Austin newcomers-what is the weirdest thing about Austin you notice since moving here? (Cameron: buy, live)

[rocknrollinhoneybadger]

Oh the paying for paper bags is another weird thing. Not a big problem but caught us by surprise the first time we went to the store after moving.

[AuburnAL]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

A lot of people who have lived here for decades think that's pretty weird, too, and not really an Austin thing at all but an import. It hasn't been the case for very long.

Not a fan of this either.

[JT-3]

The terrible repetitive commercials on the radio and TV - they are beyond cheesy and stuck in 1984. They need to go away except the Betty one.

Have CPAP?
From a roosters comb!
CamperClinic, the more that you know!
Call me first call me last come see me!
I got this guy $84,222 for his hurt neck - I'll give you an interest free loan!
The Lawyer with the cowboy hat!
Oh Betty Blackwell, you know her?
Dream Cars Austin - where everyone is approved, I'm for the people

[homeinatx]

I have lived here for over a decade, so I am now used to most of the weirdness, both good and bad, but these things struck me when I arrived:

Bad weirdness:

The highways and this was before the traffic got bad and never mind road name changes. I still think the boulevard de frontage system is idiotic. You already have a highway going there. Why have roads on either side of the highway going the same places ? The investment in that tarmac could be much better spent on a road that went somewhere other than where the highway was already going, plus the signage is generally atrocious. In addition, the frontage roads produce the hideous strip mall development along the sides of the highway.

Then the frontage roads in combination with the lack of signage can produce cluster****s of epic proportion: take the intersection of 35 and Airport: Going north on the frontage road: 3 lanes, one which will loop you under the highway going south on the frontage road, one which will take you north on Airport,one which will take you south on Airport, and none which will continue on the frontage road north, the insanity occurs again a few miles north around Cameron road. And there is an offramp from the actual highway at the same intersection of 35 and Airport, but the painted signs in the lane in the road say you have to turn left or right, but cannot legally carry on on the frontage road. No posted sign in sight. This is not an isolated example. Getting off 183 at Braker, you have to do a set of lane changes that would challenge a nascar driver to get onto that horrible strip mall where DSW used to be.

I have driven extensively on 5 continents and Austin has the most illogical, uncommon sense highway system. The only place worse (or weirder) I have seen is Cairo, Egypt, where even though my Arabic is reasonable, the signage never tells me where to go, and the curbs are two feet high otherwise everyone would drive on the sidewalk, but don't get me started on the weirdness of Austin sidewalks. Highways here are weird in the atrocious sense of weird.

Good weirdness or weirdness that I like:

Friendliness - when I got here, I found the chattiness people had with strangers very weird. I thought cashiers in supermarkets had found their best friend from high school, then they started chatting to me.

Texas Mountain laurel: blossoms that totally smell like grape bubblegum

Flour tortillas and then queso: cheese soup that wasn't on toast

beef, not pork BBQ: delicious but weird

Rainbow Cattle Company - no longer here, but the queerest weirdest two stepping ever.

Many more.

Only bad weird: the stupid highways.

[teasipmom]

I have to admit that I love this post! I'm a native Austinite that grew up here, but spent a lot of years living in lots of different places outside of Texas, after graduating from UT.

I have learned to love places for their features and oddities and just for the fact that another city is always a different cultural experience. When I first left Austin (way back when it was a college town), the things I missed the most were

1. the demeanor of the people (I don't call it friendliness because Texans [at least in Austin] never used to like being called friendly)

2. the uniqueness of the music (some people just call it Texas music, which does not mean Country). This also means that I am partial to Texas Blues, over New Orleans Blues, etc. Yes, there are major differences.

3. and the uniqueness and quality (not necessarily the variety) of the native food (barbecue, Austin tex-mex). I never would have gone to a Thai restaurant back then because I knew that the quality would not be good.
I still remember the taste of a "burrito" I used to get at a hole-in-the-wall one-room shack that was a simple mixture of chorizo and re-fried beans on a small, hand-pressed, folded over, flour tortilla. Yes, it was called a burrito, and not a taco. (There was a period of time here that burritos were beans and meat in a flour tortilla and were deep-fried. This was before that time) It was epic, especially for the $.79 price tag. And then, of course, the Round Rock bakery's Kolaches, which were more fruit filling than bread (I never liked the donuts). But, alas, they don't make them anymore.

I love culture and there is nothing more fun for me than to eat a "burrito" in a restaurant in Hong Kong (at least once) to see how their culture interprets it and how they modify it to fit local tastes. I go into the experience fully expecting it to be bad, but I just want to know what it would be like. And it makes for great conversation with my Texan friends.

Austin is very different now from when I grew up here, but that's ok because I love change. I love thinking about all of my experiences in different cultures and what I loved about them.

And BTW, my favorite highway experience is by far, driving the Autobahn in an Audi TT. You can't beat that anywhere.

[orngkat]

I moved here thirty years ago and as a newcomer loved the "vibe" and authenticity of Austin compared to where I had came from. As oft noted, much of that is gone. The thing I find weird now is how people continue to move to new places like Austin expecting some sort of perfect situation and then complain about the things it does or doesn't have. I also find it weird that in the past decade the city pushed for more and more people to come here but did not choose to invest in the basics to handle the influx. Yesterday, I spent over an hour stuck on Lamar to travel a distance of about four miles. It was one person per car just sitting there stuck - even the red "Rapid" bus - stuck - and all I could think was how dumb and weird is this to have let happen to such a once great place.

[Phisch]

Four pages and no comments about the odd pronunciation? That's my weird. Also, not so much weird as scary: suicide lanes.

[LiveUrban]

The bicycling culture.. how it's accepted and even encourage to ride as a mode of transportation. I love how rarely I use my car to get around Central Austin and how convenient it is to get around by bike

[AuburnAL]

Originally Posted by Phisch

Four pages and no comments about the odd pronunciation? That's my weird. Also, not so much weird as scary: suicide lanes.

You mean I'm not the only one who doesn't say Gaudaloop, Burn-It, and San Juhsinto?

[north2south.]

Lakeline off 183 is always backed up-

Coming from Chicago I never noticed frontage roads.. You get off the highway on a ramp that leads you to a light- which is only for those coming off the highway not merging with others on a road that runs side by side to the highway. It is odd but there's not much that can be done to fix that here now.

My weird things that I noticed (not hating or praising - just giving my 2 cents on things that are odd to me)

Utilities being in people's front yards- I understand now because of the soil it is more difficult to bury them.

Big fenced in drainage ditches next to businesses and certain areas- again I understand
Now why they are there but was odd to see at first.

A lot of areas don't have sidewalks

Parking spots being tiny. Now it may be a good thing for use of space but
When people open there door as far as it can.. Makes
Me nervous coming back I my car.

Obviously I was a little ignorant in terms of food. Didn't realize what I had in Chicago and never moved so far from home. Big shock that many foods I thought were common arnt so common.

The size of Austin's city limits

How few grocery stores there are (randals- neighboorhood store, heb the main store and... That's about it)

I'm sure I have a handful or two more but those are the first
Ones that initially came to kind. Again, not meant to be bashing- no place is perfect but these are the things that came across as weird to me.