Houston, we have a problem

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.  The rain in Texas falls mainly on the highway.  This is not driving rain. This was you-should-not-be-driving-under-any-circumstances rain.  We had a number of episodes of this kind of rain between Lafayette and Houston.  Visibility was down to one meter and we were struggling along with our hazard lights on, the windshield wipers at full speed, and our faces pressed to the windshield hoping the thing vaguely visible in front of us was the road.  To make matters worse semi-trailer trucks whose drivers were driving by memory kept passing us on the left raising tsunamis onto our wringing wet Prius.  When that happens visibility goes from abysmal to nil. It is very scary when the only separation between you and an invisible semi-trailer truck is your attitude.  I think cars down here should be equipped with sonar. 

Houston Texas is the 4^th largest city in the US.   This is something I wish I had known before we drove here.  Telen mentioned this to me as we were approaching the city and all I could see from horizon to horizon was oil refineries and cars. With ten times the population of Canada the roads are filled with ten times the number of cars. 

They were all in Houston.

Not a sign we would see in Canada

We came to Houston because of the Nasa Space Centre.  I know, I know…this screams GEEK!  I never claimed to be anything else, so there!  The Johnson Space Center is where they control the manned space missions as compared to the unmanned space missions such as Curiosity (on Mars) that is controlled in Pasadena California.  Currently their focus is the International Space Station.

Not Quite what we expected to do at the Space Center

The US is good at two things: entertainment and space.  The entertainment bit we can see when we get to the west coast.  The space exploration bit we could see in Houston.  We had seen the gantry at Cape Canaveral where the shuttle was launched and now we could see where it was developed and controlled.  To someone like me – this is groovy.

Mission Control

Telen and the Saturn Launcher

The shuttle program is over and the shuttles are all retired.  The International Space Station is manned by astronauts and cosmonauts from all over the world and is supplied by the Russian Soyuz spacecraft so really the US manned space program is kind of on hold at the moment.   They are apparently working on a new spacecraft called Orion that should be able to take people to Mars.  When I was eight years old I thought we were already there so this is a bit anti-climactic for me.

I really enjoyed the Space Centre.  Telen seemed to as well.  It was very cool to see the control center where they were monitoring the International Space Station, the training center where the astronauts were trained, and the Saturn Rocket that took the astronauts to the Moon.  There were quite a few films and displays chronicling the development of the American Space Program.  Telen kept asking if they were sending up any unmanned rockets while we were there and how much I wanted to ride on one. Don’t worry about the re-entry thingy. She asked a lot of people, and almost convinced them, but they were underwhelmed by the equipment available.

The general population of Texas is broader than it is long.  We went to a Chinese food buffet for dinner.  Can you say, “Deep-fried”?  Deep-fried Chinese food? Really?  I think they deep-fry everything here with the exception of crawfish.  Crawfish is also known as crayfish or crawdads are a tiny fresh-water lobster.   They brought out buckets and buckets of these and they were extremely popular.  I watched one very large lady load her plate with these and she kept adding more and more as they kept falling off her plate.  Amazingly she managed to do this while eating a piece of pizza (in a Chinese restaurant?).  To top off the meal a gentleman at the next table carried on a very animated and hilarious conversation with his table companion who was very spiritual or maybe just invisible.  At least the Americans have managed to entertain us as well as feed and inform us. 

Space AND entertainment!

Telen writes:

Buffets seem to be very popular and CHEAP here.  The Chinese/sushi bar buffet we had was only $10.50 per person.  I was ecstatic to see a huge spread of sashimi and sushi rolls (and these were not deep fried!).  The Chinese selection was huge too and yes, lots of fried stuff.  Looking around the restaurant, the word “portion control” is unknown.

I enjoyed visiting the Johnson Space Center.  It was strange though to see a Space Shuttle parked just outside in the back yard.  This particular Space Shuttle is not the real Challenger but is built to the exact measurements.  The International Space Station (ISS) is a prime example of how effective international cooperation can be if human beings put their minds to it.  I was moved to see the CanadArm playing a pivotal role on board the ISS.

The Space Shuttle in the Back Yard

Houston is the home of the Texas Medical Center – the largest medical center in the world.  According to Wikipedia, the center contains 50 medicine-related institutions, 3 medical schools, 4 nursing schools, and schools of dentistry, public health, pharmacy and other health-related practices.  Perhaps this explains the odd sighting of freestanding MRI clinics in various strip malls.  I saw at least 2 MRI clinics within a radius of 2 miles.  One clinic is right next door to a 7-Eleven!  Here, you can go to 7-Eleven, buy junk food and then go next door to have a total body MRI.  This idea seems so surreal since in Victoria, there is an average 7-8 months wait for a non-urgent MRI scan…  Looking at the numerous advertising billboards here, the competition for sick patients here is fierce.   I saw, in various strip malls, vascular clinics, kidney clinics, and heart clinics.  The best billboard I saw was advertising a “DialysSPA”, presumably a dialysis clinic with SPA –like surroundings.

Here they are fighting for patients while at home we are turning them away.

  

The Big Easy

The “Big Easy” was easy in some respects, and not so easy in others.  The easy part was obvious on Bourbon Street.  Apparently Bourbon Street has always had a reputation for being a bit risqué but now I think that has gone downhill and the term “trashy” actually applies. A fairly large section of Bourbon street consists of “Men’s Clubs” with such names as “Barely legal” and “Little Darlings” and there are scantly clad young ladies in dangerously high heels standing in the doorways waving at all the alcohol infused men. At one point I noticed two women walking down the street dressed in gold body suits with the Fleur-de-Lis on them.  As they got closer I realized that there were no suits, only paint. 
Telen said she was worried that these women might drag me into their establishments but I explained to her that these girls would not be taking their clothes off because of how “sexy” they thought I was – in fact in their profession; they probably thought NO men were sexy.   They were only attracted to men with abnormally large… wallets.

So, perhaps they were the easy part. 

Bourbon Street in the morning

I found the profusion of these clubs and the plethora of cheap souvenir shops all selling the same lame T-shirts and coffee mugs brought the French Quarter down a lot.   The French Quarter has some wonderful architecture, great restaurants, fabulous music, fascinating history and a terrific atmosphere.  It is too bad that they let that part of Bourbon Street go downhill.  C’est la vie! 

The Neighbourhood of Marie La Veau the Witch Queen of New Orleans

I get to be the guinea pig…

We went for a guided walking tour of the French Quarter last night.  The guide was very knowledgeable and took us around the area explaining the history of New Orleans and showing us the areas and buildings where the history took place.  We did have a slight agree-to-disagree discussion about the War of 1812 that she thought the Americans had won.  There was the battle of New Orleans where the Americans did defeat the British Forces but that was a few days after the War of 1812 was over and nobody had told either side that.  Neither the guide or the other American lady who was on the tour knew that the Canadian forces had chased the Americans all the way back to Washington.  I guess it is in the American history books like Tiananmen Square is in the Chinese history books.

On our tour we walked past Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s house.  I guess they weren’t home because they did not come out and ask in for a drink.  They probably knew that, unlike the rest of New Orleans, Telen and I don’t drink.  Mind you, compared to New Orleans, the Irish don’t drink.  I do have some staff members back home, though, who might be at home here. 

After the tour we took a stroll through the French Quarter.  It was crazy!  The only law with regards to carrying liquor around in New Orleans is that it has to be in plastic containers.  So people were walking around with huge plastic jugs filled with all manner of drinks.  I even saw some people staggering down the street with fish bowls full of fluorescent liquids.  We did see a number of hand-grenades lying on the road but apparently they were just plastic bottles that had been full of a drink called… you guessed it a “hand grenade”.  It gave us the willies the first time we saw them, though – knowing the American penchant for weaponry.   

So I guess that was the not-so-easy part.

There was lots of jazz blasting out of the doors of all the bars.  It got to the point that it all started to meld together into a solid wall of sound.   New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz and it seems as if everyone here plays an instrument of one kind or another.  If they don’t play an instrument they sing or tap-dance.  There is all kind of jazz from Dixieland to New Orleans to blue-eyed soul.  Amazing.  After seeing and hearing all this I know that I have music in me…  it must be in me because it has never, ever come out.  After listening to me sing along with the music in the car Telen will substantiate this emphatically.

Bourbon Street in the Evening

We are now in Lafayette Louisiana.  Cajun country.  This is one of the major areas the Acadians came to after the British kicked them out of Nova Scotia in the 1700’s.  They settled here, learned to survive off the land and evolved into the Cajuns.

Son of gun, gonna have big fun on the Bayou

We went to a restored Cajun Village and got an appreciation as to what was necessary to survive on the Bayou.  The Acadians/Cajuns were tough and resourceful people, indeed.  They also had a “jam” session there with about 15 musicians using fiddles, guitars, harmonicas and accordions to play traditional Cajun music.  We could certainly hear the similarity to the fiddle music we heard in Chetticamp, Nova Scotia. That makes sense, of course.

Something making sense here?  Go figure! 

Surreal Estate

We had to say goodbye to Orlando.  It is not that Orlando is such a wonderful city because it is unremarkable unless you are a Disney addict.  However, our friends were so warm and welcoming that we found it difficult to leave.  

So, we left in style.

We all headed for St. Petersburg on the Gulf coast of Florida.  St. Petersburg is on a peninsula just south of Tampa and boasts wonderful white sand beaches that border the Gulf of Mexico. That’s right- beach time AGAIN.  The difference between the beaches here and the beaches back in Canada is that the water does not freeze solid for half the year.  So, it is warmer. Considerably warmer.

Hanging out with the Papp family on the beach on the first day of autumn

In order to save money we rented a room that could hold all 7 of us.  Five adults and two children.  This presented a challenge for the 3 males in the group (Roy, his 7 year old son Talon and myself) who traditionally don’t wear PJ’s.  There was considerable consternation amongst the women when they found this out and an expedition was mounted to the pharmacy to stock up on Gravol (which they call Dramamine here) and sleep masks.  In the meantime the males headed to Target to acquire some kind of sleep wear.  The theme, at Talon’s insistence, was agreed to be Angry Birds.  It is hard to know what caused the most reaction amongst the ladies; the thought of the three of us naked or the sight of us in our Angry Birds boxers and t-shirts. Either way there was a lot of giggling, shrieking, and pounding of backs, which got considerably worse when the three of us danced the Haka (traditional Maori war dance) to prop up our diminishing masculinity.  See what I mean:  STYLE!

Angry Birds reeking of masculinity

 On our way to St. Petersburg we stopped at a restaurant that served gator ribs.  Unlike Buffalo wings gator ribs actually come from an alligator.  We felt that the best way to overcome our fear of alligators was to eat one.  So we ate the gator ribs laughing like arch-villains with the barbeque sauce running down our chins.  Bring it on, gators!

Tampa has a gallery dedicated to the works of Salvador Dali.   So we stopped there for a few hours and wandered through looking at the dream-like and slightly disturbing paintings and illustrations.  I was quite fascinated with some his works and quite puzzled by others.  I left there with my brain in a fog and my eyes smarting.  Eating alligator then going to the Dali museum…the day was getting very surreal.  Later that day I noticed that my watch had melted.

Telen and some "Persistence of Memory"

We walked down the beach at St. Petersburg to the Don Cesar hotel.  Apparently the “Don” has a history with a great many celebrities including some who were on the wrong side of the law.  Which is strange when you consider it looked like a pink cream-puff castle.  I am having a hard time imagining Al Capone sitting with his henchmen and having a drink in a pink puffy fantasy palace.  However we had some wonderful French-press coffee and desert there until a couple of Italian men in Fedoras suggested in raspy voices that the “Don” felt we should “uh, return to where we come from, ya know wut I mean?”.

The "Don" aka the" Pink Palace"

Arya is truly a Florida girl.  She had her first swim before her first bath.  Kim took her into the ocean for her first swim.  Well, actually her first splash.  Her feet touched the water and immediately retracted accompanied by loud sounds of protest.  So, maybe it wasn’t a swim or even a splash but she has contacted the environment unshielded.  It’s a start.

Our friends returned to Orlando and we carried on with our journey.  It was hard to say good-bye.  Or, it was for us.  I think I saw them dancing and singing in their car as they drove away.

We drove to Tallahassee , then Mobile, Alabama. We are now ensconced in New Orleans just outside of the French Quarter.  I have to admit that I really like the appearance of the old part of New Orleans.  Up to now all the American cities have been interchangeable but New Orleans is refreshingly different.  We have already been to the French Market, walked on Bourbon Street, and eaten Cajun cooking.  Tonight we went out for soul food – Telen had fried chicken and mustard greens and I had catfish with cabbage.  We topped it off with sweet potato pie.  Certainly better than the traditional American food that has permeated the American chapter of our trip – burgers and fries or for fancy meals: hotdogs and fries!

Telen writes:

Staying with our friends for a week in Florida has given me a glimpse into daily living in the U S.  The American presidential election is coming up in November.  The TV and newspaper are full of mud slinging rhetoric between the Republicans and the Democrats.  There are many TV channels but none really is worth watching except the Food channel  (Ah, just like at home!).  The news reports here are mainly on the military actions in the Middle East and the presidential election.  There is zero news about Canada.  Apparently a recent UN report on happiness scores across nations ranked Canada in 4^th place with Denmark at the top.  USA is ranked in 8^th or 9^th place.  Over 90% of Canadians feel happy living in Canada.  I share this sentiment now as we travel through the States and sharing with our Florida friends about our respective lives.

The weather in Florida certainly makes me feel like I am really on vacation, i.e. sunny and warm, reminiscent of tropical vacations.  There are countless temptations everywhere you go: outlet malls, eat all you want buffets.  People generally are friendly. 

We have now driven through several southern states i.e. Alabama, Mississippi and now in Louisiana.  The southern accents become stronger as we travel west.  The street scenes also show less economic wealth here than Florida.  For example, yesterday we stayed overnight in Mobile, Alabama.  When we walked into the front entrance of a grocery store near our hotel, we were greeted by an armed security guard who calmly, but firmly asked us to leave our day bag at the customer service desk until we finish our shopping.  I noticed that the people in this neighborhood seem to be a bit impoverished. 

I like all the local foods that we have tried so far except the alligator ribs.  The meat tastes a little fishy yet the texture resembles pork.  I sure like the southern fried chicken and the collard greens!