tinyswirl

*Sorry, couldn’t resist the Texan thing then…

So it’s just over a week since we landed and I think the jetlag has finally subsided, although my brain still has a minor “fight or flight” moment if I think back to last Tuesday when we flew over here and saw too many two o’clocks….

Can you see the 'gator?

So Houston? Big. Lots of roads. Lots of possums and armadillos too (although we only saw dead ones). We went out of the city after the official “jetlag day” (aka “Lets go find some shoes” day) so see some ‘gators at Brazos Bend State Park. Not only did we see ‘gators (and some big beasties they were, at that!) but also turtles, ibis, red cardinals and even a snake! The latter was either a coral snake (poisonous) or a milk snake (not poisonous by which mimics the coral snake’s markings). Either way I wasn’t planning on trying to make friends….

The next day I nearly killed everyone doing some clothes shopping, but I’ve promised not to do it again though…

Even the butterflies were big!

We went to see the butterflies at The Cockrell Butterfly Center on our last day in Houston, which was good for the chill out. Wasn’t impressed to find out just how much of my food will contain insect parts in though… and refrained from trying the barbecue flavoured bugs they had in the vending machine (yes they really were proper insects and they came in other flavours too… and happened to walk through the Japan Fest which was pretty cool as well, with dancing and samurai type stuff going on everywhere.

Sunday saw us depart Houston for our current location of San Antonio. I’m sitting typing this in the old Alamo National Bank building, with a view of the Tower of the Americas which we saw more up close and personal today when we visited Hemisfair Park.

"Everything is bigger and better in Texas.....

“They” say that everything is bigger and better in Texas… well the Texan sized margaritas we had on our first day here from “Rita’s on the Riverwalk” sure tasted good and very definitely big! The Riverwalk is a great place for food and drinks and a general wander around (apart from being embarrassed by the “British Bar”) but I’m glad we’ve ventured out and seen the Alamo, Market Square and the aforementioned Tower. There’s also the hotel’s rooftop pool, with hot tubs which look to be the best in the neighbourhood (we can see down into the others nearby) so we’ve done a bit of intentional sun-soaking as well.

What has been strange is that I feel like I’m sounding more and more English each day (and yes, I’ve already been asked if I’m from London… was going to happen at some point I guess). I’m very aware that I keep saying “cheers” instead of “thanks” (although that’s probably something I’ve always done and never noticed until now). By the time I get back to Scotland I may well have reverted to full blown “Aylesburyian”, which means not even Rich will understand what I’m saying. Ooops.

Tomorrow we depart this city and head closer to Vegas. More to come from me when I’ve more stories to tell….

So in about about forty two hours I will be sat on a teeny plane, heading for Edinburgh. In the early hours of Tuesday morning I’ll be on a flight to Amsterdam to connect to a flight to Houston, USA….

It’s really started to sink in now. The travel insurance was (finally) sorted yesterday, hire car is booked, we got the currency today and now I’m starting to work out what clothes to take (more than the Boy, but less than normal, as we will be doing some shopping… and I don’t really have much that suits that climate anyway!) …and that must be the longest sentence I’ve typed in a while.

Right now I’m also doing the vital job of ripping the CDs I want to stick on my mp3 player (see, I can multi-task).

We’re going to be booking hotels on the fly, so the netbook is going with me (it can store more music than my player as well) which has the added bonus of me being able to stick all my photos on it as we go along and, for the benefit of my Mother and anyone else who might be interested, I’ll stick them on Facebook and/or Flickr depending on time and wifi availability. Oh and I might do the odd digital postcard via the ‘blog as well.

The only downside right now is that I still don’t have test results back from the doctor and may well have to wait until I’m back…. oh well.