Our car troubles forced us to push back the start of our 10 hour drive to Austin, and we ended up arriving around 10pm. The one hostel we could find in the area was booked, so we were forced to stay at whatever motel we could find. In this case it was the Travelodge Austin, ~$50 a night, and we certainly got what we paid for. The rooms weren't dirty, but they could've used some repairs: a bathroom door that didn't fully close, a toilet seat that wasn't actually attached, double beds with pillows that weren't the same size, and the list goes on. Aside from this we had more pressing things to worry about in the live music capital of the world: it was 11pm, which meant we only had about 3 hours to see all the live music we could. We promptly got unloaded our luggage and drove downtown to 6th street upon the recommendation of our friend John who went to UT Austin for undergrad.
Not many places were open and serving food at this hour except for Hoek's Death Metal Pizza, which was our first stop. It was just like the named described: a dive bar with cheap beers, hot fresh pizza (which was surprisingly good), and a loud stereo system. You can enjoy your pizza and beer while having your face melted by some Slayer or whatever other bands you prefer to have your face broken with. If pizza and beer weren't your thing, there were other options. Signs on the wall indicated that they also sold “Death Metal Banana Nut Bread” and “Death Metal Bottled Water”. We stuck with the pizza and beer before heading further down 6th street.
We strolled up and down 6th street and could only find a few bars with live music. Most had guys standing outside advertising the night's drink specials. It was amusing to see bars trying to undercut each other. One place would have $2 shots, the next would have $1 shots, and a third would have $0.96 shots. Some would be cranking hip-hop with flashing lights etc., but there would be nobody inside. Eventually we found a pretty awesome blues trio at a bar called Friends. The guitarist had a technique reminiscent of Steevie Ray Vaughn, and they played some serious Texas blues. There we had some more tasty local brews, but are currently having trouble recalling their names for unknown reasons. All in all we were a little underwhelmed with the city, but it was a Wednesday night, and we were there by ourselves without a local friend present to take us around.
The next morning we took advantage of the complementary breakfast at our hotel, which was as delicious as you'd think a $50/night stay would be. Lunch however, was much more impressive. On the recommendation of our friend John, we stopped at Curras Grill for some delicious Tex-Mex. I had the veggie tamales, Andrew had vegan enchiladas, and Tibbe had the veggie taco plate with soy chorizo. The dishes were large enough for us to keep the leftovers for dinner later on.
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| Top: tamales, left: enchiladas, right: tacos |
It had been about 3000 miles since we left the northeast, so we stopped for an oil change before starting the 20 hour trek to San Diego from Austin.
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