05 February to 10 February
I don’t officially start my nomadic travels until March 1st, but I have two trips in February that I’m using to test out some of my travel strategies.
I flew into Houston, TX (IAH, not HOU which caused a brief scare when getting picked up) on Thursday. My mom was arriving 8 hours later, meaning Dave and I had quite a bit a time to kill in Houston(note: the entire time I pronounced it ‘How-stun’ like the street in NY because I’m city folk).
Our first stop was Pappasitos, given as a recommendation from a friend who used to live in Texas. After that I turned to foursquare to find some of the “Best Ofs” in Houston.
Most of the options were in the downtown area and we had the privilege of being there right around rush hour. So rather than sit in traffic, forced to converse with each other as brothers, we decided to run errands by shopping at Wal*Mart. I can tell you that it is true what they say about Texas: everything is bigger there (including the stores, people, and cowboy hats).
Once traffic died down, which we knew thanks to Google Maps, we headed first to the Waterwall Park which was admittedly not that exciting considering there was nothing else in the area. What was exciting was the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.
Thanks to Shell (the gas company, not a misspelled version of Mr. Silverstein’s name) admission was free. We then made a pit-stop for milkshakes (a phrase I’ll be saying quite a bit) at Amy’s Ice Creams, then picked up my mom, and headed to college station.
The focus the next day was teaching Dave’s classes and eating at Dixie Chicken (which A&M students lovingly refer to as Chicken because that’s the most important thing on the menu).
Saturday we headed to San Antonio, where we explored the Riverwalk, remembered the Alamo (there is no basement!), and grabbed a delicious burger at Chris Madrids. That night I played with ComedySportz San Antonio which included multiple chemistry puns worthy of winning a Au metal.
The following morning we went to Austin, where we visited Covert Park and Lady Bird Lake, took in the gorgeous and somewhat mediocre food at The Oasis, and then capped it off with donuts from Gourdough’s (if you’re in Austin, go there).
We then headed back to College Station  for more classroom training on Monday, followed by a chicken finger taste-test between Raising Canes and Laynes (Canes wins in pretty much every category) and, later, a nice dinner at Proudest Monkey in Bryan, TX. Tuesday we grabbed a Freebird Burrito (which I rank above Chipotle) before flying back to NYC.
Sad you were in the bad city part of Texas. Up in North Texas, we are much more civiilized and with less humidity! 🙂