Waking up
in a new city and seeing it in the daylight for the first time is always an interesting
experience, and in Austin that was no different. My first observation was of course how hot it
was, over 70 at 8am with all signs pointing for much higher temperatures the
rest of the day. But besides that it was
a lovely morning and we hit the streets in search of breakfast.
We began
by checking out area on one side of the campus which is called "the
drag" but apparently everything is closed on Sunday (whether this is a
southern thing or a college town thing I am not sure). Still hungry we made for the center of
downtown while dogging runners/walkers in a charity race going on that morning.
Walking
around Relay for Life we ended up in at the Driskill Hotel. This used to be the biggest building in the
city, and it was here the George W Bush awaited the results of the 2000 presidential
election. Not only that but we had a fantastic
breakfast in their café with a wonderful southern/southwestern
menu.
After
that, we found a fun little music shop to do some Christmas shopping and headed
down to the riverfront. When we got down
to the river front and its bridges which are the home to Austin’s famous bats! Since
it was morning and the winter there were none in evidence, but I had seen a few
of them the night before and saw rather impressive pictures of giant flocks (?)
of them around the city. This was what a
real river trail is supposed to look like, a nice well kept path with water on
one side, trees overhead and grass or plants on the other side. I can see why people like to go running,
biking and walking here, and many city residents were partaking this fine
morning.
Then we returned
to capital grounds to see the monuments in daylight and tour the capital
building. I knew that I would see some
veneration of the civil war and that cause, but I was not quite ready for how
far they would go. Just reading the
inscription on the statue is enough:
Next we
toured the capital, which once passing through security we could just wander
around into basically
any area besides private offices, a bit of a contrast
between the normal procedure I am used to for visiting government or historic buildings.
After
that it was time for a nice stroll through UT Austin campus to go visit the LBJ
Presidential Library and Museum Library which is on the far corner of campus (and
also where the LBJ School of Public Policy is located). I loved that the museum was free, it was well
organized and full of all kinds of useful and interesting information about one
of my political icons.
I had one
more thing planned for this already full day, and that was to meet up with an
old friend. As most of you know in high school
I was a senior teacher to a class of freshmen Model United Nations students. Over the years I have kept in touch with many
of “my freshmen” and have really enjoyed seeing them grow up and move onto
college. One of my freshmen Alina is now
an undergrad at UT Austin and was really excited for me to meet her friends and
explore her world. I met up with her and
a bunch of her friends and we had a lovely time at a crazy local restaurant called
Kerbey Lane eating pancakes. I have
never spent much time with Texans, and it was fun to see their perspective and
of course enjoy their accents for a bit!
After a fun dinner I left the freshmen to their studies and went
back to the hotel to prepare for the real reason for my trip, the open house at
the LBJ School.
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