-fil-a and Panda Express in their dining halls... in addition to the amazing local Austin street food. SO JEALOUS!
Also, I noticed that literally EVERY girl there wears an over-sized t-shirt and shorts to class - which is interesting (only because they all dress the same). I know college students like to stay comfortable, but an over-sized t-shirt is an interesting choice. Anyway, we also walked around the campus store and in and out of some of the buildings to try to catch an AC break. That Monday was extremely hot!! Like 90+ degrees hot. I think if I were a student there, I would probably be wheeling a little thing of my books because anything on my back would leave a sweat mark.
After walking around the campus, we stopped by Hopdoddy's Burger Bar to split an Ahi Tuna burger and Parmesan truffle fries. I think Hopdoddy's there is like Shake Shake in New York / In-n-Out in Cali. So good!
After that, we went back to our Airbnb to rest up and get ready for dinner. I didn't save any pictures from dinner, but we ate at Peche. Albert took me out there for my 24th birthday :) <3 The food was good, but only because it's all cooked in heavy fat!! I was looking at the menu for the longest time because a lot on there was food that I wouldn't normally order, such as lamb, duck, heavy pasta, etc.
I ended up choosing the bone marrow dish, and Albert was like "that's pretty heavy, are you sure you want that?" I didn't know what he really meant by that "heavy" word. I thought he was advising that I shouldn't eat something heavy. But when the food came out, I understood what he was trying to say. He should have really said: "That dish is REGRETTABLY heavy."
Anyway, Albert insisted on switching our dishes (thanksssss), so I had his beef rib with mashed potatoes. I was maybe like half way into the dish when I said "these mashed potatoes are good." And then he replied: "Yeah because they're cooked in duck fat." :') <-- that's me crying inside
After dinner, we walked around 6 Street. Even though it was a Monday night and people had work the next day, the street felt so ALIVE! You can hear music coming from your left and right. LOVED IT! We ended up walking into the bar with the loudest music and played giant connect 4 there. That was day one!
TUESDAY, 10/10
We woke up a bit early that day to be one of the first people to line up for Louie Mueller Barbeque. That place didn't open until 11AM, and we got there maybe 15 minutes early. It was a good thing we got there early because the line started getting super long once we got our food. So the amount of meat in the picture above probably doesn't look like much, but for a tiny person like me to be taking part in this is A LOT! Albert bought like $100 worth of this BBQ (only because he wanted to bring some back for his friends who we were meeting up with on Thursday).
Here's a photo to compare in size of that beef rib with my face. I'm not lying!!
After BBQ, we went to the LBJ Presidential Library. It was a museum all about President Johnson with a feature of PBS and Sesame Street. They said it was because PBS was one of the 4 existing channels during the time of Johnson's presidency, and it was some anniversary for Sesame Street. Pretty cool museum and I learned a lot! Did you know that the Lady Bird Lake was named after his wife?
After the museum, we went to the Butter Half mural and the Greetings from Austin mural (the very first picture of this post). Then, we went to get a donut at Gourdough's, which is one of many food trucks in Austin that sells crazy good donuts!
Literally that entire day, I felt so stuffed, especially from that BBQ! After the donut, we walked around South Congress to take a look at the little shops and boutiques. We were waiting to see the bats at the South Congress bridge. Apparently, every night after sunset, from 7 to 8 pm, a bunch of bats fly out from under the bridge. We started waiting under the bridge around 6:30pm... we waited and waited but the bats didn't come out until maybe around 8pm! So unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a good picture or video of them because the sun was down and it was dark out :( But it was pretty cool! I thought bats were supposed to be thicker and bigger, but they flew so fast, they blended in with the dark!
If you see in this picture, the little burry spots are supposed to be the bats. The red light was coming from a passing boat. They were shining the light to get the bats to come out because they were taking so long!
After the bats, we went to eat Pho. I don't know the name of the place that we went to.. but then who really remembers the name of Viet restaurants anyway.. Although I was already so stuffed from the day, these noodles somehow just cleansed me. No wonder why Pho is the go-to drunk food - it cures you even when you're not drunk too! Also, Albert was making fun of the way I was putting the sauce onto my noodles. Instead of squeezing them directly into my bowl, I would use my chopsticks and - according to him - "paint the sauce onto my noodles" for each bite. He was laughing at my eating habits >:(
WEDNESDAY, 10/11
We had a packed day on Wednesday! Our first stop was Mueller Lake Park. I discovered this place through Instagram while searching places to go in Austin. This place is apparently up and coming. The umbrellas definitely caught my eye and I thought - hey this place is very Instagram worthy! Albert and I had coffee and split a breakfast plate at Halcyon, which is a coffee place at the park. The server told us that the place turns into a bar/lounge at night. Pretty cool!
After coffee, we made our way to Barton Springs. The weather on Wednesday was in the mid 80's, but the water was ICE COLD! We had to pay to get into the pool area, but it was very private and calm. I think it was $8 per person if you weren't a Texas resident. We stayed there fore about 2 hours before going to our next spot!
After quickly changing in the car, we drove to Lake Travis. I think it was about a 45 minute drive out... We didn't have any set plans on what we were going to do there, so we just walked around the area and decided to just get one drink. Since it was around 5:30 pm at that time, we thought to ourselves - why not stay and watch the sun set? So we did and it was super romantic!
By the way, Austin has these really awesome tasting ciders. I spotted them at Halcyon that morning when we were getting coffee. There's a Pomegranate Cider, Pineapple Cider, Ginger Cider, etc. I had a Ginger cider that night - I liked it! It's not as sweet as the apple ciders I normally drink. I kinda made it my goal to try all of those flavors while I'm down there.
After Lake Travis, we went to have dinner at East Side King. How do I describe this place?... It's very similar to the hipster kind of vibe at LES in New York. I don't have any pictures of the place here, but if you click on the highlighted link, you could see pictures of the weird wall decorations. Pretty cool! After dinner, we walked around Rainey Street. We were going to do that on day 2, but we were so pooped once we got back to our Airbnb. This time, we knew better not to go back until the end of the day. I don't have anymore pictures from the rest of this day, but after Rainey Street, we went to the airport to go pick up one of Albert's friends. His flight landed around midnight, so just imagine how tired we were since we were out that long. It was an adventurous Wednesday though!
THURSDAY, 10/12
After we met up with our friend Stephen and his brother Wednesday night, we all went to the Hamilton Pool Preserve Thursday morning. It was about a 45 minute drive out (if I remember correctly). Also, I believe parking was $15. Once we parked, we had to do maybe a 10 minute hike to the water because it was down in a cave. Again - so beautiful! The water was just as cold as Barton Springs'. The only difference was that the ground was so rocky that my feet hurt while stepping into the water.
We stayed there for about an hour or so and then drove back to have lunch at East Side King. That place was good, and plus Stephen wanted to go there - since only Albert and I went beforehand. After lunch, we went to The Domain, which is a huge shopping center in Austin! It's apparently pretty recent. It's like it's own little town with bars and restaurants - aside from shopping centers. We decided to hang around in a bar called Culinary Dropout while we wait for some friends to meet up with us for dinner. Corn hole is like a thing in all the bars in Texas.. or maybe just the ones I went to. Also, almost all the bars there are dog-friendly as well! I can't even count how many dogs I saw while I was down there that whole week. Amazing.
We had dinner at Thai Kun. Awesome place! We ordered this REALLY spicy curry dish, which at first, I didn't think was going to be that spicy. Usually, I could handle spice to a decent extend... but a few bites into this one and I literally felt steam coming out of my ears. Albert was asking me why I kept eating it, and it was because it tasted so good. :'( Apparently the owner of this place is the same owner as East Side King and another super fancy sushi place in Austin called Uchi. (You can tell if you peep at the wall art all the way in the back of this picture)
FRIDAY 10/13 - SUNDAY 10/15
@ AUSTIN CITY LIMITS
Okay - time to cut the rest of this blog post short! I know I wrote a lot - but I was in Austin for a week and I did a lot! How am I supposed to "trim down" any more of what I want to share?
So for the next 3 days, we all were at ACL. I'm not going to lie.. even though this wasn't my first rodeo of a 3 day music festival, I literally pushed my body for this one. I think it was because this one was during the day, and right at the peak time when the sun is highest in the sky. I was searching for shade each day until maybe 6PM, but that's when all the good stuff started coming out anyway.
Highlights? Some of my favorite artists that I saw were Jay Z (he was really good!!), Tove Lo, and Chance the Rapper. I definitely missed putting a few on here, but these were my top 3!
Overall, Austin is a beautiful city. If you go around asking people who've visited Austin, I don't think you'll ever hear anything really that bad about it. 1) It's what you make out of it, and 2) Who you spend your time there with. I will definitely visit Austin again some day. :)