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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Half Price Books- Central

There are a bunch of Half Price Books locations in the Austin area. Our goal is to get to at least 3 of them this weekend, since everything is an additional 20% off for Labor Day weekend. So... get ready for incessant posts about Half Price!

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Monday Movie & Margarita night at the Belmont

Ok so I already blogged about the Belmont on Chowing in Austin, but I feel like I should also cover it here since it's a food and an activity. Anyway, every Monday evening at the Belmont you can see a movie on a screen on their outdoor patio, while drinking $2 margaritas. This Monday we saw Airplane! there. It was hilarious. I had never seen it before, and apparently everyone else has, so I was glad to finally get to see it. Check the Belmont's events page to see upcoming Monday movies, as well as their live music schedule. Last summer we saw a jazz band on their patio, and we definitely recommend that too.

Tables on their patio, and the movie screen. We got there early, the movie doesn't start until sundown. You can kinda see Ryan's back at that table up near the front.

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Concert in the Park 2008

This summer, the free Sunday evening concerts relocated to the grassy area in front of the performing arts center. The new location is great, the music carries well and the center really provides a nice backdrop.

The sun setting to our right:
Some little kids dancing at the front:

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Hot Sauce Festival 2008

Every year, the Austin Chronicle hosts a hot sauce festival. There are hot sauce contests for commercial hot sauce and amateur hot sauce makers, as well as tons of booths where you can sample locally made hot sauce and salsa. And of course, there's live music throughout the day. The charge for admission is a donation of 3 canned goods for the food bank.

Some of the booths for hot sauce sampling:

We were only there for the last couple hours of the festival, so we only saw one band. Luckily it was a really good band.
I don't think people were crying because this brand of hot sauce was so hot, they were crying because clowns are freaking scary!!!!!

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Shopping on Guadalupe

From around 21st to 27th on Guadalupe, there's a strip of stores and restaurants across from the UT campus. Some are chain stores like Urban Outfitters and Jamba Juice, others are unique. It's a great spot to go for lunch and shopping.
There are a couple of nice murals along the way. There's also a Scientology Center, so if you're easily brainwashed you might want to cross to the other side of the street when you see it.

intellectual property

The bookstore "intellectual property," in the strip of stores across from UT, lures you inside with the artwork all over the outside of the store.

I mean come on, Johnny Cash and the Virgin Mary? How can you not want to take a peek inside?
It's a big bookstore with a bunch of different sections. It's pretty much impossible to buy a book from a regularly priced bookstore when you're aware of the existence of Half Price Books, but it's still fun to browse around in a silly list price bookstore.
High ceilings, quotes written on a skinny strip of blackboard above the windows.

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San Marcos Outlets

The San Marcos outlet mall is huge. It's designed to make you feel like you're in Italy.. a sort of Vegas-y, Texas version of Italy. You can find the Gap, Neiman Marcus, and everything in between here. Most of the stores really do have cheap, extremely marked down outlet prices, which is fantastic. However, a few stores seem to not know the meaning of "outlet." If the discount is only 10%, or if you don't even tell us what the discount is on the tag so we can get psyched about the major deal we're getting, that's not outlet.

The mall is all outdoors, so it doesn't induce fits of anger and aggression the way indoor malls do.

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Austin Museum of Art (downtown location)

The downtown AMOA is all modern art, with a permanent collection and rotating new exhibits. I don't have much to say about it, because I've never been much of a fan of modern art. If you're into modern art, you must check it out, and if not, head straight to The Blanton Museum of Art instead (which we'll hopefully blog about soon).

By the way, photography is not allowed, which I learned after taking the photo above. Go figure. I was allowed to take photos at the Louvre.

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Beauty and the Beast in the park 2008

The Zilker Park theatre hosts a free performance every summer, with performances every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. This summer was Beauty and the Beast, the musical. It was quite entertaining. We went on a Sunday and it was packed- so don't get there too late (the performance starts at the beginning of sunset) and bring your own chairs/blankets as well as something to snack on.

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Blue Lapis Light

Blue Lapis light is an arial dance company. Every year, they put on an amazing arial dance show at a different location in Austin. This year their dance took place at the federal buildings downtown. Even if you don't like dance, Blue Lapis is a must. The dancers spin and twirl many stories off the ground. It's breathtaking and a little scary. The dancers are all rigged up to wires, but there are no nets below.

No photos were allowed when we went to see the performance, so I had to dig around online and steal one. Check their website if you're interested in arial dance classes, or to watch for the date and location of their next performance, which will probably happen next summer.


Here's a video clip of a performance:

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