I had splurged on a flight into Texas as I was heartily sick of extended train and bus journeys - I think I have managed to use every mode of transport available in this country with the exception of a Segway, and those tours are crazy expensive! Whilst saving me a fair bit of time it's also worth noting that Albuquerque airport = most confusing airport in the history of humankind. The architect needs to take a long look in the mirror! I arrived off the bus and started walking down past the arrivals gates, replete with signs pointing to luggage pick up. I got to the end of the concourse and there was nothing there, gazing back up to the end I had come from gave me no answers so I had to ask a random man walking past - he did look like an employee and had been on the bus so I was sure he'd know where to go. Sure enough he points at the doors I'd been walking past and tells me that the departure gates are upstairs, because obviously that's what everyone expects when there are no signs whatsoever suggesting that that's where they were. So off I toddled inside and inside saw a little sign saying that check in was upstairs. Thus, I go upstairs, up two sets of elevators then find a sign saying ticketed passengers only past this point - useful. I had to go back downstairs and look for the other tiny sign that says Southwestern airlines check in and eventually checked in and found my way to the departure gate. What a farce! I'll say this though, the décor was truly lovely.

Arrival in Austin was easy, bus straight down to pretty much where the hostel was so, dragging a little Japanese girl along with me who was staying at the hostel too and looked extremely lost, I confidently made my way down towards where the directions I'd written down told me to go. I was slightly concerned when it seemed we were walking through a building site but all was well and the hostel was just at the end of a road having loads of work being done - although it would have been nice to be told that on the website or something.

My time in Austin can be pretty succinctly put as such: Longhorns, cowboy boots, buses, mosquitoes, humidity, Jagerbombs, Deloitte, buses, dueling pianos, bats, country music, BBQ, sign language, barcades, buses, outdoor pools, rain and jaywalking.

You may have noticed that buses feature heavily on my list, probably because I spent half my time on them getting round and about, it's one thing I've been quite impressed with in some cities in the US, they have cheap city transport - day tickets ranging from $2 to $5 and taking you out to the back end of beyond if you really want. That's not to say that some aren't the most irritating services ever - Phoenix's once a half hour springs to mind - but by and large I've been really pleasantly surprised at how regularly they have run, and how late.

Anyway, back to Austin. Once in my room I got chatting to a couple of Australian girls who had been travelling together for a few weeks, and were just going to the greyhound station to drop one of them off. I'd mentioned that I wanted some proper BBQ so I was invited along to find some food after we'd dropped her off. Embarrassingly I can only remember the name of the girl who we dropped at the station, Candice, and even then only because it isn't a regular name, maybe the other name will come to me! Anyway we dropped Candice off, and that greyhound is bloody hard work to get to, we took two wrong turnings since US highways are mental and don't really have many signs telling you which way to go, they loop back on each other, turn into one way streets and just generally make you feel like you're in a labyrinth! Eventually Candice was dropped off and we went to find some BBQ. Now I'd marked a few places on a map so we parked the car and started walking; little did we know that the maps we'd been given didn't tell us that the blocks in Austin are apparently a mile long each (or at least so it seemed) and we got about halfway to Sam's BBQ before realizing we would run out of parking time and should probably walk back, pick the car up and drive over. On the walk back we picked up a smoothie from a vegan organic van thing, me feeling a bit guilty as I squished a mosquito on my leg as it was trying to get a tasty meal - I don't think the vendor appreciated me shouting 'ha, dead' as I crushed it to death mid bite. Hopefully he didn't spit in my smoothie.

Back to the car it was a 5 minute drive down to Sam's, the neighbourhood getting slightly more dilapidated and creepy as we got further into the residential area. However as I had got the address for this place from the hostel, in a recommended food folder, I was confident that we were going to get out alive. We parked up and made our way through the door…to be confronted by a room full of African Americans looking at us like we were aliens coming through the door. It was a little unnerving but once we'd ordered our food - ½ lb of BBQ ribs for $6, mental - served by a quizzically faced man who obviously wondered if we realised which part of town we were in, we sat down to chow down. Well, the slight nervousness regarding our surroundings was worth it because it was absolutely delicious, and as man vs food was on TV we shared a few jokes with the other people there so it all turned out right in the end. Regardless once we'd finished we skedaddled out of there, no point in overstaying a welcome, and went back to the hostel to get ready to go for a few drinks in Austin.

Three of us went out in Austin that night, myself, unnamed Australian girl who I really need to remember the name of, and a girl from New Jersey called Jolie. We went to 6th street, the hub of the activity and began in a dueling piano bar, my kind of place, with the exception of the drinks prices! If you've never been to one they are absolutely awesome, the pianists basically play whatever you ask for so we were treated to renditions of the Script, AC/DC, Bruce, Billy Joel, Queen, even an amazing version of Gangsta's Paradise whereby the man singing got up on top of the piano and was just generally hilarious. There was also a fair bit of country which I didn't really know but it was competent!

I could have stayed there all night but it seemed pointless to go to Austin, which styles itself the music capital of the US, and not see some other places. Thus it was we went to Shakespeares. Shakespeares had $5 jugs of vodka mixer, and that is not a clever way to start a night! We had fun there though, there were some guys there who were doing training with Deloitte and chatted to us for a bit, one of them was the team leader pretty much and bought us some drinks on his tab - for a change though he was married so it was nice to just have a decent conversation without feeling suspicious of motives and running away at the nearest opportunity! The night ended as most do, a little hazy but fond memories of dancing, laughing and generally have a fun time. I was amused in the morning when I awoke and looked at my camera to find the photos we'd taken in the 24 hour Walgreen's at the end of the road - we had decided Halloween was coming early and tried on the scary masks in the aisles. Brilliant.

Jolie and I were left alone by nameless girl the next day as she was driving North, so once we had slept off our hangovers we decided to visit Barton Springs, an outdoor pool just out of town which is fed by a freshwater spring. It was the perfect tonic to a couple of slightly tender ladies! It wasn't heated mind so the first dunk underwater was pretty shocking to the system. I was also a little freaked out by the weed in the pool - as it's natural all the floor is all covered in algae and slippery, and the fronds of weeds creepily tickle your feet as your swim along - ewwww. Once we had sufficiently recovered and lazed in the sun for a bit we went up to South Congress, where all the university students hang out and where there are loads of little boutiques and cafes. Whilst up there we visited what was the best fancy dress shop I have ever seen - it put sequins to shame. This shop was a veritable wonderland and was packed to the rafters with pretty much any costume you could think of. Truly costume heaven - I've never seen anything like it, and it was full of customers and had about 6 people working there, Americans evidently love their fancy dress parties. Whilst up there I experienced the ultimate Texan mecca - a full on cowboy boot shop. I was *this close* to buying some, but at $500 a pair they were slightly out of my price range. You've never seen so many and they are so intricately decorated, you can even get college boots with the logo of your college team embroidered on. Insanity, they really go mad for it. All you ever see and hear about is longhorns this and longhorns that - they put our sport fans to shame. Afterwards we went for a nacho snack and some dollar margaritas. Yes, a whole dollar. Never thought I'd see the day when alcohol was cheap in a bar here!

Apart from the nightlife and the pool there is only one other thing to do in Austin - see the bats. Yes I said bats - luckily Ace Ventura wasn't there to freak out. Congress Bridge in the city is home to 1.5 million Mexican long eared bats who come out of their roost at dusk every day between March and November (when they go home to Mexico) to go feed on all the nasty mosquitoes and other things that like to chew on my legs. My new best friends! Anyway Jolie and I were hanging around on the bridge with a fair few other people when a man with a cap that he had stuck a cuddly bat toy on started waving at us across the road. Turns out he was telling us to cross over as the bats came out on the other side. I mean if you can't trust a man with a bat hat who can you trust - he obviously had the insider goss. Jolie being a native New Jersey-ite is used to the mad roads of NYC so proceeded to walk out into the road holding out her hand convinced it would stop the drivers driving over the bridge. I was skeptical but it seemed to half work, one or two stopped and we got over in one piece! I should say at this point that I had been concerned about Jolie's road crossing skills for some time as she had a tendency to ignore the green man signs and start walking across - fine sometimes but at other times it was a bit hairy.

We hung around on the bridge for probably about 15 minutes, in the duration being 'spoken' to by a deaf man, in as much as you can be spoken to a deaf person, who was thrilled to find Jolie 'spoke' sign, I think it made his day, he seemed very happy someone could understand him. We got some badges from him, he was the literal batman, he loved them, so I got a souvenir with a nice little story behind it. When the bats eventually arrived it was a bit mental in truth, all of a sudden maybe ten or twenty burst out from underneath the bridge, and, as the sun is setting by this time, you see little shadows flitting by, and then a huge wave of them just erupts from below, all wheeling in what seems a predetermined pattern; weaving in and out of the bridge supports before shooting out over across the trees to find some chow, their little silhouettes against the dusk sky. When they get out into the sky it's like watching starlings in flight, swooping and swirling in a big mass over to the distance. It was an impressive sight, but as there are so many of them it takes ages for them all to leave so after twenty minutes we decided we were getting cold and moved down back onto 6th street.

Sadly I had a pretty early bus the next day over to Houston so it wasn't a heavy night (I say sadly, I think my liver was pretty happy about it) but we still managed to visit potentially the best invention since sliced bread. The barcade. It's got a ridiculously clever name, and it speaks for itself really. A bar, with free arcade games. AMAZING. I sucked at pacman but was a little better at the shooting game, although when you have unlimited plays you can die as much as you want so I probably wasn't as good as I thought. There was also mortal combat, some driving game which was a hell of a laugh, and other stuff. Generally just an awesome place to be - the only thing it was missing was the dance game with the arrows! Our last stop was a real cowboy bar, where Jolie had a hilarious go on the mechanical bull, but due to wearing a dress I did not partake, I'm not flashing my knickers to a whole bar, well, not sober anyway! So ended my tour of Austin, a brilliant city and one I'd definitely return to had I the chance - the worst part was leaving!

Becca