Houston: It's Worth It

So, I'm sitting around looking for things to do to help me get to know my new city and I run across this website called "Houston It's Worth It". And YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT THIS WEBSITE just to see the list of atrocities. I mean, along the left hand side are what I initially thought were links, things like "The Flying Cockroaches", "The Potholes", "The Flooding", "The Refineries" and I thought to myself, Good God, here is the site for me! ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE THINGS I WANT TO READ ABOUT! Only to find that it's a promo for a new book that's out. And I've already seen this book at Brazos when we visited in March, it was cool, but shoot, it's a photo album with quotes. Not quite the education I was hoping for. But anyway, so I browsed the website and found things that Houstonians had to say about their city. Here are my favorites:

• "It's like living in a big city in a third world country;"
• "Houston has so much to offer: diversity, culture, shopping and nice people....plus, you never have to buy a winter coat; "
• "...because you can drive for 45 mins and still be in Houston;"
• "because of the numerous topless bars that help spread unreported economic wealth, from the well-off to the well-endowed;"
• "Big city perks, with small town hospitality. Where else can you go to a baseball game on Thursday, Miller Outdoor Theater on Friday, the Opera on Satuday, and Church on Sunday, and never have to drive more than 30 minutes? At each venue you recieve the same laid-back but comfortable service, regardless of your attire;"
• "I think Houston is worth it despite the smog, and that fact that you can't see the stars, because a city is not it's buildings or it's stadiums, a city is the people in it. And the people of Houston make it a friendly environment where everyone is included. But despite this if you have asthma you shouldn't live their cuz it's unhealthy;"
• "We've got two Chinatowns!!!;"
• "Twilight in the summertime, when all the toads are peeping and night herons flying, and everyone and their dog goes for a walk;"
• "Because Houston took in 100,000 homeless people from New Orleans after Katrina. In a matter of days. This one event revealed a lot about Houston: its compassion, its welcome to strangers, its gumption, its can-do attitude (dead or even scorned in other big cities), its ability to make big projects work, its risk-taking mentality, its optimism to believe the best will ensue, its knowledge that if a bet goes bad, Houston will recover, because it has before... And then when they got here, those folks from New Orleans discovered the rest: the jobs, the low cost of living, and on and on;"
• "The people here are really warm (as warm as the climate) and friendly. The humidity is great for our skin. The beach is pretty close. Austin in pretty close. Mexico is pretty close. Did I mention that the humidity is good for our skin?;"
• "Because other people come here like I did and wonder why, of all places, they ended up in Houston...and then they stay forever. And so, we all become Houstonians...and friends."

Texan BBQ at Goode's

Just the other day I was at the Half-Price Bookstore, maybe the closest thing I'm going to find to a cool bookstore in my neighborhood, and I bought a great book about the best cheap eats in Houston. My first pick? BBQ! Luckily, we live less than a mile away from this place, Goode's BBQ, which is supposed to be one of the best places in town. We both ordered the special, the Beef Brisket w/ sauce, mine on a homemade jalapeno-cheddar bun and Carlos's on the regular bun, plus a side of Jambalaya. Verdict? Yummy, tender, juicy. But you know what? I'm sold on Carolina BBQ. I can't believe it, I thought the pork and vinegar combo was so gross at first, but it just kept growing on me so now that I've gone back to the beef BBQ I'm just not the biggest fan. The jamabalaya was alright, but next time I'm going for the Austin Baked Beans which have apples (!!) in them. Who'd have thought to add those?? Anyway, we'll definitely go back to Goode's. Sitting outside a metal barn on the side of a busy road at a picnic table with 20 fans blowing and a good view of the humongous metal armadillo, who can beat that? And for $15, I'd call that a deal any day.

Primeras observaciones

So as I'm finishing what is the night of my second week in Houston, let me note down what has drawn my attention.

1. Feeder roads. WTF are these?? Yes, these are roads that run right alongside the highway and go exactly where the highway goes, but AREN'T the highway. These roads have hard-to-remember names such as "SW Fwy" or "Northbound feeder road" or just "the feeder road". At some point I may find these roads to be genius, but right now I declare them entirely confusing, utterly scary, and completely unnecessary.

2. Grocery store conveyor belts. Um.... where are they? What kind of grocery store doesn't have a conveyor belt for you to load your stuff up on? And don't let me forget to mention that at the Kroger near my house they don't even have a grocery cart corral outside. We've looked and looked to no avail, rather, the Houstonians prefer to leave them between their cars, subsequently blocking parking spaces. I will say that in the Houstonians favor, they have been extremely courteous to me and gracefully dodging out of the way at the grocery store as I cruise around on the little motorized cart with my crutches falling out all over the place.

3. No dancing at concert. Who has ever been to a concert where the people weren't all up dancing? My being on crutches and all, I fully expected to not be able to see the Cure concert from my seat because I would be surrounded by people standing and dancing. Nope. I was able to see the entire thing which was great but caused me to wonder about these people. Was it the crowd? Are we Cure fans just too old? Was I in the loser section?

4. Bayous. I thought I knew what a bayou was until I moved to Houston, so I had to look it up on Wikipedia to make sure.

A bayou (pronounced [ˈbaɪ oʊ] or [ˈbaɪ uː]) is a small, slow-moving stream or creek, or a lake or pool (bayou lake) that lies in an abandoned channel of a stream. Bayous are usually located in relatively flat, low-lying areas, for example, in the Mississippi River delta region of the southern United States. A bayou is frequently a slackwater anabranch or minor braid of a braided channel, that is moving with less velocity than the mainstem. Many bayous are the home of crawfish, certain species of shrimp, other shellfish, and catfish.

Now, look at these pictures and tell me which one you think is home to crawfish?

Picture of bayou provided by Wikipedia:













Houston bayou:














What can I say? I mean, I guess that technically this is a bayou, but...

5. Roaches. I don't know what I expected, I knew they were here and I knew they were big and all over the place. Did I expect to see roaches around the outside of my apartment? I guess so, but not this many. Did I expect them to be as long as my pointer finger? No. Did I expect them to have wings and fly? Never. No way, never ever.

6. So far, nice. The people have been more than courteous and I hope that I can continue to say this as the years go by. The doctors working on my foot have been a Godsend, the people we meet when out running around are all enthusiastic about the city and have lots of suggestions for things to do and are eager to help. Shoot, while a nurse was drawing my blood she told me that if I gave her my phone number that she'd give me a call later that night and let me know where the free concerts were! Now, that I think is nice.