Location:

Austin, Texas
See pictures here
Date: March, 2004
Housing: Gloabl Freeloaders ($FREE!!) helped me meet Roy who put me up for a night on his comfortable futon. Thanks Roy!
Housing Info: Global Freeloaders is a free online service that is a cross between a ride board and Napster. It operates on the premise that if there are enough people willing to put others up for a night or two for free, than they themselves will be likely to have a place to stay when they travel. Great idea guys! Worked for me, and when I have an apt again you can be sure to find a free place to crash!
Summary: Go during one of the many festivals if you can.
Well, you may have some idea as to what Texas is like, but don't expect to find anything like Texas when you visit Austin. Austin is the exception to the rule in this conservative, BIG-EVERYTHING, extreme state that president Bush calls home. The city is the capitol, but I found it to be a very small city verging on town-sized. University of Texas - Austin (UT), is a huge university that is a favorite for partying, so the small city is strongly influenced by this enormous student population. Expect to find a liberal sensability, and see many cafes, second-hand clothing stores, and young people. The downtown is small (about 6 blocks by 3 blocks) and runs south of the impressive Texas-sized Capitol Building. North of teh Capitol Building is UT, and Guadalupe Street - the best shopping street in town. As soon as you leave any of these areas you are in residential communities. Yes, it's that small.

Tourist Areas to See: Downtown, Capitol Building, UT, Guadalupe St
Tourist Areas to Avoid: (wasn't there long enough to find any)
Surprises: (wasn't there long enough to find any)
Food: Restaurant tipping is always 15%-20%. The food in Austin, as it is in much of Texas and the southwest, has a strong focus on "Tex-Mex", or Sothwestern. This is the American version of Mexican food. Expect a large offering of a small variety, almost all using tortilla bread, rice, beans, and salsa in different shapes and with different meats. If you want to eat authentic local grub, go to the absolute best in Austin, Curras Grill at 614 East Oltorf St, and order the Mole dish!.

Grocery stores are common enough, but the bulk of the shopping to be found is in residential districts.

For that perfect night spot, go to the college student hang-out, Mojo's Daily Grind (or just Mojo's) on Guadalupe St. It's the best young-person's hang out in town. Yes they have coffee, but they serve up a mean breakfast too, and are open late serving beer, and drinks. Live music may turn out to be Drum 'n' Bass or an accoustic group. (I owe this insight to Roy who turned me on to the best places in town for my short stay. Thanks again Roy!)

Check out the cool, semi-modern Halcyon Coffeehouse as well.
Getting Around: The CMTA transit system here is SO easy to understand, and yet very thorough. You can catch the number 7 bus from the Greyhound station to go downtown. Otherwise take a look at the website od any of the handy signs posted at bus stops for a complete area map. A mere 50 cents gets you unlimted day rides!
Locals: As mentioned, this is a college town, so expect college students. It's also the capitol, so there a re many officials and suits wandering around. Mix this with the stong artistic community, and a fair share of homeless (the transvestite homeless man is famous in Austin) and you'll begin to get a sense of the kind of people in this mixed city. The southern mentality goes in Austin as well, so feel free to aproach strangers and ask for directions, and such. They're very friendly!
Climate: This is a Taxan city which means hot, dry summers, and comfortable, (though sometimes rainy) winters. While I was there, it was about 65 degrees, and overcast.
My Experience:
As I said, I only spent 2 days here. I got in some time in the afternoon, and went immediatly to Roy's house after figuring out which bus to take. Roy lives in a resedential neighborhood convenient to a corner store, gas station, and only a 5 minute drive to downtown, or tons of shopping areas. He is a computer programmer and is attending some classes at UT. He also seems to be into music, as he plays instruments, as do his roommate, and girlfriend, and in trying to find his e-mail address I discovered he was a DJ at a radio station (is that right Roy?). He has a few cats, and many video game systems (old Zelda!!!), and he actually owns the house. I just checked in with him at first to get out of his hair and explore.

I first went to Curra's Grill on his reccomendation. Wow! This place is great! It has REAL Mexican food like molêÂand real black beans! It was already busy and was clearly an institution from the looks of the well-used menus, old sign, and dated murals on the outside. The staff seemed to be local high school students, or family members.

Next I caught the bus to downtown and wandered the grid-like streets. I actually found many things closed (I think it was Sunday), but did find a great coffee shop with FREE internet access and a trendy atmosphere (Halcyon Coffeehouse). After an hour there I wandered up to the Capitol Building where I spent a great deal of time reading the history of Texas, and checking out pictures of Bush when he was Governor. The builfing is very nice, and worth seeing. It's completely open, and you're free to roam around and open any doors that aren't locked. After that I wandered up through UT which was pretty unremarkable. Many of the buildings in the area I was were cement. It runs a good length of Guadelupe St though, so I hopped over and grabbed a Jamba Juice and checked out the shopping. I saw a Borders so I dropped in to buy a book I needed. I indended to go to Las Vegas next if I could, so i wanted to read Bringing Down The House, which Amit has been telling me to read for ages. It's a true story of how 6 MIT students (MIT is a university in Boston for BRILLIANT math and science students), developed a genius sceme to count blackjack cards, and they took Vegas for millions of dollars. Anyway, I bought the book, and later read it on my way through Arizona on the bus.

After that, it was dark, so I made my way to Mojo's for some drinks, and decent music. I spent hours at Mojo's before heading back to Roy's house. By then Roy's roommate and girlfriend had come home, so we stayed up for a little while chatting. They were very insightful on how Austin was. I told them I was disapointed not to be seeing all my stereotypes of texas, and though they agreed with the stereotype for the most part, they explained how Austin was nothing like the rest of Texas. It turns out Roy had not signed up for Global Freeloaders because he too was a self-proclaimed treveller, but rather because his friend had done it, and had a great experience. He decided to give it a try and I was the first person to contact him (only days after he signed on with the service). I don't imagine I was the "great experience" he had hoped for, because I was only there for 1 night, and we weren't really able to chat too much. I had also only just started my trip, so i didn't have any really amazing travel stories. It's also possible there was a misunderstanding about something I said because the room went rather cold at some point. All in all, though, I imagine this was a typical Global Freeloaders experience, minus any wild adventure stories. Though all of us were night owls, we ended up going to bed on the early side. The next morning I left with Roy and caught my bus to the Greyhound station to buy my ticket. It didn't leave 'till late in the day, so I hung out at the mall across the street and waited out a rain storm.

And that was it. I told you I only spent a little while in Austin. I was off for San Francisco, which was a major change in plans. I was SUPPOSED to got to Vegas and then San Diego, but there were no busses to Vegas, and all the cheap flights to Maui were from San Francisco, not San Diego. I was beginning to worry about being able to catch a flight to Maui, so I decided to go to the most likely place and stay with my college (though we weren't actually friends until after college) friend Sierra. On the way, from Austin to SF Sierra became my savior, and found me a CHEAP flight while I was on the phone with her. THANK YOU SIERRA!!!