Austin City Limits 2008

Yay! Another year, another festival! I can't believe we've been in Austin now for over a year. But here we are at our second ACL festival. This festival had boring headliners this year (Foo Fighers, Beck) compared to last year (Bob Dylan), although I guess it's unfair to compare anyone to Bob Dylan.

Austin City Limits is 3 days of live concerts on multiple stages in Zilker Park.

Note for 2009: press refresh on the ACL website constantly, starting in April, to get the cheap early bird tickets.

Manu Chao playing, with the city in the background:
The Raconteurs playing at sunset:
Some other highlights were David Byrne, the Black Keys, Beck, Foo Fighters, Allison Kraus & Robert Plant, Tegan & Sara, Gnarles Barkley, G. Love and Special Sauce, Blues Traveler, Erykah Badu, and Neko Case.

Don't come to the festival if you're agoraphobic!

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Stubb's

Stubb's BBQ is more than just a BBQ restaurant. First of all, they were recently rated best rock club in America by Rolling Stone magazine. They've got a ginormous outdoor area that serves as a live music venue. The last thing you expect in the middle of downtown Austin is a huge open outdoor space that fits a crowd of 2000+, but that's what you've got at Stubb's. Tons of different bands play here all year round, so keep an eye on their live music schedule.
We were at Stubb's to see Ani Difranco. Hey, I used to like her a lot in high school, ok? Ryan came along for fun and for the beer. Little bar/beer stall things line each side of the outdoor venue.

The stage:

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Barton Springs

Barton Springs is a natural cold springs turned popular swimming destination in Austin. It's different from typical pools or the beach in that you lay out on grass instead of sand or concrete, and there are lots of trees around for shade. Admission is $3 for adults, $1 for children.
Rock around one end of the pool:
The diving board is really popular. This is the one part of the pool deep enough for diving.


Fish sighting in the shallow part of the pool:

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Pecan Street Festival

The Pecan Street Festival is a huge yearly festival held every year on 6th street (cause 6th street used to be named Pecan Street). There are dozens upon dozens of booths-- crafts, artwork, food... you name it, there's a booth for it. There's also a lot of live music at the festival, and it's free!

Sorry for the glum photos, it was getting dark by the time we arrived.
Tommy Tutone!! Yeah- we had no idea that was the name of the band that sings the 80's megahit "Jenny"(867-5309). We definitely stood there through over an hour of Tommy Tutone's new music just so we could hear them perform Jenny.

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UT campus

The UT campus is a really nice campus. It's huge, has tons of trees, and is a great place for a weekend stroll.

Fountain with horses springing forth:

The economics building (Ryan's home away from home!)
Statue of MLK in a park-like area
A house? Who knows.

I love the style of roof-top you see on almost all of the buildings.

Ok... I think I'm going to file this post under "History." The school has gotta be somewhat old, right? And where else am I supposed to file it?

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Mexic-Arte Museum

Sunday was Austin Museum Day, which means all museums in Austin are free and have special events and exhibits. The free part isn't all that exciting since most of the museums are already either free or only a few dollars for admission. We managed to find the most expensive museum to go to on free day. The Mexic-Arte Museum, which is normally $5 for adults.
The Mexic-Arte museum has artwork, jewelry, furniture, and a bunch of historic artifacts like pots and small sculptures. They also play old Mexican films in the back of the museum. It's kinda cool, but we're glad we got to experience it for free.

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Arthouse at the Jones Center

So as I've said before, we're not really into modern art. We're trying though, we really are. The Arthouse is featuring an exhibit called "Reset/Play" about video games and stuff. Yes, the TV screen you see below is part of the exhibit. Some of the art is interactive, and you can actually play a video game. No, I'm serious. We mostly wandered around looking at the birthdates of the artists and trying to find an artist who was more than 5 years older than we are. Sad.

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Guitartown

You may be wondering why there are painted guitars all over town. Cause I have been. I looked around online, and apparently it's a public arts project called "Guitartown." I've seen some pretty interesting ones around town. Check out the website to find the locations of the guitars.

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Half Price Books- South

We're still trying to milk the 20% off weekend at Half Price Books. We only ended up making it to two locations this weekend- this one is the South Austin location.

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26 doors shopping center

Most of the stores in 26 doors shopping center were closed for labor day, but we figured we might as well take a stroll and see what the center was like since we were already there for gelato from Teo. It's a cute center, with a bunch of shops facing onto open squares.

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Art on 5th

Art on 5th is a huge art gallery on West 5th street. All of the art is for sale, so admission is free. Some are local artists, some are not. It's a great place to browse because it's usually pretty empty and there's a wide variety of art.
The highlight of this visit was the artwork by Dr. Seuss. If you grew up with Dr. Seuss, you'll love seeing some of his creations.

More of Dr. Seuss' art. The colorful cat was my favorite.
Some views of the other art in the gallery:


I was really impressed with these paintings of sunsets.

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IMAX theatre

Sunday night we went to see The Dark Knight at the IMAX theatre, which is at the Texas State History Museum. It was pretty intense to watch this movie on the massive screen, but very entertaining. To see what movies are showing when at IMAX, check their showtimes.

Front of the history museum:

A poster for the Dark Knight outside the theatre:
Inside the history museum:
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Batfest

Batfest is a yearly summer festival. In past years, it's been on Congress bridge, but this year it was on the 1st street bridge a few blocks away. Batfest has lots of live music, shops, art, food, and drinks, as well as some activities for kids. The festival lasts all day Saturday and Sunday, and admission is $5. FYI- if you want to actually see the bats, you have to go to Congress bridge, not 1st.

One of the stages:

View of some downtown buildings from the bridge:
Kids stuff:
Petting zoo:
Small kangaroo in the petting zoo (WTF?):
Second music stage:
Some of the shops:

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