You can participate in Thursday 13 by clicking HERE
- Austin's official slogan is Live Music Capital of the World and hosts events such as SXSW and Austin City Limits.
- Darrel K Royal - Texas Memorial Stadium (The University of Texas football stadium) seats over 101,000 people.
- Austin was settled by pioneers that originally named the village Waterloo. It was renamed after Stephen F. Austin who is considered to be the father of Texas.
- Austin is the headquarters of four Fortune 500 companies: Whole Foods Market, Freescale Semiconductor, Dell, and Forestar Group.
- The website, Ain't It Cool News is based in Austin and every year it's owner, Harry Knowles, hosts a Butt-Numb-A-Thon at the Alamo Drafthouse. The Butt-Numb-A-Thon is a 24 hour movie marathon where the first public screenings some movies are held (Lord of the Rings, V for Vendetta, and 300 are among the movies that had world premieres at this event).
- It has 11 sister cities.
- I have heard Austin/Travis County referred to as "The Blue Oasis" because it is fairly liberal and is surrounded by a sea of "Red" (conservative) counties.
- Residents of Austin are known as "Austinites".
- Austin is a very dog friendly city and is host to the annual event, Mighty Texas Dog Walk. In 2010, the walk broke the previous record held by England (10,272 dogs walked) by walking 11,256 dogs. My dog Max and I participated in this record breaking event! There also appears to be some controversy as England has posted that they walked 18,113 dogs in their Great North Dog Walk event.
- Austin is known as "Silicon Hills" because of the large number of high-tech companies that have offices in the city.
- The city is home to North America's largest urban bat population. 1.5 million Mexican Free-Tailed bats roost under the Congress Avenue Bridge from April to November.
- Austin is the 15th largest city in the United States (population: 735,000)
- The State Capitol building is 302 feet high and is made of "Sunset Red" granite.
(all pictures taken from Wikipedia)
Posts
10 comments:
Ah, that was interesting, too. I never knew about the film festival Harry Knowles started, I never even knew he was from Austin.
101.000 people is a big crowd. I'd love to be there and absorb the atmosphere (however, I know next to nothing about football).
Glad to hear it is a "Blue Oasis", :-).
Now I have to go and look up YOUR partner cities...
I didn't know about the film festival either. That's pretty cool. I live in North Texas and they pretty much only cover your music festivals up here.
But I've enjoyed Austin every time I've had a chance to go.
Thanks for sharing.
I would so love to attend a butt-numb-athon.
I didn't know about the movie festival either, although I am welll acquainted with the music festivals. Living in the DFW area for ages, I've made several trips to Austin and always enjoy myself.
I would love to attend Butt-Numb-A-Thon too, but it's pretty hard to get tickets I think. We have done the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow event that Harry Knowles was a part of. That was fun even though I knew nothing about the movie or the director. Even if you can't go to that, the Alamo Drafthouse has really cool events. They secretly world premiered the new Star Trek movie at SXSW (which my friend got to go to--he got Leonard Nimoy's autograph). Go to the Alamo Drafthouse webpage if you are interested in their events. I love them. My goal is to do the Lord of the Rings feast--it's an all day event where they serve hobbit food and drink. Looks awesome!
@Rikki - We are not UT fans so I've never been to a game at that stadium. We both went to the rival school in College Station which has an equally big stadium. If you ever come back to Texas, I'll take you. I hate saying this, but the Texas A&M games are like nothing I've ever experienced. Superfans. They all know every cheer for the team and all the students stand for the entire game. It's definitely an experience. :)
Interesting post you have especially #9
those facts make me wanna visit ur city!
Faux Pas not Funky
@Divaa - Thanks! I actually didn't know most of these things either. Austin isn't my hometown, but I have lived her for some time. It's a fun city overall and I think is one of the better places in Texas to be. :)
I've seen the bats! Super cool.
@Other Carin - Can you believe it?!! I haven't seen the bats and I've lived here for 10 years! I will put it on my list of things to make sure I see though.
Post a Comment