Happy Holidays

Our holiday trip was in several parts. The first was a Christmas Day departure from Pittsburgh to Houston via Detroit. Maria's aunt and uncle live in the suburbs of Houston. Houston is huge. It's about the size of like, Connecticut or something. It takes about 2 hours to drive across and encompasses three different time zones. The beltways around Houston are almost as large as Ed Blazer's. (Inside joke there)

Monday we started the party right by driving to Austin with the older of the two cousins. One is a freshman, the other a senior at University of Texas. Based solely on the fact that I visited the campus, I decided to root for Texas during the national championship game.

Austin was, as you can imagine for a college town, pretty dead the day after Christmas. But I could easily see how it had great party potential. The weather was absolutely perfect during the day, probably in the mid-60s or so. In the evening, it dipped into the 40s.

Tuesday we hung around Houston some more and went to a giant outlet mall. And, of course, because of the potential heat during the summer, the outlet malls are even inside. So you think you're walking in a regular mall, but then you notice that everything is on some crazy sale.

Wednesday we drove out to San Antonio. That was really cool. There's a river walk through the middle of town, and, most importantly, we saw the Alamo. I was pretty excited. I don't remember anything from my American History classes, but hey, there's a lot to read about the Alamo. There were also a ton of people there for the Alama Bowl. The Nebraska fans seemed to outnumber the Michigan ones by about 20-1. It's a pity that Nebraska had to cheat to win the game. Then again, I suppose you could say Texas did that, too.

Good thing college has instant replay, I guess.

Anyway, after that, I got sick. The day in San Antonio I had a massive headache. The next morning there was a full-body evacuation drill that was definitely not sanctioned.

Thursday was a bunch of sitting around and a trip to the mall. We went to the Galleria mall, which is like the high-class mall near Downtown Houston. There was a Louis Vitton store in there. They have luggage. A carry-on costs $1800. For $1800 you could buy a first-class ticket to Pakistan and take your stuff in a garbage bag.

Silly.

There was also a huge indoor ice rink in the same mall. And a giant line to go with it. Where are these people learning to skate?

I'm going to do this in three parts, maybe four. The next issue will be the trip to Nashville. Then a summary of why I don't really like Texas.