He pulls off the highway and I feel a clinching in my chest as downtown Austin comes into view. I know this was the plan, but looking out the window at this strange city, it all seems so much crazier.
Elliot starts walking the group through what happens on game night—how a cannon is fired after each touchdown, how Bevo, the mascot, is an actual steer bull and how there are a group of Texas Cowboys who march him around the field, who tend to him.
We head down the steps and past a statue honoring the Longhorn Band, UT’s Etter-Harbin Alumni Center just behind it. “Wait,” Bailey says. “Slow down a sec…” I turn around. “What?” She looks up at the building, at the sign in front: THE HOME OF THE TEXAS-EXES.
Magnolia Cafe is an Austin institution, famous for all-night eats, which might explain why it is still busy—music playing, every booth taken—at 12:45 AM.
The cab pulls up to the College of Natural Sciences—a collection of buildings that’s bigger and more expansive than my entire liberal arts college, campus and dorms included.
Let it be known that I cannot take this book seriously anymore
We head inside the Perry-Castañeda Library, which is enormous—six stories of books and maps and cards and computer labs—and head to the research librarian’s desk.
PCL mentioned!!
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