Advertisement
Published: November 16th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Flight to Houston Even in the early hours of the morning, LA´s freeways were rammed with traffic. We arrived at LAX in good time and endured the gruelling security procedures barked out by the most miserable fat cow, who obviously enjoyed treating airline passengers like dumb dogs. Eventually we got through and sat in a depressingly dull departure lounge for our flight to Houston.
The Continental planes have zero legroom, but fortunately it was only a short flight and Rach just had a smallish lady next to her, not one of the monstrously obese Texans that were boarding the plane. Phew!!!
We arrived in Houston and waited in the heat for our transfer to the Ramada Hote, which eventually arrived at several phone calls. The reception as we checked in wasn´t much better, really rude and unhelpful, but our room was ok, so we decided to have lunch at the traditional American diner opposite. We had a nice waitress at lunchtime but when we returned in the evening for dinner (we were stuck for options on a highway with no car) we got another fat miserable cow, who didn´t seem too eager for a tip the way she served
houston we have a problem
there´s a big frog in space! us!
The only reason we decided to stop off at Houston rather than simply transfer flights, was to visit the Space Center (stupid spelling). We noticed a Dollar Rental office within walking distance of our hotel, so in the morning we walked to the Dollar to hire a car for the day, as it appeared this was the only way to get to Johnson - no public transport. We endured the blaring heat of the morning and arrived at Dollar to be informed we needed our passports to hire a car, something we werent required to show at the LA Dollar Office. The lady wouldn´t budge (and she was fat - not that were fattist of course with our beer bellies, but all the annoying people in Texas are chubsters!) so we had to walk all the back to the hotel and then walk back to the office for our car. We got a nice white Chrysler Sebring that did the job nicely.
Johnson Space Center We drove South of downtown to the Space Center, which had four exits off the freeway. Somehow we found ourselves at one of the gates, but inadvertently paid to get in
a Ballunar festival rather than the visitor centre. The stupid girl on the gate obviously didn´t understand us when we asked whether this was the Space Center and just took our money anyway. Jase asked some other people as we were confused about where we were (another part of the Space Center grounds). Turns out Texans don´t understand Cannock accents - a bit ironic when you consider they are supposed to speak English and local people in Africa and Malaysia had no problems understanding us! Jase reckoned they were too fixated on their next burger to listen to us. Anyway, Rach got the leaflet and spoke very slowly to a lady and we established where we were. We decided to enjoy the festival and then head for the visitor center in the afternoon. In the morning we saw Saturn 5, an astronaut signing photos, an interesting presentation on space suits and models of the International Space Center. The food stalls were numerous (we were in Texas) serving lots of greasy, naughty food but we managed to find a nice BBQ chicken stall, but we couldn´t eat the fat laden ribbon fries. Yuk! We laughed at the lazy gits driving around
the festival on little golf buggies. Maybe if they stopped eating fried food and started walking they wouldn´t be so enormous!
The Space Center was fun but it´s nowhere near as big as Kennedy in Florida. We went on a very tame Simulator ride, which Rach announced was "boring!" when questioned by a nervous lady. We thought the Blast Off ride was going to be like a theme park ride, but initially we were disappointed because you stood in a room watching big screens showing a shuttle launch. But it got really interesting when we sat in the theatre and got an update on current astronaut activity, including footage of Space Walks that had taken place that morning! We enjoyed a few more interactive exhibits and then left for downtown.
Hard Rock We decided to treat ourselves to a meal at the Hard Rock in Houston. We drove into downtown and it was very busy as it was a Saturday night. We used the valet parking to save queuing and then sat down salivating in anticipation of Heavy Metal Wings. Coincidentally we sat between two pics of Stevie Ray which reminded us of Chris´ favourite late night DVD,
but we couldn´t find his guitar that was supposed to be on display. As we waited for our car to be collected, some girls offered us free Blue October tickets that they had won, but we couldn´t really be bothered to see them because the only song we knew was that really miserable ¨Hate Me!¨.
The day we had an afternoon flight to Quito. We took the shuttle to the airport and endured the thorough security procedures, having the privilege to be picked for extra searches. Marvellous! Fortunately the staff weren´t so rude and we actually felt sorry for them trying to deal with an irate American woman who wanted to take all her huge bottles of expensive beauty products on the plane with her. Rach had salad for lunch she was so sickened by all the fatties surrounding us. Fortunately we had 3 seats to ourselves on the flight to Quito, which we needed as there´s no legroom on the Continental planes in economy.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.152s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0713s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Debra
non-member comment
Goldfish bowl scare
without reading the blurb, I was scared shifty seeing Rachel's face so distorted and thought it must be the effect of the gold fish bowl I saw her wearing earlier. Oh My Gard! That's a scary face Rach, do not do it again, especially in case the wind changes. While I'm hear (using an irritating laptop) I thought your attitude towards those obese texans looking forward to their cow pies was just appropriate. Who the f***k doesn't understand Cannock for crying out loud? Isn't president Bush jnr from Texas? I'm sure the name of the state has affected people living too, I mean tex-AS? Or as we might reasonably be allowed to call it, Texarse.