May 10 – Houston, USA

Weather – 26º

not a lot to look at but cool nonetheless

Steps – 14,577

Humidity – 44%

A log is what I slept like last night. I cannot say the last time I slept through the entire night without getting up. It was only 8 hours, but 8 hours uninterrupted…unheard of!

The hotel is fine. The bed is big, the room is cool, and the fan is loud…all that we need for a couple of nights. We’re on the fourteenth floor and can hear quite a bit of street noise when the fan is off, good thing the fan is loud and we were so tired last night.

Houston's most famous mural

This morning’s activity is a free, Houston walking tour. Every time we arrive in a new city we try to find a walking tour. These give us some history and background on the city, orients us a bit, and gives us a local to ask questions if we have them. This is exactly what John Gu, our guide gave us. These tours pretty much say you are expected to tip which is perfectly fine with us, we’re happy to tip, especially a good guide.

kolache - bottom 

The Day 6 Coffee Co., where we were to meet the tour was about a 20 min walk from the hotel. We decided to get there a bit early and have a bite to eat. We split a sausage and jalapeño kolache. I had never heard of a kolache but learned that they are a Czech pastry that have become popular for
breakfast in Texas – kind of like a sausage roll.

reptile

For the next 2.5 hours we (along with about 20 other people) followed John around downtown stopping next to interesting buildings, monuments, parks, and street art (mostly murals.) One cool mural we learned by a French artist called Vinie. She does murals all around the world of the same girl. The only difference is how Vinie paints the girl’s afro.

city hall

comforting beer

At one point we saw a sculpture by Joan Miró – a Spanish artist whose museum we visited in Barcelona a few years back. Chris gave a mini lesson to another person on the tour with us – I was so proud!!

Halfway through the tour we had a ‘comfort stop’ at an upscale food court. We didn’t have a lot of time…just enough to split a Houston beer and use the bathroom.

Downtown Houston is deadsville - maybe this is just the weekend, but it was dead last night too.
Compared to Calgary on a Saturday, this is empty!

Vinie

John was a great guide - kept a good pace, was easy to hear, found shade (although it wasn’t too hot), and shared the perfect amount of information.

2 in one

One of the more interesting places he took us past was a bar called Angel Share which gives all its profits to charity. We also saw the oldest building (1860) in Houston which is now a wine bar called La Caraffe. We’ll return to these later in the day.

Another interesting thing we saw was one of the entrances to Houston’s tunnel system. These are very similar to Calgary’s plus15 system, except that they are underground. They link office buildings and keep people out of the heat. We only saw the entrance as they are closed on the weekend. Originally, we
were a bit disappointed when we found out they were closed on the weekend, but seeing the entrance was good enough.

Angel Share

We also passed by (stopping in front of and inside a few) of Houston’s many oil and gas buildings…very, very much like walking around downtown Calgary.

John our guide

After the tour, we headed back to the hotel for lunch and a nap.

The evening's festivities were to head back to La Caraffe and Angel’s Share.

La Caraffe was a very small, dark, cozy bar with a second-floor balcony. Wine was surprisingly not expensive. At one point Chris made friends who said “sorry for our president” when they asked him where he was from – funny.

Miró at night

making friends

Before leaving Houston, we had to get some Texas queso, so had some along with a glass or wine at Angel’s Share.

Maybe the most exciting thing of the day was stopping my first animal of this trip. I’m not exactly sure what the little guy was, I couldn’t get close enough to get a picture my phone could identify other than to tell me it was a reptile…I got that on my own.

Texas queso

Dolly and Chris at Angel Share

La Caraffe