This article is written by Anuradha Goyal, an IT professional  & consultant and a travel writer, based in Hyderabad, India

San Antonio is a small town about 200 miles south west of Houston and I had been wanting to go there ever since I came to Houston. But for various reasons it kept on getting postponed weekend by weekend. But now I know why it was getting postponed, it had to be filled with new experiences and hence it happened when it had to happen.

San Antonio is an interesting place, in its small walk-able down town area, there are many places of interest for a tourist. It has the famous river walk, which makes you feel that Europeans inhabited this place at some point in time and wanted to create a homely atmosphere. You can take a boat ride around the river and which is in the middle of all the famous landmarks of the city like the fastest hotel ever built, the biggest building ever moved and a brightly lighted tower. There are in-numerable restaurants on both sides of the river with occasional recreational places like a stage and Aztec theatre. If you ever visit San Antonio, this is a must do and weather you choose to take the boat ride or not you must walk around the river for that laid back, tourist friendly environment.

The other biggest attraction is the Alamo, just outside the river center mall, and this is a war memorial, where a 13 day long war is commemorated. You are not allowed to take pictures here and the entry is free. The lawns at the back make a good walk in the middle of the down town with lot of squirrels and birds. When you come out of the Alamo, just across the road, you would see the Ripley’s Believe it or not Museum and a museum of Guinness book of world records.

You can take the red colored trams to go around the down town area and one of the places that I took it for was to go to ‘El Mercado’ or the ‘market place’, which is a Mexican market, and one of the most colorful places that I would have seen after Rajasthan. There are small shops that sell mostly curios and some small games and lot of collectibles. Its an experience to walk through the aisles of this market. On the way there is a Spanish Governor’s house, which had a similar old world charm as some of the old British bungalows have, with lots of carved chests and ornate lamps and tables, and a beautiful backyard. Next to the Museums there is shop ‘Del Sol’ which sells lot of stuff that changes color in the sun, and the guy at the shop gives an interesting demo of the products that compels you to buy stuff from him.

Next day we drove down to Natural Caverns, which are about 15 miles north of San Antonio. These caverns are about 200 feet down the ground and are too hot and humid. The caves have natural formations and are living caves, which are still growing. These caves were my biggest motivation to visit San Antonio and they were worth all the effort I made to go there. After the caverns we went to watch a movie at the ‘Aztec on the River’ theatre, the movie was about Mayan culture and was preceded by an enchanting light and sound show. The theatre has been created in an Aztec style and is a beautiful creation with an aura of old world charm and representation of the times when art and culture would have seen better days. Post this we went on the ‘Towers of America’, which is the tallest structure in San Antonio and like most tall structures in US city down towns gives a 360 degree view of the city. If you go to these places in the late evening around sunset, they give a nice view of the changing colors of the city.

My trip to San Antonio was special not only for the variety and colors that it offers for a traveler but because this was my first Couchsurfing experience. Now for those of you who are not aware of the concept, wait for my next post on Couchsurfing. This is also the first time that I traveled through buses in US, while everyone warned me against traveling through it. Traveling in buses in not the most sophisticated way to travel in US, but it is not as bad as it is portrayed out to be. In fact, I had my most relaxed time in the bus as that was the only time when I was not doing anything.

Anuradha Goyal

1 Nov 2006

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This article is written by Anuradha Goyal, an IT professional  & consultant and a travel writer, based in Hyderabad, India

I came back from Houston about four weeks back, so this is a wrapping up article, about some of the small interesting things and incidents.

Ice Skating: Initial days of exploring Houston, we landed on in Galleria, one of the best known landmarks of Houston. In the middle of the mall, there is an Ice Skating ring, where we observed a lot of people, specially kids enjoying skating and it almost appeared effortless from their expressions and body language. Four of us decided to take the plunge and try our hands at Ice Skating, only to discover how difficult it is and when you fall, how painful it can be. While I was trying to skate with extreme caution, I did fell and for a minute lost my consciousness, when I opened my eyes, I could see a man looking down at me with a smile that said ‘It is difficult, didn’t you know it?’, and I gave him a look back saying ‘ Help me get up first’, and his next look said ‘ You want me to be on that floor too, no, I am not taking that risk, but let me locate a help for you’. He looked around for an instructor and signed him to me, who came and helped me get up and do some moving around. But I was amazed at the non-verbal communication that was stronger than some of the verbal ones.

Homeless: This is the funniest thing that happened to me. Few days before the project was to be over, lots of work, working almost around the clock and had no time. 3 days before the deadline, 2 of us went to eat at ‘Olive Gardens’, but there was a 30 min waiting time, and at that point in time 30 mins was not the time that we could afford to waste. There were no empty chairs in the waiting area, so both of us opened our laptops, sat on the footpath near the parking, and started working. My colleague had to go to the rest room and hence there I was sitting with two bags and two laptops and apparently working on both. I could notice that people are looking weirdly at me, but I had so much stuff to finish that I hardly cared for what others thought. But one guy probably could not resist and walked up to me and with tons of pity in his eyes asked ‘ Are you a homeless person with a laptop?’ , I looked up and instantly replied ‘ I am a hungry person with a lot of work to finish’. He obviously was not expecting such an answer, or the answer was beyond his understanding.. He gave me ‘you are lost / crazy’ look and carried on. But I could not stop laughing and even now when I remember that incident I burst into laughing.

Fuelling the Car: Again a day ( should I say night) before the project, all deliverables to be reviewed and submitted in the morning, packing and leaving the place, car to be returned in the morning, we decide to fuel the car on our way back from dinner so that we save some time the next day. In some confusion we ended up putting diesel in a gas car. Thankfully we realized it before we could start the engine. Now both of s had no clue what happens if you put the wrong fuel in the car. Immediately one of us called up the car rental agency and the other one made 2 people search on Google on ‘what happens’. Within 10 mins we got the answer, ‘do not start the car’. It meant again sitting in the car for next 90 mins, waiting for the replacement vehicle to come, but a big lesson learnt. Never stress yourself so much that you make silly mistakes and when you do ‘Google’ is always there to support you.

Overall I think I enjoyed my stay at Houston, it was a good mix of work and play. Some fun and some learning, learning to live with systems and teaching work around ( Jugaad as we call them) to people when they get stuck with systemic situations.

Anuradha Goyal

21 Nov 2011

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