Austin has a thing for weird stuff. A museum even. But it's way down on 6th and I don't like it over there. Some bright day, maybe I'll go.
Here's a list of some Austinian things I thought were weird, but am kinda getting used to:
1. The traffic lights are all hung sigh ways ... not up and down. So Green is left not top ... Why would they do that?
2. Buildings smell a little moldy - the church building, the movie theater, the schools ... I know its the humidity and stuff ... but it makes me nervous.
3. The middle of the roads have trees and grass and little turning lane things every block or so, but no suicide lanes. Maybe a picture would clarify what I mean ... let me go play with google maps and Paint ... here's a song I'm trying to sing for my band while you wait. But I sing "good gravy" instead of "oh glory" - making it my own and such.
Got it?
4. The water tastes like butt which means there is no great pizza in Austin. I have tried 7 different places ... no good pizza I tell you.
5. The Highways. Oh Mama. You can't give each highway two names and expect me not to get confused. The One is MoPac. There are Toll roads which I evaded paying so far ... but I think they got my picture ... if so, it was my confused face. Then there are FM roads which I think stand for Farm to Market? And Ranch Roads and these little side highway roads which follow the highway and attach to the highway, but are separate ... my GPS, Daniel (he's another post for another time), calls them "slip roads," which I find very sexy.
6 Brilliant Bits of Inspiration:
It's funny that you are declaring Austin to be weird when in fact Austin has a little slogan about keeping Austin just that, weird. I love Austin. It's one of my favorite places I've ever been. Of course that would partially be because one of my best friends lives there, but also because I thought it was awesome with it's beautiful hills and weirdness. My assessment was that it was like Hollywood, only much cleaner. I thought the pizza was fine, although all the pizza I consumed was on 6th Street and my judgement of the pizza might have been clouded by the other, more liquidy things sold on 6th Street.
Those things in the middle of the road with the grass and trees are called medians, and you need to learn to get around without making left turns. When I was there my GPS told me "when possible, make a legal U Turn" quite often. You think that's weird, you should come to Michigan where you can't even make a left turn at a light! You have to turn right, then get in the left lane, then make a U Turn at a little turn out thing in the median. It's called a Michigan left, and that my friend is weird.
Those roads along the freeways are called "feeder roads." The highways in Houston, and most of Texas, and there are a lot of them since Texans love to spend tax dollars on road building instead of other things, are all the product of what we used to call "Aggie engineering." In other words, they are weird.
But don't take Austin to be representative of Texas. It's not. It's pretending to be California.
I like this post. It's like a travel post, but you've moved there.
I'm interested in whether you've been to the world's largest Whole Foods yet. (at least I'm told it's the world's largest, cuz it's on the site of the original founding store):
http://wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/lamar/
I am very overwhelmed by huge mega-stores, and well, the last time I went to WF here in Chicago, I was just shocked at some of the prices ($10 for some whole wheat cookies?!)
But I am still interested in your reaction to it.
Keep on explorin'
It's odd to move to a new place. I was so disoriented when we moved to Portland. I could never really figure out where I was. I have a REALLY good internal mapping system (used to be a City Planner for cripes sake) so being utterly LOST was so foreign and FREAKY to me. The grid system people, seriously, it works!
The street lights might be sideways to add an extra foot or two to the clearance so you can get a bigger truck or house under it.
I miss your blogs, Brandy. When will you come back?
Post a Comment