San Antonio

 Over this past weekend I went to San Antonio with some NASA co-ops and two friends from here.  There were about 30 of us total on the trip.  We left from Houston on Friday after work and left San Antonio on Sunday to come back home.  In San Antonio we went to the Riverwalk, Schlitterbahn, Gruene Hall, The Alamo, and Natural Bridge Caverns.  Throughout the trip we had a common theme of "Nerd Alert."  Since most, if not all, of the group was engineers, we had a lot of conversations that "normal people" wouldn't have had.

 

Friday night we went to the Riverwalk for some dinner after checking into our hotel.  It was already kind of late so we just wandered a bit, ate dinner at a Mexican place called Casa Rio and then went back to the hotel.

 

Saturday morning we were up and at 'em early for Schlitterbahn.  Schlitterbahn is a waterpark in New Braunfels, TX which was about half an hour or so from our hotel.  My car got to the park at around 9:45 but the person who was in charge of the tickets didn't get there until almost 11 because of traffic and having to park someplace else because the lot was full.  We went on a ride called Master Blaster first then went in the "lazy" river for a bit.  I say "lazy" because it had a wave maker that would send waves through it periodically.  We then went out to one of the other two parks for some more tube rides.  In that park we had to carry our tubes from ride to ride with us.  They were innertubes out of truck tires basically.  When we got off of one ride, all of us were actually together so we decided we would all go to the next ride together and try to stay in line together which we hadn't accomplished yet.  So we decide to chain our tubes (grab the tube in front of you and behind you) and walk across the park like this.  We had 20-25 "kids" aged 19-25 walking through the park all attached to each other by tubes.  It was so much fun and people were just laughing at us.

 

Saturday night we went to a country dance place called Gruene Hall.  It is the oldest place of its kind in Texas.  We were going to eat dinner at a place called The Gristmill which was right next door but the wait was too long so we went back to a counter serve bbq place called Rudys.  At Gruene Hall, some of the guys wanted to learn how to do the spins with girls so the one guy who knew it taught the guys and we, the girls, learned as well.  Next time we go to Wild West in Houston we will actually know what we are doing.

 

Sunday we woke up a little later and at breakfast as a group.  We also did Sunday Devotional because we couldn't go to church.  We then had some free time to explore San Antonio on our own.  Most of us went to The Alamo for a bit then headed to the Riverwalk to find food before we left for Natural Bridge Caverns.  Natural Bridge was pretty cool.  I didn't take many pictures because I was more focused on not falling and getting hurt.  Basically it was a self led tour.  There were guides in the "rooms" who would speak about that particular room and what we would find in the "hallways" to the next room then send us off on our own to the next room.

 

All in all it was a awesome weekend and I'm so happy I went.  I made a lot of new friends and had so much fun.  I'll post some pictures in the next post.

Week Recap

This past week has been fairly uneventful.  I am still having a great time down here though.  I can't believe it's almost halfway over already!

Monday - My supervisor finally took me out for my "welcome" lunch.  We went to a place on the beach.  He purposely drove his Mercedes convertible to work so we could take it down to the beach.

Tuesday - Co-op/New Hire training. Pretty much we sat in a room all day and listened to people talk about how great Dow is and how to be safe, expectations of us, etc.  We did have a decent lunch and snacks though.  Ultimate as usual.  They are fixing the field we normally play on or something like that so we had to play on the other field which had a lot more cracks in it.  We only played 2 games but played longer than we normally do.

Wednesday - Bowling after work.  We went to a different place last time that was a little better than the last place we went to but still really outdated.  Madelyn had gotten an 8lb ball from behind the counter and was given specific instructions not to let any of the guys use it.  Well, Brent wasn't paying attention when we told them all that and he goes to bowl, picks up the 8lb ball and when he goes to throw it he managed to bounce it off the wall.  The owner didn't like us too much after that but he couldn't really do anything because we were the only people there so if we left then he didn't have any customers.

Thursday - Tried to figure out logistics of the NOLA trip for 4th of July weekend.  We didn't get too much accomplished though.

Friday - Went to the beach for the afternoon then had a party in Residence.  It was a fun day.

Today - My roommate just got here and is moving in.  Tonight we are going over to Villages for a bit then to Armadillo's Country Ballroom for some dancing.

Houston - Take Two

Our second venture to Houston was a little better than the first.  One of the co-ops had been told that he had to go to a bar called Howl at the Moon before he left.  Unfortunately this bar is 21+ to get in so all us youngins wouldn't be able to go.  We compromised with them that they could go to Howl early for Happy Hour and stuff then come over to Wild West around 10.  Wild West is a 18+ to enter country bar/ballroom kind of like Armadillos (which I think I described in an earlier post) but better.  So come Friday night, Lyds and I are all ready to go but hadn't heard anything from the Howl group so she texts them and they tell us they aren't going to Wild West after all.  After some discussion and texts to some other people who were at Howl, we determined that some people would go over so off to Wild West Lyds and I went.

Apparently Lyds is a magnet for old guys because we weren't even in Wild West for 5 mins when this guy who was probably close to my dad's age came up to her and started hitting on her.  Then this kid who she described as "he's so young he's an undecided major" asked her to dance so she did.  I then found my officemate/friend Bethany with some of her friends who are NASA co-ops and I hung out with them until the rest of our group got there.  I learned how to two-step differently and learned some spins and stuff which was amazing.  I can't wait to go back there.

Let me explain something about the music they play at these "country ballroom" places.  They play 6 or so country songs ranging from older songs to current songs that people two-step to.  They then play a line dance such as Copperhead Road (our favorite) or Cotton Eyed Joe (which is done differently down here), etc. They then play one or two hip-hop songs for the younger crowd (aka us) to dance to "normally."

Saturday, Lyds and I were going to go to Wal-Mart to get cups for the night and ended up coming home 4 hours later with cowboy boots.  Definitely a good investment for down here!  I also got my dad a cowboy hat for Father's Day.  I will post a picture of the boots soon.  So this excursion started with us trying to find a place that was supposedly in Lake Jackson.  After a few laps by where it should have been, we determined it wasn't there.  So, we use my phone for internet and GPS and find a place out past Sweeney which is about 35 mins away.  So we drive out there and this place is a little shack on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.  We go in, but most of the boots were only in one size per style and were quite a bit more money than we wanted to spend.  So we drive back into town where there is cell phone reception and decide to go to this place that is a chain in Houston called Cavenders.  This is now about an hour or so from where we were.  So we drive out there and were successful then came home.

Ultimate and Kolaches

So I'm officially back to being able to run again so I could finally play Ultimate Frisbee with the group this past Tuesday.  I ended up playing one of the three 25 minute games and it was so much fun.  I still can't really pivot/cut/jump/stop running quickly, but I didn't do too bad.  I think my team lost the game I played in but we had a lot of fun.  The field was a little muddy due to a storm we got earlier in the day (which is another story) but we really didn't get too muddy.  There is a huge drought here though so the 1/2" of water we got was basically all the rain they've gotten in the past year.  I'm so sore from Ultimate though.  Going back into something like Ultimate full swing after not really be able to do much as far as exercise for a few months sure makes your muscles hurt.  I've also started running after work.  The park where we play Ultimate has a little trail that is a little less than a mile.  This week I've been running one lap and it hasn't been too bad.  I'll probably start adding more laps throughout the summer so I can get back into shape before heading back up to PSU in August.

On our way down to Texas, my mom and I keep seeing signs for "kolaches" at doughnut places.  We weren't sure what they were but we never stopped to explore.  Last week, my tech supervisor was trying to explain them to me and I wasn't really grasping the concept.  Well today I had my first kolache.  I guess the best way to explain them is kind of like a cross between a pig in a blanket and a hot pocket/stromboli.  A kolache is a sausage wrapped in a doughnut/bread dough (it's sweet like a doughnut but has the consistency of bread).  It is a breakfast food that is popular in Texas.  They can also contain things like cheese, jalapenos, and ham among other things.  The one I had contained cheese, jalapenos, and sausage but I took the jalapenos out because it was too spicy for 7:30am.  It was actually pretty good and I would definitely have one again.  Here is a link to a website about them.  http://www.alwayshungryny.com/thought-for-food/entry/alwayslearning-kolaches/

Houston Adventure

Last night we went to Houston to celebrate some birthdays that have happened this past week/over the weekend.  There are so many stories so I'll just tell a few.

We were going to 18+ places so that everyone could be included.  That meant that those of us who are under 21 were asked if we could DD.  My car is falling apart so I said I would as long as I could borrow someone's car.  After a few issues with drivers and people not being able to go then other people wanting to go, we figured it out.  Lydia, Megan, and Amy drove to Houston and Lydia, Megan, and I drove for the night.  So my car (Amy, Sarah, Suchit, and me) were the last ones on the road after switching cars around and we started about 10-15 minutes after everyone else.  Megan was following Lydia because Lydia had directions.  So our car is finally on the highway and there are cops everywhere.  Suchit and I immediately say "Lydia got pulled over" because we've both been in the car with her and have experienced her driving.  So we pass one cop and realize he has Megan pulled over.  Now I hadn't really met Megan at that point but she just didn't seem like the kind of person who would get pulled over for speeding.  We pass another cop and are surprised to see that he doesn't have Lydia pulled over either.  So we determined that Megan was pulled over while following Lydia.  About 15 minutes later we see Lydia on the side of the road waiting for Megan.  Our car arrived in Houston about and hour at least before the other two cars.  It took them two and a half hours to go what should have been about an hour.  Once in Houston we switched cars around again and I was driving the car of people from Houston, Megan was driving the three I rode up with and Lydia had everyone else.  This will come into play later.

So, now we're in Houston.  Everyone who wasn't driving was pre-gaming a bit before we went to this club/bar called Rich's.  We get to Rich's, go in, and are a bit surprised that the cover is only $10 for guys and free for girls.  We were all expecting to pay $10 or $15.  We got there early so it wasn't crowded yet and we just all sort of hung out for a while.  As the night progressed, it got really crowded.  The best way to explain it was a colorful frat, that played techno music mixed with some hip-hop, served liquor in addition to beer, charged for water, and you had to pay to get into.  Now I don't mind going out, but I'm not too big of a fan of having random people I don't know and are of unknown sexual orientation trying to get with me in an unfamiliar place like Houston.  I should probably note that this was not a "gay bar" so to speak but there were quite a few people/groups who we were unsure about.  Even my friend who is bi wasn't sure what they were. (I know this is all sounding really bad but I'm not sure how else to explain it).

At around 1:30 the three of us drivers started trying to round people up which was hard because no one was answering phone and just when we thought we had everyone, someone else would disappear and we would have to go track them down.  By this point I was tired and getting very bitchy and not wanting to deal with drunk people (especially this one kid in our group who drives me nuts when he is drunk).  We finally get everyone together and my car heads back to the Houstoner's apartment and so does Megan just to drop people off.  We (Amy's car from the drive up) were spending the night in Houston instead of driving the hour back at 2:30am like everyone else.  Well, on the way to their apartment, Suchit gets sick in Megan's car.  Poor Megan has never hung out with on the weekend and probably never will again after last night.  My car had Jake (whose car I was driving) in the passenger seat and he was so focused on music, Rob passed out in the back, and Cody and the Houston girl talking and driving me nuts as well in the back seat.

This morning, we all slept until like 11 or so then decided to go to 5 Guys for lunch since some of the people had never been there before.  After lunch we hung out with the Houstoners for a bit more then came back to LJ.  I am still so tired from it that I'm thinking I'm going to bed early tonight.