Austin, Texas
After visiting Austin, Texas, it became clear why the population is growing by the hundreds every day. With unique fashion, delicious food trucks, and even a Cathedral of Junk, the city is anything but boring. And in the short time I was there, the cities popular phrase “Keep Austin weird,” made itself heard to me in every situation.
Originally, the plan was to spend a week in Dallas, Texas, visiting childhood friends with my parents, but we figured we could spare two days to travel to the nation-wide famous city and experience its uniqueness first hand.
Although 11 years of my life was spent in Texas, I had no idea of the beautiful rolling hills reaching from Weatherford to the outskirts of Austin. So when I reached the city and entered through the University of Texas campus, there was an overwhelming sensation from the large crowds of people after seeing nothing but cow herds and Blue Bonnets for three hours.
Almost immediately after arriving, we made a quick food stop at Food Heads, located within the college community where we met up with my uncle. Like the rest of Austin, nothing in the restaurant matched. Every table and chair was different, and the menu listed a wide variety of sandwiches from vegetarian to meat lovers, spicy to sweet or hot to cold.
From there, we made another beautiful drive from downtown through turny hills up to Lake Travis Zipline Adventures, where I ziplined 2800 feet over the slightly dried up lake. My tour guides were outgoing, sarcastic, and at sometimes inappropriate! I’m not sure if I got lucky, or if the personality of Austin rubs off on all its travelers, but every member of the group, from all over the nation, added to the humorous and adrenaline pumping memory.
After three hours of zip lining and a little hiking, we made a stop at the Oasis, looking over Lake Travis for a drink. The Oasis is said to fit up to 4,000 people, and after seeing it there was no doubt that that was a fact. It caught on fire about 10 years ago after being struck by lightning, and since then has grown bigger attracting tons of people to look over the lake at sunset. Oddly enough, the food isn’t said to be very delightful, but the drinks and view make up for it. Unfortunately we were too early to watch the sunset, but we ordered nachos, which I have to say wasn’t anything special compared to the other Tex Mex I had, and drinks.
We didn’t get to test out a full meal because we had a reservation back in the city at Shady Grove.
Although there wasn’t a beautiful view over a lake at sunset, Shady Grove was much more appetizing and the setting was to be expected in Austin. The outdoor seating is centered around a large tree and offers an outdoor bar, a fire pit, a trailer bathroom and a projector in the tree that played a movie almost like a drive-in. I ordered a sandwich called “Hippie Chick” that had eggplant, mushrooms, bell peppers, avocado, squash and chicken. Loaded with multiple flavors and colors, it was hands down my favorite thing to eat the entire trip.
“If you look around there’s such a large mix of people: different age, race, styles… It’s fascinating,” my mom whispered to me as she examined each table.
It wasn’t until the second day that I got to walk the city. We spent most of the morning shopping and trying unheard of items from food trucks on Congress Avenue. Besides the American Apparel, the rest of the shopping on Congress was boutiques each sporting a different type of fashion and markets with items imported from all over the world, as if the city couldn’t get any more diverse. Aside from the absence of brand names, there were very few chain restaurants or stores.
“I like that there’s very little fast food like McDonalds or Whataburger; been there, done that, you know?” my uncle said on the second day after seeing our first fast food restaurant in the city.
After shopping we made quick stops at some tourist attractions including Mt. Bonnell which offered an amazing view of the city and the Cathedral of Junk, located in a backyard in the middle of a neighborhood. The cathedral’s weirdness was no surprise after seeing the rest of the city, but rather interesting. We also walked down the beloved 6th street, strictly reserved for bars and nightlife, but only before happy hour. We finished off the day with an seafood dinner at Pearls and a banana strawberry crepe from a crepe food truck.
Overall, my favorite thing about the city was how comfortable I felt. Besides the materialism, Austin was a lot like New York in the sense that there’s no “not fitting in” because everyone is so open-minded and unique in their style that no matter how simple or flashy you are, you can easily keep Austin weird and fit in as a local.