We visited Austin over a 3-day weekend, Friday to Sunday. I recorded a 30-minute voice memo about the trip and had ChatGPT create a blog-style summary.
Food and the City
Our Austin trip centered heavily around food. We started by trying Tex-Mex dishes at Papalote Tacos and Habanero Cafe. We ate huaraches, migas, and a papillon torta, none of which I had heard about. They were new dishes, which is cool, but a lot of it feels similar after trying out things. A lot of the dishes are meats with beans with avocado and tortillas – so it’s new, but is it really new? Maybe I have to try out a more extensive variety. It’s hard to tell the difference between classic Mexican food and the Tex-Mex tradition.
Next, we visited three Texas-style barbecue places: Rudy’s Bar-B-Q, Terry Black’s BBQ, and Loro Asian Smokehouse. Rudy’s and Terry Black’s were straightforward barbecue restaurants, and both were good. Loro offered Asian fusion dishes. The brisket rice bowl with fish sauce and the pork belly were examples where the fusion dishes were distinctive and not just marketing.
We spent time walking around the South Congress district and the west side of South Congress where Loro is located. We also walked briefly around the University of Texas (UT) Austin area. We did not spend time in downtown Austin. Based on riding the bus through downtown on Sunday afternoon, it did not seem particularly busy compared to South Congress or the UT area.
The city was surprisingly pedestrian-friendly for what I expected from a Texas city, but the fact that stoplight signal change would sometimes take upwards of 5 minutes and pedestrian crossing buttons were in odd places made me think that it’s still car-oriented, similar to Orange County.
Meeting People
One reason we chose Austin was to catch up with Moise, a close friend from Youngrak Church in Santiago. He drove over from Waco with his four daughters on his 7-passenger van to hang out Saturday afternoon together. We spent some time catching up in little tidbits of our lives. Christine asked more guided questions than I do and I learned quite a bit Moise’s life in the U.S.!
We talked a bit about ChatGPT’s “ghiblification” feature which has been popular online the past few days. I snapped a few photos of us together and sent him the ghibilified drawings. He said that for some reason it never quite worked well for him.
We chatted briefly with three people in the hotel hot tub. We talked with one couple about their recent trip to Torres del Paine. They visited in late January, and contrary to my initial online research, he said that there were no long lines outside the park! That’s promising.. interestingly, we also met someone at the church who was planning to travel to Chile / Patagonia / Argentina next year.
A man came join us at the hot tub and when I said that there was a Democratic Party gala at the hotel tonight, he got worked up and said that there was a “Hands Off” protest earlier today and that “Trump is a stupid, terrible man”. He went off on that a bit and then suddenly jumped to the ice-cold pool and started swimming there. We met quite a lot of people in the streets in Austin who resented both Trump and the dominance of the Republican Party in Texas. It was to be expected but this politics within the Texas triangle was a surprise for Christine.
Church in South Congress
We decided to go to Sunday service during our trip, and selected Austin New Church after asking ChatGPT to suggest affirming, progressive, not a bunch of white people, evangelical style worship churches reachable by foot or public transit. Although the congregation turned out to be almost all white.
The pastor had a very unique style, very brainy. He delivered the sermon while sitting where the guitarist usually sits, using the guitarist’s microphone and a music stand for notes. Very unusual for me. His delivery was casual and often followed branching thoughts rather than sticking with a core message. The sermon was often philosophical and emphasized the importance of letting go of hierarchies and expectations, using the story of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet as a reference point. The delivery involved many digressions and subpoints, and the structure was non-linear.
At the end of the sermon, after the main points were concluded, the pastor added a comment about “male and female energy” that had not been discussed earlier, instead of wrapping it up with a closing prayer. Flow-of-energy wise, it was quite strange.
In the beginning of his message, the pastor emphasized that his leadership team was made up entirely of women. The way this was presented felt slightly self-conscious. He also made occasional comments critical of Trump and conservative politics. It felt.. a bit strange.
I considered that as a white male from Texas, the pastor might feel a need to clarify his political views to preempt assumptions.
Hotel
We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Austin. The hotel was undergoing renovations. The main restaurant was closed, and food service was moved to the Regency Club Lounge on the top floor. The food selection there was limited and expensive.
Austin’s skyline included many blue-glass-covered buildings. Some buildings had unusual designs, including one that resembled Stark Tower from Iron Man and another that had a shape Christine compared to a flower and I thought looked like a robot’s head.
The outdoor pool and hot tub were recently renovated. The pool overlooked the river and Austin skyline. The pool water was cold even when the air temperature was 87°F. The hot tub was usable, but on Friday it was too sunny and hot, and on Saturday and Sunday it was colder outside.
There was a running and biking trail directly outside the hotel along the river. There were also multiple events happening at the hotel during the weekend: a college fraternity formal, the Travis County Democratic Party Gala with Governor J.B. Pritzker, a wedding, and the Statesman Capitol 10K run.
A key cost-saving strategy was to book only two hotel nights instead of three. We stayed Friday and Saturday night. On Sunday, we arranged a late checkout at 4 p.m. After checking out, we napped, walked around UT Austin, had dinner, and went directly to the airport for a late-night flight.
This approach saved the cost of a third hotel night and allowed us to sleep at home Sunday night. It was more comfortable than staying another night just to leave early Monday morning. We plan to continue using this approach when the city has suitable late-night flights available.
Flight Logistics
We flew Southwest Airlines using points. We initially booked 3 p.m. LAX to Austin and 9 p.m. Austin to Phoenix to LAX flights, but booked the WannaGetAway Plus fare, and changed the flight on the day of the trip. The flight cost 20,000 points roundtrip.
On the day of travel, we used the “Same-Day Change” feature of the WannaGetAway Plus fare to change to the flight time that we originally wanted. We changed to the 5pm flight successfully but found out you can only same-day change once per day. When trying to add a Companion Pass ticket after the change, the option was unavailable because the flight was full. So I called Southwest and they overrode the restriction and changed us to the 9pm non-stop and added the companion ticket to the reservation without any extra charge. Phew.
Both flights were on the 737 MAX 8 aircraft with the refurbished seats that had 60-watt USB-C ports. The outbound flight had new overhead bins designed for upright suitcase storage. The return flight had older bins requiring suitcases to be laid flat..
The return flight was slightly delayed but uneventful. We landed at LAX around 11:30pm and arrived home around 12:30 a.m.
Ground Transportation
The CapMetro Bus Line 20 runs every 15 minutes between Austin Airport and downtown. The bus stop was about half a block from the Hyatt Regency. This was a reliable and cheap way to get to and from the airport. Bus is cheap, $1.25 per ride and capped to $2.50 per day. We paid by loading the Umo Transit app for CapMetro.
Within the city, we used public buses for some trips. While Route 20 was reliable, other bus routes had less predictable schedules, sometimes departing earlier or later than posted. Also, the weather was rough! It was 87 degrees and very humid on Friday, and 45 degrees with rough winds on Sunday morning. It also rained on Saturday morning.
Because of this, we relied more on taxis within the city than originally planned. Overall, we kept transportation costs low by combining public transit and taxis.
Cost
Total out-of-pocket spending was about $550, split roughly evenly between food and local transportation. Flights and hotel costs were fully covered with points. We plan to take over a dozen weekend trips this year, and stick to a sub-$500 budget for each trip. This trip was in a sense an experiment to see whether this would be possible moving forward.
| Cost | Description |
|---|---|
| $20 + 20k points | Flight LAX-AUS Southwest + WGA+ Same-Day Change + Upgraded Boarding Credits |
| $0 + 30k points | Hyatt Regency Austin 2n |
| $280 | Food |
| $160 | LAX Airport Taxi |
| $60 | Taxi within Austin |
| $10 | Austin Bus & Austin Airport Bus |
| $10 | Sparkling water |
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