To tell the truth, there is a few trains in Austin, so people in Austin who do not have cars mainly use buses to move around. It costs 1.25$ per one way, but if you are a student in University of Texas at Austin and have student ID card, you can go to everywhere in Austin for free by bus with it. We distinguish buses by their numbers from 1 through 983. The bus with number 20 go through airport to city, which means that you can get to inside of city from airport by using this bus with normal price. You do not need to reserve special buses or taxis to arrive to city. We also have Rapid bus, which are numbered 801 and 803. They run mainly on center street in Austin and come to each of bus stops in 10 minutes. They also can get to main places, so they are very useful.
Austin is also such a famous musical city that it is called “The world capital city of life music”! It has very outstanding music festivals named SXSW and ACL every year. Those events gather so many kinds of musicians, including armature musicians, from all of the world and make it possible for us to see live music with a lot of kinds of music. Many people think that Austin has only those two festivals as the opportunities to listen to live musics. However, actually there are so many other places and opportunities you can see live music in Austin. Those places that everyone should visit to see live music in Austin are listed below.
The places above are main places for live music in Austin. Also, in those places, weekly jam session events are held, so if you can play any musical instruments, you can join them for free and get precious opportunities to play with professional musicians in Austin. Many kinds of music are played in those places, so you can also enjoy to listen them.
In Austin, we are so lucky because we can see wild flowers everyday. In particular, we see Bluebonnets in early spring through Texas highways. Bluebonnet is the official state flower of Texas.
If you want to see a pretty town in weekend, I recommend that you go to Fredericksburg, which is 80 miles away from Austin. While you are driving through Fredericksburg, we are going to see fields of flowers which are full of red and blue flowers. These flowers belong to Wild seed farms which has been growing fields of wildflowers for the production of seed. Wild seed farms has more than 450,000 visitors every year.The visitors walk trails, buy wildflower seeds and enjoy with their family. https://www.wildseedfarms.com/
Another place to enjoy Bluebonnets is the Mule shoes Bend Recreation Area which is only 40 miles away from Austin. The park has hiking and biking trails and camping sites, and people can swim and fish there. I hope you will enjoy Bluebonnets and take tons of pictures.
Austin has many entertainments that students could enjoy it. one of them belongs to cycling. The Austin offers many places for students to go cycling. Some students who could ride a bike on a road because Austin has built bike lanes for bikers. Meanwhile, some students could ride bikes on a mountain when they go hiking. That is the reason that there are two major different bikes could be offered for bikers. One is road bike and another one is mountain bike. Besides, there are many bike shops that are nearby campus and they give the students a good price with secondhand bikes.
Rode bikes have a vert light frame that riders could lift it up and carry it with a single hand because it made by aluminium. There are many gears on a back wheel that users can change bike speed. For example, some riders climb a ramp and they will change to a small gear to save more energy and ride easily. However, when they change to a big gear on a flat road, they could ride in a very fast way. For some safety, I recommend that the students to buy a U shape locker than a chain locker. Some thieves could cut the chain locker easily to steal a bike. In addition, rode bikes have thin tires, so they are no suitable for some rocky road.
The mountain bikes are more useful on road and mountain road. They have thicker tires to give a good bounce back when wheels hit the ground. In addition, there is a spring in front wheel that could help bikers to deal with rocky roads. Especially, those thicker tires give a good friction and avoid some slipperiness. However, they are very heavy and they have lesser gears than the road bikes.
How to assemble a bike
If you plan to buy a bike from amazon or other websites, you need to prepare some tools to assemble. Otherwise, you could pay for assemble fee that is around sixty dollars. I recommend some tools that are very useful to assemble a bike
It works as a screw driver that could tie up screws on bikes. It is used on saddles, paddles, and steer. The students can use it to set up a bike by themselves. Sometimes you need to adjust breaks to make them keep a space with the tires from friction to reduce bike speed.
The lubricant uses for lubing bike chains and gears. When you receive your new bikes, the bike chains are not too smooth to work with gears. Using a lubricant is mandatory before ride a new bike to reduce some chain damages. A small tip is that when you lube your bikes, you need to roll your bike paddle to let chains be lubed in a correct way.
It is better that choose an air pump with a meter because different bike tires have different air pressure. There a pressure value that displays on the tires normally. When you pump your bikes, you need to pump the same air pressure value with the tires one. Some people could not ride bikes in a fast way because the tires have less wrong air pressure value. That is very common that mountain bikes have lesser air pressure than rode bikes.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency the average American spends 93%of their life indoors. This is a huge amount of time and being indoor is not suitable for our physical and mental health. I believe that all individuals need to breath fresh air, feel the sun, and watch nature,which makes us happy, relaxed and positive. In order to derive benefits from nature, I think the best way is hiking and camping. The good news for hikers and campers, Austin is a great place to live. I am sure that you are going to have chance to hike and go camping in Texas.
In Texas, there are 103 state parks, 19 of them are close to Austin. Because hiking and camping are super popular outdoor activities in Tx, reservation is recommended. Online reservation is possible. The reservation fee depends on the camping spot. If you have a Texas State park pass, you’ll pay less.
By the way, the state parks have some rules. For example, quiet hours are from 10 pm to 6 am,and the consumption of alcohol is prohibited. For people who don’t like these rules, there are private camping sites too, I think their rules are less strict.
Because camping equipment and gears are expensive, so for ESL students renting is a good option. As UT students, we can rent them from UT outdoor rental center, which is in gymnasium on Speedway.
I highly recommend that you visit Hamilton Pool Preserve. It is only 35 miles away from Austin. Because a reservation is required, you should make an online reservation in advance. Reservation time periods are from 9 am to 1 pm and from 2 pm to 6 pm, and reservation fee is$11. Every Saturday at 10 am,there is a guided tour which is free. I highly recommend joining the guided tour. After entering park, there is walking trail which is roughly for 10minutes, and then you reach the canyon and the pool. The optimum time for a visit is in May or in June for enjoying the nature and in July or in August for swimming. Swimming is usually available,which means the bacteria level is acceptable. In Springs, the temperature of the water is usually ok. After swimming, you can hike through Hamilton Creek and reach Pedernales River, which takes almost 30 minutes.
International students can use their international driver’s license for only three months after arriving at the USA,so after that having a Texas driving license is mandatory to drive. Even if you don’t plan to buy a car, having a driving license will be useful for you. For example, you can use your driving license as an ID. Moreover, at some point you may want to rent a car for a vacation or truck for moving.
The procedure is different for people who are younger than 18, younger than 25 and older than 25, so you should visit the website and be sure about your case. Please, be sure about the documents you should have. Otherwise, you may visit the office again.
In general, you should pass an exam and a driving test successfully. For For driving test, you should find a car with its insurance documents. The fee is 25$.
In order to have a Texas driver’s license you should visit Texas Department of Public Transportation. The closest office is on North Lamar Blvd, and you can go there by Capital Metro. By the way, because you have an UT ID, you can travel by bus for free.
Driver Handbook, which is published in the website, is full of traffic rules and practices, but we would like to mention a few of them below.
The Stop Signs: The stop sign means a complete stop and slowing down is not adequate. Every vehicle should stop and yield to pedestrians or vehicles which already stop. I think the stop sign has the same meaning all over the world. However, in the USA everyone behaves as they should even if the road is empty. Moving to Austin, I realized that the stop sign is useful, so traffic flow is not interrupted, and chaotic situations don’t occur.
Emergency Vehicles: Police cars, fire trucks and ambulances are emergency vehicles. If an emergency vehicle is sounding a siren, drivers must yield the right of way. Whenever I hear a siren driving on the road, I observe that all drivers pass to the right edge of the road, slow down and stop. It is not a rule, but drivers on the cross direction stop in Austin, which makes me surprised and so glad. Moreover, after the emergeny vehicle passes, no one follows the emergency vehicle immediately to take an advantage.
The School Buses: I think you see the yellow school buses on the roads everyday. Maybe you notice the stop sign on the buses. The rule is obvious, if a school bus stops and displays the stop sign, all vehicles in both directions must stop until the school bus continues driving. The penalty for the first failure to the rule is up to$1,250 and for the fourth failure is up to $10,000 and up to two years in jail.
Austin Experience 