Texas Turnstile

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I love to travel, and it should be noted first that I fall into that sub-category of travelers that actually revels in counting countries traveled to and collecting stamps in passports. However, as someone who fastidiously keeps records of where and when I have been, I had to set myself certain guidelines. First of all what counts as an actual experience and what not. Essentially I devised myself a rule whereby if I have an experience within the confines of a country, from ground level, I can realistically claim that I have been there. This means unfortunately also leaving the airport and not only the airport but the entire airport facility (for instance a trip through Charles De Gaulle Airport in 2007 didn't count because even though I cleared customs and left the airport, I never left the actual facility, only the building.) this has led me to claim some dubious countries as having visited (for instance Namibia because I saw an elephant standing on its shore from a boat in its territorial waters, or Azerbaijan by grace of being to Davit Gareja which spills across the border, though only barely.)
What traveling comes down to for me though is not the statistics but inevitably the experience. And so I found myself en route to Argentina one Spring day not long ago with a four ninety minute layover in Houston. I was eager to leave the airport and at least see outside somewhere, for at the loss for anything else this would mean in fact that I had been to Texas (the same personal rules applies to states, provinces and any other district as it does to countries) but with only 90 minutes there was nowhere to go. Being safe and leaving 30 minutes for coming and going this left me with only really 20 minutes or so outside the airport, where nothing would have been worthwhile. So I set off to experience Texas from within the airport as much as possible. First I stopped into the upstairs restaurant. Surely something local beckoned on the menu. A quick look found what I was looking for, fried alligator. But this was only an appetizer, a quick discussion with the waitor turned up a chop salad with crawfish as the main course, something local enough for me. As I sat eating, a lonely businessman on the way home to his family in San Antonio sat down next to me and we had a short but satisfying conversation. The wait staff tempted me with desert, but I already knew I might find something downstairs.
Houston is famous for its association with the space race and for anyone who didn't know it there was the space store in the airport. I browsed a bit, pondering whether it was actually worthwhile to buy a poster or for that matter anything from the store which would have to last through 8 days in hostels in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Deciding against it I settled on some freeze dried ice cream (the stuff the astronauts eat) in my favourite flavour - mint chocolate chip. Sitting down in the waiting area I watched the sun setting low across the flat Texas landscape, appreciating yet another aspect of the state.
In the end I had had a local meal, met a local, engaged in some space related tourism and seen some typical landscape. I still don't claim to have been to Texas but i think I managed fairly well with an hour and a half in the airport.

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