I spent four days together with Adam in Austin, the capital of Texas. I was so lucky to meet Adam at the Couch Crash in Monterrey and decided to come with him to Austin after the long weekend in Mexico. Thus also my route was clear. So far I had been faced with the decision to continue my journey southeast, along the Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean to look for a crossing to Europe or to re-enter the U.S. and make my way to the east coast.
The first thing I did in Austin was visiting the Texas State Capitol together with Shah, another Couchsurfer. It is the parliament building of the Texas state legislature and houses the offices and plenary rooms of the House of Representatives and the Senate as well as the office of the state governor. With a height of 92.24 meters the building is higher than the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Inside you can attend free tours, unfortunately the tour guide spoke in an extremely strong (probably Texan) accent, which I could hardly understand.
From the Capitol I walked through Downtown Austin towards the new Central Public Library which was first opened in 2017. The building is located right next to the Colorado River (Attention! This is not the well-known Colorado River, which has its source in Colorado and flows into the Gulf of California after 2,333 km.). The Texan Colorado River still makes it to a length of 1,387 km. The library has a beautiful rooftop garden where outdoor lovers can enjoy all kinds of books. Furthermore there are a lot of reading rooms and group work rooms, which are also well used. A small part of the building is used for an art exhibition. When I visited there was a temporary exhibition of some abstract paintings and a showcase with Alebrijes, colourful Mexican mythical creatures. I spent some time walking along the bookshelves and inspecting different genres and titles. The selection here is extremely versatile. I found a whole shelf of books to look for a job, maybe I can use one of them in the near future.
I was so lucky that Adam had a nice bicycle he lent me so I could explore some parts of Austin riding around on bike. I explored the UT, the University of Texas, the fifth-largest university in the USA with more than 50,000 students. In addition to all the lecture halls, administrative facilities, libraries and sports stadiums, the campus is home to several museums.
Saint Mary's Cathedral is the cathedral parish of the Catholic Diocese of Austin. Construction of the new church was started in the 1870s and from then on until 2013 it
was reworked and restored several times.
On both sides along the Colorado River there are beautiful paths for pedestrians as well as cyclists enjoying the river flair. Several bridges cross the river, the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge is particularly well known due to its 1.5 million Mexican Free-tailed Bats which fly out every evening during summer around sunset. It is the world's largest urban bat colony under this bridge which feed up to 10 tons of insects every single night.
I continued my bicycle tour through town which can be explored perfectly well by bicycle, on foot and also public transport. In comparison to other American cities the buses run on a regular basis and do not take hours to get from point A to B. Austin turns, next to the Silicon Valley in California, more and more into a technology centre of the United States where every tech company wants to have an office. The city is therefore very popular and property prices are exploding.
One evening Adam took me to the Barton Springs Pool, a recreational outdoor swimming pool that is filled entirely with water from nearby natural springs. The pool lies within the channel of Barton Creek and is used for year-round swimming as its temperature is very constant. Next to the pool, where you have to pay entrance and can swim very well, you can also just relax in the water or on the waterfront a few feet downstream.
Austin is known for its high amount of live music events and bars. You can hit almost any bar in the evening and you'll find a band playing. Adam and I went to a couple of places in the city centre where we were able to listen to rock music as well as jazz. Furthermore we signed up for a sponsered event with free whiskey tasting and we joined two Couchsurfing meetups. There are two groups which meet up every week in Austin, a Spanish learners and conversation group and another group which just gathers at a bar each Thursday.
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