The weather has warmed, the humidity increased and the wind has died down a bit, so I was able to break out my new purchase last night. You will see from the pics below that there was no way I was going to be able to resist these - they are so completely me!! And I’m pretty sure I won’t see anyone else with them when we get home or basically anywhere else we go!!
So with a population of over 2.3 mill, you’d think downtown Houston would be bustling, but over the last week, we have been largely alone with the other tourists and homeless people wandering the streets. We were thinking that Houston must be suffering like many other cities post-covid with people working from home and not coming into the city etc. However there’s all these parking buildings and giant skyscrapers! So where is everyone? Turns out they’re under our feet - quite literally. Houston has this network of subterranean, climate-controlled, pedestrian walkways that link 95 city blocks 20 feet below Houston's downtown streets - it’s approximately six miles long. Locals use these tunnels to move about the city. It’s brilliant - protects them from the heat & humidity in summer, and rain and cold in winter. Portions of the tunnel contain gift shops, newsstands, banks, technology centers, flower shops, copy centers, dry cleaners, and food courts similar to a major shopping mall. It’s a bit like men in black - you enter a building and inside this there’s an elevator/escalator/stairs which you follow down to the tunnels…..
The other thing that’s quite amazing around Houston is the street art. Often featuring environmental and social justice themes, the murals celebrate Houston's history and culture. As you walk around you find them all over the place - apparently there's up to 850 murals in Houston!!
One of the places I have always wanted to visit is the NASA Space Center. Sitting on over 1600 acres, it is one of NASA largest research and development facilities. We saw only a small snippet of the facilities, but it was amazing to see the limited space astronauts have to live in and it looked a little odd to see pics of them sleeping while velcroed to the wall of the shuttle (OK, it’s probably a little more technical than velcro, but you get the gist!). We walked through a replica shuttle and an actual shuttle carrier NASA 905 which flew over 11,000 hours carrying space shuttles (I feel like we might have a few too many ‘shuttles’ in this sentence - hmmmm). Trap re-enacted a presidential wave from the top of the stairs but was missing the hair and skin tone! We took a tram to Rocket Park where we saw one of only three Saturn V rockets left and watched a great film on the history of space exploration, narrated by Tom Hanks. Finishing up with a tour to the Astronaut Training and next generation space vehicle development facility - which was pretty cool. Definitely worth a visit - there’s so much to see you need a full day here.
Spring Break started on Friday and it was a sight to behold. A people-watching bonanza! Flocks of young people descended on Houston clutching bottles of tequila and dressed to the nines - or pretty much naked depending on your age and definition of “clothes”. I have to confess I have never seen so many hot pants and boob tubes in my life as well as a huge array of cowboy boots. One pair that particularly grabbed me were these black glitter ones with a tassel down the back. Now if they had been in pink and I had room in my luggage, these could have been a goer. Unfortunately I don’t have a pic as I thought it might be rude to take photos of random strangers!
And proving that people are the same wherever you go, we watched as a car pulled up to the front of the hotel, a young couple got out, the guy grabbed one duffle bag and went into the hotel, then the valet parking guy and a hotel worker turned up with a luggage trolley where the women proceeded to unpack 6 shoe boxes and about 8 bags - proving that no matter where you are, the majority of males can travel anywhere for any length of time with one bag, while most of us girls require lots of shoes, clothes and accessories as you never know what you might need! And that is why half of Trap’s backpack is filled with my stuff - boom!
We are outta here, thank you Houston for your hospitality.
Ahlan (أهلاً) from Egypt. Apologies, this is a bit of an epic blog as 2 weeks in Egypt feels like about a month as there is soooooooooo much to see. Leaving Alexandria we headed to Giza – a fairly grotty town but with the Great Pyramids of Egypt and the Sphinx on its doorstep, it’s a must for any visitor to Egypt. If you can, stay in Giza itself in a hotel with a view of the pyramids - there are quite a few of them. We had a view from both our bedroom window and from the rooftop terrace where we had breakfast, so we could see dawn, sunset and the light show from the comfort of our bed 😊. Pick a hotel with a restaurant as where we were there were no restaurants within comfortable walking distance and there weren’t really any footpaths, the roads were covered with garbage and it all felt a bit dodge. You can use uber to call taxi’s to take you anywhere you want to go. We just stayed two nights, so we had a packed day heading first to the Egyptian Museum and then the Pyramids....
Türkiye'den selamlar (greetings from Turkey), well Istanbul to be more precise. We’re almost at the end of the first leg of our Turkey trip and until today the weather gods had not been very nice – requiring a search to the depths of the case to find our ‘more wintery’ clothes! But I’ll get back to that shortly. Picking up where I finished the last blog: after a quick stop in Heraklion on Crete, we jumped on the boat to Naxos – about 3 and a half hours away. It was a fairly calm crossing stopping at Santorini on the way to drop off and pick up passengers. Coming into Naxos was magical – just like you imagine a Greek Island to be. White washed buildings climbing up the hills, waterfront cafes/bars/restaurants, outdoor dining, shops with brightly coloured clothes and cobbled roads. We stayed at the Naxos Beach Resort about 100m from a very nice beach and although the temps had dropped, we were still able to enjoy a stroll along it and a couple of hours lying in the sun! I br...
Salutations de Saint- É million. I may have found my spiritual home! Maybe Trap & I were both French in another life???? We’re having a fab-u-lous time here. The weather is good, food, alcohol and fuel is cheaper and the camping grounds are nicely laid out and have pools – a necessity in these temps! Most of them have bars/restaurants and you can often put a fresh bread/croissant order in for the next morning! I like it. Also my French is much better than my Spanish (6 years of high school French is coming back to me) making it easier to communicate and read signs/instructions etc. Trap, not so much!!! Last time I wrote, we were in Paris and heading into town for my b’day celebration at Paradis Latin. What a great show – I can’t show you any pics or videos as they weren’t allowed, but we could take some of the dinner entertainment, so you can get a bit of a taster. My three-course meal of two types of pate followed by chicken and some kind of tarty/moussey/spongy ...
Sounds like an amazing city. I’m reading your updates on the bus to work - bloody fascinating (your updates, NOT the bus ride)!! 😬😁
ReplyDeleteToo funny. Bet Traps eyes are sore 🤣
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