Barton Springs! Brrr... Refreshing

 This post is for Rina, my favorite and very missed voice teacher!

As promised, I made it to Barton Springs for a swim! This place was listed as one of the things you can do for affordably, which was indeed true at only $3 per person. The neat thing about this pool is that it is spring fed and the temperature is always at about 68 degrees.  This sounded perfect to me considering how Austin's average temperature had been over 100 since I arrived!

I ended up going for Labor Day and funnily enough, that was actually one of the colder days! No joke. There was a cool breeze and it must've been around the high 80s that day for a change. This temperature made me even more excited for a fun day and even prepared for the event by making my first pasta salad. It was supposed to be a neat picnic day.

Unfortunately, food is not allowed! Boo. It probably has something to do with the fact that there are endangered salamanders who live in the pool. That may seem kinda gross, but this was a natural pool, so what can you expect? There were also tons of greenery growing in it, so you get more of a "lake swimming" feel than pool. I think that was one of the coolest traits of the pool.

Even though I ended up having to sneak pieces of my food in my mouth when no one was looking, it was a super fun time. The sun was nicely shining down and once you jumped in the water, you can enjoy just how brisk (read: COOOOOLD!) it was. Very refreshing.

The best part about the whole thing was the people watching you get to do. I almost forgot that in Austin, it is perfectly legal to be topless. That's right. Topless. I definitely remembered this rule though after seeing some women take advantage. Who likes tan lines right? Haha!

In case you were wondering, no, I did not do as the locals did on that aspect. But I did go sunblock-less and paid for it the next few days! Ouch!

Austin Things

The last week and a half, I've been trying to get into some groove of life in Austin. Since I am still in search of a job (anyone need a social worker?), mostly getting in the groove consists of meeting fellow Austinites and spending time with them doing things Austin-y things. Honestly, I'm being facetious with that statement since after almost 4 weeks here, I am still not sure what an Austin-y thing to do is. Mostly, I categorize it as something that I am not able to do back home in the Northeast or something that relates to Austin being the Live Music Capital of the States.

So, the other weekend, I went out to do "Truck Things" with a new friend who just bought a truck. Not really sure what "truck things" are, but I found that it consists of off-roading and kicking up a lot of dust.

After our fun truck things, we cooled off in the river/lake. (Of course it was blazing hot that day... like every day!!!)

This past weekend was yet another Austin-y adventure. Friday night, I headed downtown to dirty 6th, to catch a Bluegrass/Blues-y rock band play on one of the rooftop bars. From there, I got a good view of the "owl" on the Frost Bank building. (Just disregard the two red lights in front of the owl building).

There was more music to be had on Sunday when we headed to Longs Center to watch some of the players from the Austin Symphony play string renditions of hits by Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson and Elton John. It's a good way to get some softcore classical music into the lives of your average citizen. We laid out some mats on the ground to enjoy some fruit, wine, good music and an amazing view of downtown.

So for sure, I am enjoying some of my time in this city. Still uncertain of my future down here, but as they say, try to appreciate the now and the time that you've been given. Maybe tomorrow everything will change and you'd regret not giving it a chance.