DAY 16/17 - Austin, Texas

We drove down Friday morning to Austin. They have this fun tradition of floating the river on a inner tube near San Marco. So we met up with Darrin, a close friend of Matt's, and right when we arrived we rented these tubes and floated down the river. It was real relaxing and the weather wasn't too hot, so we were happy. It was packed with people and took us more than three hours to get down, which is a really long time, but we enjoyed it a lot.

Austin is known to be hill country of Texas and the scenery sure is different than Houston or Dallas. The
terrain has more mountains and it's hard to distinguish it from any other place in the States except for the fact that it's 100 degrees every day here in the summer. Darrin took us to this local cafe which started our day perfectly. The University of Texas is the second largest university in the States and has close to 60,000 students enrolled every year. Now that school isn't in session there are a lot less people in town cause all the students are on break, but they say Austin is quite a party town anyhow.

Like any tourists we wanted to see a bit of the capital of Texas so we asked Matt to show us around. We went to this huge graffiti wall right next to the cafe, cause it has an interesting story. The Owner of the land permitted for anyone to come and spray graffiti art as a recognition that it isn't a crime. We took some pictures there and were off to see a bit of Austin. We drove around the grounds of the UT campus and then went to visit the state capital. Everything is Texas is big, the cars, food portions and especially the buildings. The architecture of the capital and the house of the representatives was quite admirable considering the fact they have session once every 2 years. We took a tour inside and got a glimpse of hour law making works in the south.

When we got back to the apartment we went to tan and chill by the pool which is part of the complex. Too bad life in Israel isn't as easy as here, but then again we are on vacation here so the grass is always greener.

We went out tonight for the last time this long weekend and had a blast. 6th street in Austin was packed for the celebrations and we really had a great time. It is a bit similar to Bourbon street in New Orleans but not as grungy and more high class to my feel.

Now back to Dallas to pack up and tomorrow morning we are off on the road again.