San Antonio is only about an hour's drive from Austin. The two cities are close enough to share the same heat index (over 100 degrees every day I was in either city!). But in terms of cultural climate, they feel many more miles apart.
San Antonio River
Horse and buggy beside the Alamo, San Antonio
San Antonio is the 2nd largest city in Texas (Austin is 4th), and the state's tourism capital. The city bleeds tourism the way the Texas sky bleeds heat. It's almost as if Austin had said to its neighbor in a deal made long ago, "We get the university and government, you get the amusement parks." San Antonio has a Six Flags, a SeaWorld, a Tower of the Americas (left over from the 1968 World's Fair) with a revolving restaurant and "4-D film ride," and some sort of hybrid Ripley's Believe It Or Not/Tussaud's Wax Museum/Tomb Raider/Guinness Book of World Records/Buckhorn Saloon entertainment complex, which has a very ill-fitting location right across the street from San Antonio's most famous landmark, the Alamo.
The Alamo
Monument honoring heroes of the Alamo
The sight of the Alamo, a 250+-year-old structure that began as a Catholic mission built by the Spanish, now surrounded by tourist shops hawking clothing that changes color in the sun and theme parks featuring a mechanized "World's Tallest Man" and wax statues of Tiger Woods and Sarah Jessica Parker, makes for an unintentional weirdness that even Austin couldn't hope to achieve. San Antonio manages to blend American kitsch and American history like no other city in the U.S. I've been to--and it has both in abundance.
Parisian Stetsons for sale in San Antonio
Menger Hotel in San Antonio. Teddy Roosevelt recruited his Rough Riders here
Longhorns
The author O. Henry's house in downtown San Antonio--closed and forgotten among the theme parks
The Alamo is only one of many historical buildings in San Antonio, and one of many with religious significance. Along with the fact that the Alamo was built as a mission to educate local American Indians who had been converted to Christianity, today the Alamo is referred to as the "Shrine of Texas Liberty." They take this "shrine" notion seriously--although the Alamo is free to visit, inside you are not allowed to take pictures nor touch the walls of the "shrine." You can purchase Coca-Cola there though.
In front of the Alamo shrine
Behind the Alamo shrine
I admit the Alamo's importance as a battle site confuses me a little--I have never been very good at understanding military strategy or battle lore. But for the sake of authenticity alone, I'm glad Texas has preserved the structure and treasures it.
View of Alamo plaza from Hotel Indigo
Also right in the heart of downtown San Antonio is the San Fernando Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in the United States, built in 1738. It's a beautiful church, with a lovely plaza in front of it that steps down to the Riverwalk (more on that soon). The plaza is the site of a weekly farmer's market and features fountains that shoot up out of the ground. The church meanwhile has a connection to the Alamo, as just inside the cathedral is the burial tomb of Alamo heroes Davy Crockett, William Travis, and Jim Bowie. Just in front of the cathedral is a statue of St. Anthony of Padua, for whom San Antonio was named by Spanish explorers who stumbled upon the original American Indian settlement there in 1691 on June 13th, St. Anthony's feast day.
San Fernando Cathedral
St. Anthony of Padua, patron saint of the lost
Along with the mission that became the Alamo, the Spanish settlers founded several other missions in the early days of San Antonio. Four of them make up the "Mission Trail." I visited two: Mission San Jose and Mission Concepcion. Mission San Jose is the larger of the two and the most complete, but I liked Mission Concepcion better. I found it prettier and a more tranquil setting--maybe the sound of music my friend and I heard just outside the chapel when we walked up to it, where a group of religious women were singing, set this feeling for me. Meanwhile San Jose has a more military compound look to it, with walls all around it that contained little rooms where the Native Americans who were being converted and used as labor there stayed. My friend and I popped our head into one of the little rooms to see just what "Indian quarters" looked like. The Coca-Cola vending machine we found inside (along with the ones at the Alamo) shows these Indian quarters were decked out with some real high-tech amenities for their time.
Mission San Jose
Mission Concepcion
Inside Mission Concepcion
On the wall are original frescoes of the old mission
Back in downtown San Antonio, one of the city's more modern impressive constructs (one where a Coke machine wouldn't look so out of place) is the Riverwalk, an extensive series of walkways that winds for miles at river level and connects all sorts of shops, restaurants, museums, hotels, and entertainment venues.
The lovely Riverwalk
The San Antonio River runs through the city. It's a narrow and relatively non-threatening-looking river today, but in the 1920s it flooded with a loss of over 50 lives. The Riverwalk that exists now was born after the big flood out of a plan that combined flood control and commercial development. A major part of the original development was funded through the Works Project Administration after the Depression. Since the initial plan the Riverwalk just keeps getting extended with more plans under way.
The San Antonio Riverwalk really is an amazing urban achievement. It's kept very clean and has been given all kinds of artistic touches like colorful mosaics and carved poetic sayings. (My favorite is: "Like life, como la vida, I have made adjustments bending here and there continuamente.") There are boats that serve as water taxis along the river, as well as boats that give reasonable and genuinely interesting tours about the Riverwalk.
On a tour boat on the Riverwalk
Mosaic along the Riverwalk
You'll find almost anything along the Riverwalk--from old dime stores selling coonskin caps and pink cowboy hats to old men balancing exotic birds on their heads.
Me, turned Texan
The Birdman of San Antonio
I admit I found parts of the Riverwalk a bit heavy on chain and theme restaurants, but keep your eyes open for local gems and you'll spot 'em. On our boat tour of the river, a black-wrought-iron-laced balcony that looked straight out of New Orleans' French Quarter caught my eye and I marked the name of the place: the Esquire Tavern. That night while flipping through a local magazine, what did I find but an article about the Esquire--a genuine old watering hole that boasts the longest bar in Texas and was just re-opened after a long decline forced its shutdown a few years ago. My friend and I sat outside on the fancy black balcony overlooking the river and ate from a selection of appetizers (fried pickles, chili fries, deviled eggs with pink peppercorns, and tacos con papas) while drinking French 75s (gin, lemon juice, sugar, and champagne). "Why haven't we discovered French 75s in Chicago?" I asked after my 2nd one--out loud? to my friend? to the river? who can remember? who cares? another pink deviled egg? Don't mind if I do.
Seargeant Whiskers inside the Esquire Tavern
I think my favorite experience in San Antonio was this: At La Villita Ampitheater, a section of the Riverwalk for outdoor shows, we stumbled across one of the city's Juneteenth celebrations. Juneteenth is a Texas holiday honoring the state's African Americans and the end of slavery in the state after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865. It's celebrated every year on June 19th, and while many states now have Juneteenth festivities, the holiday originated in Texas. On the San Antonio Riverwalk, this year's Juneteenth celebration featured a radio station hosting some mighty, mighty good jazz. It was such a good way to cap off the evening. The teenage trumpeter and saxophonist were amazing. Little night lights were twinkling on the bridges and Riverwalk paths. The wind had picked up and was cooling off the hot Texas air...
La Villita Amphitheater
Jazz band setting up for Juneteenth on the Riverwalk. The 5 bells represent the 5 missions in San Antonio
Remember the Alamo, the saying goes. I don't know if I'll remember the Alamo in years to come...or the place with the "World's Tallest Man." I'll remember the jazz and the Riverwalk lights though at my first Juneteenth.
Downtown Austin, Texas--taken from Congress St. bridge
We all have dreams about places where we'd like to go. And we all have dreams about places where we'd like to live. For some the dream is the same whether you're talking about just visiting or staying. For others, like me, we have different dream places in mind. I dream of someday going to Iceland, Fiji, South Africa, Norway, Morocco, Brazil, and so on--but I don't think I would ever be able to live in any of those places. (Won't know for sure until I get there though!) As for living, for awhile now I've been dreaming of Austin, the capital of Texas. Austin because its winters are warm where Chicago's are brutal and neverending. Austin because it's relaxed and relatively safe where Chicago is rough around the edges. And Austin because it's weird where Chicago, as cultured, diverse, and exciting a city as it is, is sometimes too Midwestern for its own good.
Kayakers on Town Lake in Austin. Yes, it does look like a river.
Motel in SoCo
I'm not the only one with Austin-livin' fantasies. Sometime in the last decade or so, word of Austin's awesomeness got out and it became the 2nd fastest-growing city in Texas, which in turn was last decade's fastest-growing state in the country. Job growth in Austin has been high and unemployment low compared to the rest of the U.S., and many students who move to Austin to attend the University of Texas campus there stay on and settle in the city rather than moving on after graduating. For musicians and music lovers, Austin's reputation as "the live music capital of the world" is a big draw--in this town, genuine talent trumps the manufactured glitz favored by Nashville and LA.
Mudphonic playing at the Continental Club in SoCo
The Derailers playing at the Broken Spoke
Two-steppin' at the Broken Spoke
George Strait asking me to dance at the Broken Spoke
Local dude singin' and strummin' the night away in SoCo
Meanwhile, Austin people know their city is cool. I've been there twice now--once in late 2008 when I was traveling solo around the southern and southwestern states by Greyhound and again just a few days ago with a friend. Both times I met locals (born that way or blow-ins) who just assumed that I was visiting the city with a notion to move there, with no hints from me. They see it all the time. And in classic cool, laid-back Austin fashion, they were friendly about it too. No hostile hipster vibes. It's certainly in the city's favor.
Welcome to Texas!
Welcome to Austin!
Then there's the weirdness factor. "Keep Austin Weird" the saying goes--on T-shirts, bumper stickers, postcards, babies' onesies, and beer can koozies. It's a slogan that is said to have been coined in earnest by a couple locals who wanted to champion Austin's high tolerance for eccentricity in the face of growing commercialism and conformity. Ironically, the slogan was trademarked in 2003 by some company that now markets Austin's quirkiness on everything from baby clothing to trucker hats. Because there's no more unconventional a figure in American culture than a toddler or a truck driver, I guess.
So how weird is this town? I'm sure I didn't see enough of it or spend enough time there to really say. But from what I have seen, Austin's weirdness seems to comes in layers or pockets, the way other cities' diversity comes in the form of ethnic neighborhoods or history comes in the form of well-kept pedestrian-only historical districts with tourist trolley stops. There's a wonderfully thick layer of Charmingly Weird Austin or Cutely Weird Austin:
There's Culinary Weird Austin (I could post a thousand examples):
Would you like some pigeon food with your gigantic sno-cone?
Meat served in a tortilla cone...out of a trailer in SoCo
There's UnCategorizably Weird Austin:
More cowbell, less dead mounted animals, please
There's Random Displays of Intellectual Obsessions Weird Austin:
Ode to late-19th-century French poetry, in sidewalk on Blanco Street
And there's even Airport Weird Austin:
Baggage claim area in Austin Airport--with oversized decorated guitars
Janis Joplin guitar at Austin Airport baggage claim. Janis began her career in Austin
Apart from the multiple dimensions of weirdness, there's definitely a layer of "Normal Austin." This is a pretty city, which is something I usually don't say about cities that sprawl a la LA or Phoenix. Austin has a cleaner and much better planned look to it. Its State Capitol building, right in downtown, is truly beautiful and worth a look inside and out. Portraits of every former Texas governor (even ol' W) and president (when Texas was a republic) line the walls beneath the capitol dome, and the lawn of the capitol building is marked with fountains and statues depicting notable scenes in the state's history. And while Texas' capitol building is modeled after the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., the Texas dome is said to be larger--because of course everything's bigger in Texas.
State Capitol building in downtown Austin
Looking up at dome inside State Capitol building
Who's this? Someone's portrait on the wall of former Texas governors
Ann Richards, former Texas governor, genuine steel magnolia
State Capitol lawn and downtown Austin
On the State Capitol lawn
Along with the State Capitol, Austin has the lovely UT campus, some good museums of contemporary and Mexican art, lots and lots of parks and green space, and the Town Lake with opportunities for canoeing (like my friend and I did, at Zilker Park, where we were forewarned not to take pictures of any celebrities???), kayaking, swimming, tripping off a rock into the water (like I did, near Barton Springs Pool--my friend really impressed me by not laughing).
My friend Liz, heading the canoe on Town Lake
Turtle family. Are these the celebrities we were told to ignore?
Me after canoeing
Austin also has plenty of the great Southern homes that I can never stop wishing I lived in--the kind with columns and a grand front porch with rocking chairs and gentle afternoon breezes. If you're looking to stay in one, right near downtown Austin, I recommend this one (the Brava House--friendly owners, good breakfasts, quiet setting, touches of traditional Austin quirkiness):
The lovely Brava House B&B
Brava House back patio
Genuine Texas armadillo, in a tree
Genuine Texas flamingos
Genuine Texas troll
Potted plant, Creature from the Black Lagoon action figure, and teaspoon--a classic Austin still-life
But back to weirdness. So what;s the weirdest thing I've seen in Austin? Is it the sight of someone walking a Vietnamese pot-bellied piglet down South Congress one evening? Or the cabbie with the serial killer laugh who drove us home from the Broken Spoke honky tonk? No...I'd say it was the Texas state flags used as "doors" for the stalls in the women's room at the Broken Spoke. I thought of taking a picture of this touching tribute to the Lone Star State, but decided against it--it would've been just too weird.
