Austin: Sunday: UT Austin, Various Museums, Zilker Gardens, and more

Sunday was a busy day.

These pictures represent mostly everything I did this day, even if they lack the details.

I started early. At 9:00am, I started following the Fodor guidebook's walking/driving tour of the University of Texas at Austin. Here's the path I took, as recorded by my cell phone's GPS. (The long line in the northwest is when I began driving for lunch and forgot to turn off recording.) The Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum appeared early on the tour. It's about his life, his politics, and the times in which he lived. As I wasn't interested in it, I hadn't planned to visit it on this trip to Austin, but now I was at the building and entrance was free, so how could I resist?

The museum has a few neat sections. I liked the exhibit on gifts to the president from other countries: e.g., a Diego Riviera painting from Mexico, ceremonial swords from Morocco. I enjoyed looking at the items before reading the plaques and trying to guess what country gave them to the United States. What countries do you think gave an ivory tusk, an ornamental painted wooden mask, and a seat (for rulers) carried on poles? It's interesting to think about the criteria countries use in selecting their gifts. I imagine the person in charge of the country wants it to simultaneously reflect his personality, show that he knows what the president likes, reflect his country's culture and history, make a statement about how we wants his country viewed in the future, and do it all in a non-stereotypical and non-offensive way (e.g., don't make it reflect a history of slavery). It's not an easy decision.

I also enjoyed the joke-telling, animatronic, life-sized, realistic President Johnson. I had read guide books that made a big deal about the animatronic Johnson and I kind of sneered: oh gee, a mechanical animated figure, how exciting. But it was the highlight of the museum, making me glad I stopped by, and here's why: it re-told Johnson's jokes, and he's a funny guy. The emphasis in the guide books should've been on the humor value, not the fact that the jokes were told by an animatronic figure. I still remember the joke about hearing versus drinking.

Finally, I enjoyed the neat section profiling Lady Bird Johnson, and the section with large, pretty, luminous transparency photographs of the interior of the White House.

I spent thirty minutes, if that, at the museum.

I explored a bit more of U. T. Austin, mostly on foot, observed that the central part of the college felt like a campus, and then bailed to head to Fonda San Miguel, where I had a reservation for brunch. It was a short drive which, though through central Austin, felt suburban. Oaks were everywhere.

Fonda San Miguel served excellent, authentic Mexican food. The waiter explained how most dishes they serve are regional. For instance, the ceviche comes from somewhere on the west side of Mexico, the cochinita pibil comes from the Yucatan, the mole comes from central Mexico, the carne comes from northern Mexico (cattle country). I spent two-and-a-quarter hours at the restaurant, eventually trying 95% of the buffet, and there was only one dish that truly missed the mark. I could really taste the quality of the ingredients, especially the meats but also the freshness of the fruit as well. The service was similarly good. For instance, I was constantly supplied with hot tortillas (both flour and corn) and if I didn't use them for a while and they cooled, the waiter replaced them. When I left, I could barely walk.

After brunch, I returned to UT Austin to finish my tour of the campus and vicinity, walking this path. (Sorry, my cell phone GPS wasn't working, so I recorded this one manually on a web application.) While there, I picked up a map of sculptures on campus--possibly useful for Game clues. Near the end of my tour, I stopped by the Harry Ransom Center, a small exhibit hall. In addition to two special exhibits, it had on display a rare, full, first-edition Gutenberg bible (I saw another one recently in NYC), and the first photograph, which was printed on metal and so worn or damaged that I found it basically impossible to see. Luckily the signs nearby explained what it actually looked like.

One special exhibit traces the history and popularity of the Rubáiyát series of verses by Omar Khayyám. As I hadn't heard of these poems previously, the exhibit found it difficult to capture my attention. I learned the verses became popular after being translated into English by an amateur translator named FitzGerald. Borges wrote about the translation: "From the lucky conjunction of a Persian astronomer who ventures into poetry and an English eccentric who explored Spanish and Oriental texts without understanding them entirely emerges an extraordinary poet who resembles neither of them." The poems became very popular at the end of the nineteenth century, and were re-translated, re-printed, and parodied many times. The part of the exhibit I liked the most was a chart showing where and when various versions of the poems were published. It provided a neat visualization of how the poems spread around the world. I think it would fun to analyze the spread of other things (books, whatever).

The other exhibit was on the photographer Fritz Henle. Versatile, he photographs everything, including people and scenery, all reasonably well, though not necessarily great. He's especially good at composing shots of people against backgrounds.

I then walked to Texas State History Museum. It's a pretty good history museum, with lots of artifacts, documents, models, and pictures, and covering the period from the original Indian inhabitants of the land to the present day. I spent two hours there.

First, I explored an Ellis-Island-like special exhibit about immigration, which occurred predominately through the town of Galveston. Judging by the immigration maps, it served as a gateway to the midwest. I learned how railroads and businesses encouraged immigration by providing discounted railroad fares in exchange for living/building somewhere. I read interesting transcripts of interviews between immigration officials and immigrants. Lots of jews were rejected because the officials claimed their poor physique meant they were likely to become public charges.

I also watched a sound & effect show, Texas Spirit, about spirit/character. When I say sound & effect show, I mean that, for example, when the film talked about plagues of grasshoppers everywhere, "even in your hair," I felt a puff of air into my hair. Some audience members gasped or screamed. One point the film makes about Texas character is if someone says something can't be done, go ahead and do it. I now understand George Bush better.

The museum itself focused on the colonization of Texas and the many wars which involved Texas in the 1800s (the war for independence, war with the indians, war with mexico, the civil war). I saw the "come and take it" flag, one of the most verbally direct flags produced in recent times (longer history). I learned the location of the capital changed many times--6 times in 1836 alone--as Texas tried to survive its war for independence. The capital also switched locations a couple of times in the next decade as politicians fought over whether it should be Austin or Houston.

The museum didn't have much after 1876, the time of the most recent Texas constitution, or at least not much mention again of politics. It did cover ranching, segregation, movies, the Texas centennial, and products of the land (oil and agriculture).

After the museum, on the way to my next destination, I decided to detour and drive around the opulent historic Bremond Block. It's a bunch of nice houses mostly built in the later half of the nineteenth century by members of one family. I wouldn't have minded strolling the area if I had time to spare.

Also on the way to my next destination, I discovered that Barton Springs Road west of Lamar Boulevard has many good-looking restaurants with patios and stages, one after another.

My next destination was the Zilker Botanical Garden and especially its Japanese Garden. All the gardens are pleasant and lush. The Japanese one, filled with rocks, streams, bamboo groves, bridges, and a coi pond, is so photogenic that many couples were there getting pictures taken of them (likely to display at their wedding). I was a little nervous about time I had before the garden closed and wished I could've wandered the paths more slowly, perhaps while listening to an ipod. Still, worries aside, I got to see everything. Nevertheless, I did miss out on one thing: if I weren't in a hurry, this would've been a great place to take a self-portrait. As it is, I have no pictures of myself in Austin.

As I left the garden, I noticed the surrounding park, Zilker Metropolitan Park was a big park--at 351 acres, certainly too big to walk (and it's not designed for walking)--complete with all the standard facilities. Also, by taking a wrong turn, I discovered that some people have nice single-family homes practically next to the park.

In rapid-fire fashion, I swung by Mount Bonnell Park, the highest point in Austin, and Pennybacker Bridge / 360 bridge (on loop 360 highway). The latter, though famous for being a bridge where none of its support structures touch the water, I found pretty unexciting. It looks like a standard, simple, small bridge.

For dinner I headed to Casino El Camino, allegedly one of the best burger joints in Austin. The joint is a bar first, restaurant second. It's dark. There's loud rock music. Everyone gets IDed at the door. There are pool tables upstairs. One orders food through a window in the back. I sat in the patio out further back, the place where the "cleaner" crowd hung out; the grungier, harder-drinking crowd sat inside by the bar.

As for the food, the burger turned out to be a perfectly average, decent burger. (I would've preferred In-n-Out or, best yet, Chez Maman in San Francisco.) Especially given its quality, I was surprised and a bit disturbed by how easily I put away this supposedly three-quarters-of-a-pound burger. Admittedly, it had been nine hours since I had brunch, but brunch was enormously large.

And thus concluded my second full (thirteen to fourteen hour) day of exploring Austin. I was worried about the predicted thunderstorms, but none came. In fact, the weather was the same as the previous day.