February 18, 2013

• Report # 973

  Hey everyone, I hope that you’ve all had an awesome weekend. I am typing this up from the San Antonio airport as I wait to check-in and fly back to Monterrey for a while, though I hope it won’t be too long as I want to be able to receive the visa authorization very soon and fly back home for a month or so. It’s just after 12:00 pm here and the airline doesn’t open up it’s check-in counter until exactly two hours before the flight, which would be 1:50 pm, so I have some time to spare.

  I woke up this morning at 9:00 am and had a shower and packed up all my things and then walked to the bus station to take one bus downtown and then another bus to get to the airport. It’s definitely soooo much cheaper than having to take a taxi. My friend Arturo will be able to pick me up tonight so that will be great as well. I enjoyed my last few days in Texas the best I could considering I was feeling super sick. The worst was on Thursday night when my fever was so bad and my head was thumping so much and I had trouble breathing.

  I ended up taking a taxi early Friday morning in Houston to a hotel and getting into bed around 4:00 am and sleeping until 12:00 pm. I had a shower and got ready to meet a friend, Catalina who I had known for a while. She was from El Salvador originally but has lived in Houston for many years. She came to the hotel and picked me up and we headed downtown to Hermann Park which was a very nice place by the zoo with some great views of the city and lakes as well.

  It was funny seeing a sign saying that fishing was prohibited for anyone older than 12 and younger than 65… I can imagine some police officer asking a 13 year old kid or some 64 year old man to see there ID ! I was still not feeling that great, but my fever had gone away and I was definitely feeling better than I was the previous night. After touring through the park and some nearby streets we took the metro downtown and walked through some streets for a while.

  My favourite part was a building where we were able to go up to the 60th floor and enjoy a view of the enjoy city and landscape in the distance…. it was very cool. At this time I was starting to feel very cold so I sat in front of the sun shining through the windows in the skyscraper. It wasn’t that it was cold, it was probably around 20 C (68 F) but with the chilly wind outside and with the fact I was sick, I was feeling super cold very easily.

  After spending sometime in the tower we headed down and walked back to the car. My friend drove me to a Walgreens and I was able to buy some more pills to help with my flu. We drove around afterwards looking for a place to eat, but the first place we went to was so busy they had a line-up well out the door. I was just too sick and too cold to have to wait outside. We went to a place called Mambo’s Seafood. It was like a Mexican place, and every single person in the restaurant was latino.

  There was actually a black girl who was a waitress, but even she spoke spanish, so I guess she must be from the Dominican Republic or Colombia… either that or just be an african american person that studied spanish ! The food was very good, though it certainly wasn’t authentic Mexican food. The rice was about the same as the rice that accompanies chinese food, and instead of tortilla chips they had crackers. The seafood was very good and everything in general was.

  However I ate only like 10 % of my plate as I just was not hungry at all. At this point my fever had returned and I was absolutely freezing. We headed back to the car and my friend turned on the heat and I definitely appreciated that. I knew I just had to get back to the hotel and rest. My friend dropped me back at the hotel and I thanked her for spending the day with me. It just sucks that I felt so poorly, but there was nothing I could do about that. I got into bed just after 8:30 pm and despite waking up almost every single hour, I didn’t get out of bed until 10:00 am the next morning.

  My fever was gone once again by Saturday morning and I took the bus and metro to downtown Houston. Unfortunately the Greyhound station in Houston doesn’t have a place to look after bags, so I had to carry around my bag the whole day….. at least it has wheels. I just walked around the downtown streets for a few hours and took some pictures.

  It was actually the NBA allstar weekend in Houston so lots of people were there for that… even people with religious pamphlets trying to tie the allstar game into the two teams of Light and Dark (God vs. Satan) I swear some of these church’s come up with the strangest analogies ! I had lunch at a deli downtown, just having a soup and a sandwich, and when it got dark I headed to a Starbucks for a couple of hours until it closed.

  After 10:00 pm, I walked to the Greyhound station and sat in the cafeteria for a while and uploaded some pictures. I had a long time to wait as my bus to San Antonio didn’t leave until 3:15 am. I wasn’t able to sleep at all on the three hour and 15 minute bus ride, though I kept my eyes closed the whole way. When I got into San Antonio at 6:30 am, I spent an hour and a half in a Starbucks, and then I found the bus to take to get to my hotel.

  I had to walk a ways but when I got there it was only after 10:00 am, so I had to pay five dollars extra to be able to check in at that hour instead of waiting until noon. It was the cheapest hotel I had stayed in… 45 dollars, and you get what you pay for. This place had a terrible internet connection that hardly worked at all, and they didn’t have any shampoo, and there was even a small cockroach in a drawer with a bible.

  I had a quick shower and took a bus downtown and walked around for a while and had lunch at Denny’s. Ordering a Grandslam breakfast, 2 pancakes, 2 pieces of bacon, 2 sausages, 2 eggs and hashbrowns was not a great idea. I figured since I had eaten basically nothing in the past two days I deserved a big meal, but I wasn’t thinking about how much fat was in that dish and I didn’t feel all that great later. I spent the afternoon walking along the riverwalk in San Antonio.

  I found out why the riverwalk in San Antonio is green and why in Monterrey it’s a crystal clear blue colour. Because in Monterrey it’s man made and in San Antonio, it’s a real river I believe. The riverwalk goes far past downtown and leads into trails for walkers, joggers, and cyclists that go well  beyond where I was able to walk to. At around 3:15 pm, I decided it was time to head back downtown and head home. I got back downtown by just after 4:00 pm, took a bus, and got back to the hotel by 4:30 pm.

  At this point I just had no energy left and I could hardly keep my eyes open. I decided to take a nap for 2.5 hours and then stay up for a while before going to bed for the night. I went to bed at 5:00 pm and set the alarm, or so I thought, for 7:30 pm. It turns out I didn’t turn it on, and I didn’t wake up until 9:00 pm. I stayed up for almost two hours when the internet stopped working so I just decided to go back to bed. I woke up lots throughout the night, though I stayed in bed until 9:00 am this morning.

  So aside from being sick I’ve enjoyed my time in Texas a lot. I’ve got to see the four largest cities, meet some people I never thought I’d get to see, and get lots of wonderful pictures. I’m just so sick of being sick so I just want to get back to normal and be healthy again. I have to wash my jacket and all my clothes as it just feels like I’m walking around sick. I would like to be able to start running again seeing as I haven’t gone in 8 days, though I think it might take me a couple of days before I’m ready for that again.

  Anyways, that’s all I have for today, for the next question:

  Are you able to sleep on buses or planes ?

  It’s too slow to upload pictures here so I will have to wait until Thursday to upload some more. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Thursday, bye for now.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  • 1:37 pm
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