Hey! I live on the East Side, and I’m not poor 
If you’re going to be downtown, I recommend going to the grocery store. That may not sound very exciting, but then again, you’ve never been to WholeFoods.
And in the same vein, Central Market.
If you go to Zilker Park, I’d suggest going down Lamar a little bit farther, and eating at Matt’s El Rancho. It’s not high-falutin’ cuisine, but it’s good, solid old-style Tex Mex.
I also recommend Hill’s Cafe on S. Congress (just S. of Ben White), but if you don’t have a car, that may be out of your way.
If the Live Oak brewery tour is going, that’s an interesting and fun event. Lots of good beer samples, and an entertaining brewmaster as well.
Or, if you are in need of pizza, be sure to check out Home Slice on South Congress. It’s across the street from Guero’s, another great TexMex place.
Your link didn’t work for me, but you do realize WholeFoods is a natural chain, right?
That’s like me telling someone visiting Atlanta “You should go to North Ave. and get a soda. You’ve never had a Coke before.”
Or maybe you’re just whooshing me and I can’t take a joke. 
I think he was trying to say that you haven’t been to a Whole Foods until you’ve been to the flagship store they have here downtown. It’s a monstrous and gaudy place with shopping and dining and decks and an escalator that takes your shopping cart down to your SUV parked in the two story garage below, and a cooking school and god knows what else.
Go see the bats, monstro. I didn’t the last time I was in Austin (although my hotel was right over there by the bridge), but you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a whole bunch of flying mammals busting up out their roost by the boatload.
Yeah, the pups are born in July and just start flying in August so the colony population is at it’s peak in Sept. There is a grassy area on the southeast side of the bridge that is a fairly popular viewing spot.
Food Trailers are all the rage. The South Austin Trailer Park Eatery is a personal favorite. Grab a couple tacos from Torchy’s, the green chile pork and the democrat (barbacoa) are both excellent, but save room for dessert. Forgo the deep fried cookie dough bites from Torchy’s and instead visit Holy Cacao, the yellow trailer next door with the big blue cow on top. I love the frozen hot chocolate during the summer and the mexican hot chocolate for the few weeks it’s not summer.
What if one of them follows me home and I get rabies?
And why do they “bust” out like this? What’s their cue? Nightfall? And why are they all in Austin? How come no other major cities have bats busting out from under the bridge?
Nobody has been followed home yet. I doubt they would choose you to be their new bat overlord.
They come out when they damn well please.
Congress Ave bridge was renovated in 1980. The renovations happened to create an ideal living space for the bats. It was serendipity.
There is another bridge further north on I35 that was renovated in the same way and also has a (smaller) bat colony, it’s just not as convenient to watch bats there.
Why not? You’re saying I’m not cute enough? How dare you!
I live in Round Rock, TX, the other not so major city that has a huge population of bats that bust out from one of our bridges every day at dusk. I once discovered that a wayward bat didn’t make it back to the bridge by morning and so took up residence inside our closed patio umbrella. I wasn’t aware it was there until I went to open the umbrella. It would be pretty hard to decided who was more freaked out about the incident, me or the bat! I can assure you, they have absolutely no desire to follow you home. They can’t see worth crap and to them, you are just one big predator, a cute one sure, but still a predator.
Feel free to apply for the position. The forms are located at City Hall, in the basement in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.
I’m gonna assume you were going to PM me at some point so we could meet up… weren’t you? 
As the resident local boy does good back in Austin who grew up here, I reserve the right to override all of these suggestions as I see fit. Unless UncleRojelio makes 'em, he’s more Austin than me.
The East Side is becoming more and more gentrified. Near East Austin is hipster central. You have to go Central East (like Chicon & 11th) to get to the old East Side, or waaay out east (like Springdale).
I’d humbly suggest UT as a destination… we got lots of pretty stuff to look at.
Born and bred. But then again, I’m old and a bit of a grumpy bastard. If you are looking for the hipster scene then you might do better to listen to some of the younger residents. The few ‘cool’ Austin things I know about are because of my wife’s (also a native) attempts to drag me kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
They do. They let you choose your seats on the comuter and escort you to
them.
neuroman’s right about Mt. Bonnell. It’s really not all that and a bag of chips, especially when the temperature is in the 100’s and the way this summer is shaping up, it probably will be.
I can’t agree more with the Barton Springs recommendations.
Plus you can’t find a better place for eavesdropping.
Please don’t get rabies. That would embarrass me tremendously, making it so that I’d have to lie and tell people you died from something else.
Does anyone know if BookPeople is still open? If so that’s a must see.
Anyway, for a day trip I’d recommend Fredericksburg out in the Hill Country, about an hour-and-a-half east of town. It’s one of those places that’s tried capitalizing on its old world roots - in this case German - so it’s a little kitschy. But they have a lot of cool shops and some nice restaurants, brewpubs and gourmet stores, if you’re into that sort of thing. And Enchantment Rock - a giant domelike formation - is about 15 minutes away. The hike to the top is a fairly easy one (even if you’re out of shape, like me 
), and the views are spectacular.
Fredericksburg is west of Austin on US 290. Depending on how fast you drive, I agree it’s about an hour and a half to two hours. Traffic can be bad just west of Austin—at “the Y” particularly. Johnson City is a pretty infamous speedtrap too.
The Mexican food at Hilda’s Tortilla Factory in Fredericksburg is well worth your time, and, to my taste, better than anything you’ll find in Austin not named Fonda San Miguel. (I prefer Hilda’s to Gueros or the El Rancho, but both are very good too.) If you’re a history buff, the Museum of the Pacific War is in Fredericksburg too. (Admiral Nimitz’s hometown, if you were wondering why on Earth they put the museum there.) Neat place, and they do living history demonstrations a few times a year, with machine guns firing blanks, etc…
EDIT: W/o a car, I’m not sure how you’re going to make it to Fredericksburg. Or day trip anywhere, really. No great loss though, as there’s certainly plenty to do in town. You will definitely want to spend some time here planning your transit connections.
The Whole Foods flagship is really an amazing store. I love Central Market, but I have to admit that the flagship tops it. Of course, there’s no reason you can’t do both… An interesting place to grab a beer is the Black Star Co-Op microbrewery in North Austin. Very, very tasty and inexpensive food. Great beer selection. Their own brews…are so-so, but not terrible. They discourage tipping—preferring to pay their staff a living wage. Another microbrewery that won a Gold medal at the GABF in Colorado is Uncle Billy’s Brew n 'Cue, on Barton Springs Dr. I am not overwhelmed by either the beer or barbecue. (for the BBQ, you’ll have to go toFranklin Barbecue at I-35 and 11th. Get there early. You will have to stand in line, and it will be worth it.) Others speak highly of Uncle Billy’s though, so you might as well try it, if you’re down around the Barton Creek area anyway.
You can rent canoes near the Barton Creek/Barton Springs area, and canoeing on the lake is a very peaceful way to while away the day. Definitely wear your sunscreen though. I miss kayaking on the Colorado River (Town Lake) terribly. It is one of the best vantage points to see the daily bat swarm. They’re much easier to see silhouetted against the sky, than they are against the dark water.
Esther’s Follies is an entertaining Austin institution. Think SF’s Beach Blanket Babylon while being less risque.
Sounds like a fun trip.