Day 26 - San Antonio, TX - Houston, TX

It's amazing how different two cities can be that are so close together. I've had an amazing time in pretty much every place that I've been to, including here of course. Sometimes its because of the activity, and sometimes it's just that I've been able to fill in a puzzle piece of this country. It can be really interesting seeing how the culture of a place can be defined by when it sprung up, its geography or its population. San Antonio is about as vibrant of a place as you can possibly find. Everywhere is the smell of enchiladas and churros and people are constantly out enjoying their city. I spent the morning actually going around 'El Mercado,' a big open flea market selling just about everything. It was a ton of fun, getting to bargain with the vendors and getting a few pretty cool things. Of course, I had lunch before I left, Fajitas. It's a good thing that Gene isn't here, if you're not a Mexican food fanatic, you're kinda SOL. Lucky for me, I can have it pretty much every meal and be as happy as can be.

After lunch, I headed on to Houston. To give you and idea of geography, San Antonio is a little bit south of the very center of Texas, Houston is about 200 miles ESE. It's not quite on the water, that's Galveston, but it's pretty close. It's our nations fourth largest city, after Chicago, DC is fifth I believe. Of course that's depending on how you measure population, the 'city of Houston' is kind of like the 'city of Los Angeles' in that it's larger than some states and therefore it's a little unfair to compare it to the 'city of Washington, D.C.' since D.C. is a very small area. Anyway, either way, big city. Certainly the biggest single city in Texas. It shows, Houston kinda starts about 40 miles out. It just keeps going and going. I'm actually staying near 'Reliant Stadium' in a real nice hotel that Priceline got for me. So last night I went out and took their little light rail (there's only one line) downtown. So I'm certainly glad I came but I'm glad that I didn't plan on but so much time here. As it is, I think about one night is good enough. This city is just big, it kinda seems lifeless. Maybe that's in comparison to San Antonio. But walking around downtown there were huge skyscrapers but hardly any people. All of the restaurants and shops were chains and I even looked online at nightspots and they're all in outlying suburbs and randomly assorted. There's no streets like 18th in Adam's Morgan or Market Street in San Francisco, apparently part of that also has to do with a little anomaly in Houston law in that there are no zoning laws. So things get built where they're found necssary. So there's no natural reason for similar businesses to group. Anyway walking around downtown was pretty fun, huge building, and bizarre architecture. I couldn't get a good picture of it before it got too dark, but theres actually a skyscraper with a Mayan temple on top??? Not just looks like one, but is a replica of one...quois? Anyway, I had dinner at the Hard Rock because nothing else really stood out as a 'Houston experience.' I forget that that place actually has really great food. Same everywhere, but really great honestly. I got back to the room about 11 and went to bed.

Now its off to New Orleans or whatever is left of it.