It had been a while since I'd hung out with Geordie and his current trip idea wasn't perfect - football in Texas as October turns to November - mostly because it was close to Christmas and I wanted to save my vacation time for the coming winter. I ended up finding a flight though, where the cost & vacation time was right. Where Geordie rarely goes places that require even one stopover, I was soon enough over to Halifax, sleeping in Fredericton (above), then Toronto, then Columbus & finally Houston. I could have done without the Fredericton Maritimers waking me up at 3:30am because it was critical they discussed who they know living in Fort Mac, but things improved in Columbus. I love mid-sized American airports & Columbus was a good one. (Geordie initially booked this through Aeroplan and mixed up Charlotte & Columbus, but since I'd already been to Charlotte, I paid the change fee to go through a new airport instead. Totally worth it.) |
Geordie's friend Adam came along and therefore we lived a little higher on the hog than I'm accustomed to. Our hotel was clean, shiny & downtown, with a great view out towards the Harris County Courthouse. (I walked next to this courthouse when I saw Radiohead here back in 2012, but it was good to get a picture for my list of Texas county courthouses.) This living like international playboys didn't end with the hotel, as we also went to a fancy steakhouse for dinner. Fancy steakhouses were apparently required in Houston & it's sort of why I never came to Texas with Geordie for fear of costs. I have to admit the steakhouse was damn good though & plenty worth it. I had only been to The Keg one time since I'm not much of a steak eater, but the two filet medallions topped with crab, jumbo shrimp & shiitake mushroom at Pappas Bros. Steakhouse was delish. I'd probably go back next time I'm in Houston, although I also liked the Greek place that let me bring in my 211 during that Radiohead night. |
Going out in Houston was decent. We ended up at some bar in an old building, going upstairs and watching the San Jose Sharks game, while discussing hockey with a random guy who knew what he was talking about. All very much a Houston experience. The next morning we set off for Austin, where another lavish hotel await, along with tickets to a big time college football match between the Texas Longhorns and Baylor Bears. I was already excited enough because I'd never been to a college football game, but this was also the 9th-largest stadium in the world at a capacity of 100,119 - or over 5x the population of the place where I live. And with them playing nearby Baylor, it was surely near capacity. The game was even attended by Matthew McCaunaghay, which is the 2nd time I've been in the same place as him, disproving the widely-accepted belief that we're the same man. Clearly we're not, since we were both seen at the Texas State Capital in 2012 and this Texas Longhorns game in 2016. |
Attending this game was the thing I was most excited for during my time with Geordie, partly because I loved the reaction of nature-loving, solitude-savouring friends back home, who couldn't fathom enjoying going to a game with 100,000 other people (the attendance was actually only 97,822 for this game). The weird thing was that it didn't feel like an event attended by 100,000 people; if anything it felt like any average NHL hockey game. I guess there's only so many people that can be in your area, but I didn't find the whole event as overwhelming as I thought it would be. Returning to the hotel, tonight was Halloween night in Austin. Following last year in Corner Brook where I dressed up & felt out of place amongst all the people who didn't dress up, I decided to nix my plan of getting my hair braided with red elastics & going out as Lil Yachty. What sucks about that though? Well, there's a street known for its wild nightlife in Austin and it was bumping like Bourbon Street because of Halloween. We were definitely in the minority as we weren't dressed up and some people had really elaborate costumes, while also having a hell of a good time. I was bummed out that I wasn't holding broccoli. Make sure you dress up if you end up in Austin on Halloween. |
As it goes while balling out like Yachty, even if I wasn't dressed like him, we drank into the night and it wasn't a particularly early morning. We had another football game to get to at 12pm back in Houston though, but it seemed like Geordie and Adam were both fine with missing it. The thing was that I wanted another football stadium, especially considering the decent money we'd spent on good seats. Plus the Texans were playing the Lions! For how much I was suffering, it was time to get in the car and go. |
The funny thing was that I don't really care about collecting all the football stadiums, since so many of them have been built recently and they aren't particularly unique. NRG Stadium was my 4th football stadium and wasn't one of the five that I really care about seeing. (Those 5: Lambeau, the Stubhub Center, LA Memorial Coliseum, Arrowhead & the Ralph.) |
I was much more excited about the Astrodome next door, even if we wouldn't get inside like those lucky mf's from a couple years back. We ended up missing the 1st quarter because we were running late and then I gawked at the Astrodome for much of the 3rd quarter. We probably should have just spent the Texans ticket money back at Pappas Bros. Steakhouse instead. Following the Lions losing (of course...and to the hapless Texans!), we walked across the lot to the Holiday Inn of all places, since Houston built this stadium out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a sea of parking and interstates. The Holiday Inn was terrible, even though there were ton of people there and you'd think they'd (the Holiday Inn) would realize that people come here after the game. After waiting forever for one pint while watching the same afternoon football game on 5 TVs, we had enough of feeling like we were in a Corner Brook "sports bar" and called an Uber. Fast forwarding through dinner and hotel room drinks, we went out to an interesting club this night. I can't help but mention how much I loved the interior, which looked like a Paul Wall video with all of these stuffed feral hogs and bobcats. I commented on the taxidermy to this one girl who was working, who then looked confused and asked, "the what? What does that mean?" She was a sweet girl though and I'm not trying to be mean, I guess not everyone knows the word taxidermy. |
The next morning Geordie & Adam were on the same late afternoon flight. I was happy enough to go get fancy breakfast to kill some time, but eventually it was time to drop them off and head west. If I was going to fly all the way out to Houston, I was going to stick around for a couple days and explore more of one of my favourite states. |