Weird Austin

I arrived in Austin 24 hours behind schedule due to cancellations and delays. I missed the opening reception for the conference and the few hours I had planned for some sightseeing. I still found some time to shoot a few pictures during my days in Austin.

One of the first things I saw when I arrived at the airport was t-shirts and mugs saying “Keep Austin Weird”. Later I observed these everywhere in the city and learned that this is a motto for the citizens of Austin. A really funny one was a company called “Weird Realty” where you can find apartments for rent in Austin – their motto is of course “Rent weird”!

Austin on the lake

One of the activities at the conference brought us on a boat on the lake in the middle of down town Austin. One of the largest colonies of bats in America lives in one of the bridges crossing the lake and every day at sun down they come out to hunt for food – 750 000 of them!

Bats!

After the conference was over I met with a couple of friends who live in Austin. Lynnea and Brian have their own company called “The Squid Ink Kollective“. They design clothing – mainly t-shirts and sell them through their online store. They took me to a weird restaurant for a delicious dinner. 🙂

That’s more or less what I had time for outside the conference programme. I hope to go back one day and spend some more time there. Maybe during the next South by South West music festival?