As I write this....
... I am in an awesome hotel room in Houston, TX :D
Sister and I got tickets a few weeks back to come and see Wicked. The show was a few hours ago, but we arrived on Saturday hoping to enjoy all the city had to offer and leave Monday. With a Gulf beach only an hour away and a hotel pool, we packed some swimming clothes....
We got here and it is 44 degrees with random raining throughout the day and a forecast saying it won't warm up before Monday. Well, we checked-in to our $110/night hotel and decided that since we couldn't go swimming we would go to the Aquarium. Our awesome hotel includes a free shuttle service around the huge/confusing to drive in Downtown area, it was really the only bright spot of Sat. We took their shuttle to the aquarium and bought the high-priced ticket. For $16 we could do a bunch of extra stuff... all of which are outside and since it is cold and raining we didn't wanna do them ;P
So we go through this tiny Aquarium (the highlight of which was seeing a dude dive into the shark tank and straddle one of the ones on the bottom). It made our own Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans look so much more awesome. Well, when we were finished we realized that we had no clue how to summon the shuttle back to pick us up. We called a cab, one happened to drop off some people and we got the phone number from its door as it sped off, and we waited for one to come. Twenty mins later, a cab from the same company passes by, slows down, and keeps going. So we head back inside and warm up and ask the restaurant seating lady if she had a phone book. Luckily she had a listing of all the hotel phone #s and we were able to call for a pickup. 30mins later we get picked up and taken back to the hotel. Then we ate at the hotel restaurant, I'll just say that being served by a guy who barely speaks English and doesn't write down your order when you are specifying what you do and don't want in your dish does not inspire the most confidence. My burger was awesome, my sister's chicken something was awful :P
Anyways, with the first day being a total horror fest, we looked forward to today. After all, we are away from work and our overbearing momma and that is another thing that made me feel better :P So, for those keeping track, that is two things I like: Not being within driving distance of mother and a shuttle service so I don't have to bother to drive in a huge, confusing city.
We checked the site for the Houston Space Center and IHOP to make sure they were open on Easter Sunday, thankfully they both were. IHOP was so much better and cost the same amount as the breakfast buffet at our awful hotel restaurant :P Oh, and it was still cold this morning, but no rain :D
The space center was about 30mins from our hotel so the hotel shuttle wouldn't take us :(
But, it really wasn't hard to get to it. It was so awesome. Even my sister, who really didn't seem as excited about it, but once we did a few things she started to like it. The tram tour was a lot better than even I thought it would be. We got to see the actual Mission Control center, a gigantic building that housed a bunch of full sized(without wings) shuttle mock ups, and lastly a huge building that had a full size Saturn V rocket that we could see along with a wall that detailed all the old Lunar missions. We found enough to do to last from 10am when it opened until 3:30pm when we got back to the hotel. We also found lots of cool stuff in the gift shop and spent way too much money :P
We took the shuttle to the theatre, less than 2 mins up the road 0:-)
I didn't have to park and walk, I didn't have to navigate through all the other cars, it was perfect. The show was soooo awesome, we had seats in the 8th row from the stage but they were like the last two of the row so the whole time was spent with our view blocked of a portion of the set. Thankfully there were some empty seats next to us at the start and we got to move down and only a tiny portion of the side stage was blocked. So much better than I ever imagined and dared to hope for after the time we had already had on day 1. A perfect ending to a mediocre trip.
It is definitely a good thing that our drive is only 4.5 hours back home, shame the perfect swimming weather arrives tomorrow xD
Sister and I got tickets a few weeks back to come and see Wicked. The show was a few hours ago, but we arrived on Saturday hoping to enjoy all the city had to offer and leave Monday. With a Gulf beach only an hour away and a hotel pool, we packed some swimming clothes....
We got here and it is 44 degrees with random raining throughout the day and a forecast saying it won't warm up before Monday. Well, we checked-in to our $110/night hotel and decided that since we couldn't go swimming we would go to the Aquarium. Our awesome hotel includes a free shuttle service around the huge/confusing to drive in Downtown area, it was really the only bright spot of Sat. We took their shuttle to the aquarium and bought the high-priced ticket. For $16 we could do a bunch of extra stuff... all of which are outside and since it is cold and raining we didn't wanna do them ;P
So we go through this tiny Aquarium (the highlight of which was seeing a dude dive into the shark tank and straddle one of the ones on the bottom). It made our own Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans look so much more awesome. Well, when we were finished we realized that we had no clue how to summon the shuttle back to pick us up. We called a cab, one happened to drop off some people and we got the phone number from its door as it sped off, and we waited for one to come. Twenty mins later, a cab from the same company passes by, slows down, and keeps going. So we head back inside and warm up and ask the restaurant seating lady if she had a phone book. Luckily she had a listing of all the hotel phone #s and we were able to call for a pickup. 30mins later we get picked up and taken back to the hotel. Then we ate at the hotel restaurant, I'll just say that being served by a guy who barely speaks English and doesn't write down your order when you are specifying what you do and don't want in your dish does not inspire the most confidence. My burger was awesome, my sister's chicken something was awful :P
Anyways, with the first day being a total horror fest, we looked forward to today. After all, we are away from work and our overbearing momma and that is another thing that made me feel better :P So, for those keeping track, that is two things I like: Not being within driving distance of mother and a shuttle service so I don't have to bother to drive in a huge, confusing city.
We checked the site for the Houston Space Center and IHOP to make sure they were open on Easter Sunday, thankfully they both were. IHOP was so much better and cost the same amount as the breakfast buffet at our awful hotel restaurant :P Oh, and it was still cold this morning, but no rain :D
The space center was about 30mins from our hotel so the hotel shuttle wouldn't take us :(
But, it really wasn't hard to get to it. It was so awesome. Even my sister, who really didn't seem as excited about it, but once we did a few things she started to like it. The tram tour was a lot better than even I thought it would be. We got to see the actual Mission Control center, a gigantic building that housed a bunch of full sized(without wings) shuttle mock ups, and lastly a huge building that had a full size Saturn V rocket that we could see along with a wall that detailed all the old Lunar missions. We found enough to do to last from 10am when it opened until 3:30pm when we got back to the hotel. We also found lots of cool stuff in the gift shop and spent way too much money :P
We took the shuttle to the theatre, less than 2 mins up the road 0:-)
I didn't have to park and walk, I didn't have to navigate through all the other cars, it was perfect. The show was soooo awesome, we had seats in the 8th row from the stage but they were like the last two of the row so the whole time was spent with our view blocked of a portion of the set. Thankfully there were some empty seats next to us at the start and we got to move down and only a tiny portion of the side stage was blocked. So much better than I ever imagined and dared to hope for after the time we had already had on day 1. A perfect ending to a mediocre trip.
It is definitely a good thing that our drive is only 4.5 hours back home, shame the perfect swimming weather arrives tomorrow xD