San Antonio

After seeing the Alamo, my husband and I strolled the downtown streets of San Antonio. For some reason I loved this old movie theater:
And this cow (Longhorn?) just made me crack up...I am definitely in Texas.

I almost convinced my husband to go to the Ranger Museum. We didn't but I at least got a shot of the entrance...look at all those horns!!!

So then we headed down towards the famous River Walk or Paseo del Rio:

This was my first views of the River....gorgeous!

They even have little boat tours along the river. I thought they should do romantic gondola rides and my husband just laughed.

The thing I had been dreaming about FOREVER was to sit somewhere along the River Walk, sip a margarita, and just relax and enjoy ourselves. So when we saw this place, we figured PERFECT!!!

The Mexican Manhattan Restaurant as seen from the River Walk.

Sigh...and the much craved margaritas:

While we were enjoying our drinks a VERY inquisitive and hungry squirrel started walking around the porch. We seriously thought he was going to climb up a lady's jacket and steal her lunch. Finally a friendly waiter gave the squirrel a whole soft tortilla and the little guy was content to sit and munch on a nearby tree branch:

Then we pretty much just strolled along the River Walk. It would have been nice to see it when all the trees where un-bare but it was nice that we didn't have to deal with too many tourists....and it was the perfect temperature!

Of course, if you know us, we had to stop and get a Guinness at Waxy's Irish Pub. MMmmm..

My night pictures did not turn out well so I'll spare you that. But we stayed the night in a hotel off the River Walk and had a great view of the city.

The next day we bopped around some more. I love these cool bridges:

And being on the river, there are TONS of fountains....some you even have to walk over.

And of course, here's the quintessential view of the River Walk. At night it's all lit up with lights which is very pretty. I love the Texas themed ones....check out the Texas canopies in the back. I swear they love their stars and you can find them everywhere!This is a little stage where they put on shows and I thought it was cute. We didn't stick around for the show because we were heading out of San Antonio later that afternoon. And it looked a bit cheesy ;)But, if you walk up the stairs, like my husband's about to do, you'll find a bunch of cute little arts/crafts/clothing/etc stores. I got a cute little shirt and some candle stuff.

After a few hours of shopping, we were a bit hungry and decided to get some food. We saw this great Texan themed restaurant and sat on the balcony. I played a bit with my camera settings, as you can tell:

The color accent thing on my camera is pretty cool. Here's it picking up only red:

And here's only blue (I like the red better):

And here's normal:

Hope you enjoyed San Antonio!

The Alamo

My husband's family is from Texas so after my weekend at school he flew out and we stayed with his mom for a few days. She is wonderful, always having coffee and breakfast ready, a insanely nice fireplace where I cuddled up and started reading Anna Karenina, and a place near a huge lake so we took nice walks around her neighborhood.

Then the two of us headed off to San Antonio to do some touristy things. And I LOVE San Antonio!! The first place we went to was, of course, THE ALAMO!

If you don't know too much about the Alamo, here's some fun photos and history for you:

The Alamo is actually the Alamo Mission. It's famous for the Battle of the Alamo which happened in 1836 between the Republic of Mexico and the Texans and Tejanos (Mexicans in Texas) where the Texans were fighting for independence. After a 13-day seige and being heavily out-numbered, the mission was captured by the Mexicans and almost all the Texans and Tejanos were killed (just a few women and children survived).

It's also famous because many famous figures from history fought and died during the Battle of the Alamo. You might have heard of David "Davy" Crockett and Jim Bowie. Here's a statue outside of the Alamo which depicts some of the men who fought and died and carved in the stone is all of their names.

The weird thing is that this historic site is right in the middle of San Antonio and is surrounded by city buildings. Here's my husband outside of the fort walls:

There are soooo many tourists so I had to wait a bit to catch a photo of the Alamo Mission without any people in it:

Some people miss this, but since I went with a real live Texan, he pointed it out for me. Legend has it that Lieutenant Colonel Travis drew a line in the sand in front of the Alamo and said that all those wanting to stay to cross the line. They knew they were outnumbered and would probably die. I think all or all but one crossed that line. Some said that Davy Crockett was actually in bed ill and he was carried across the line. Very dramatic.

Once inside the walls of the fort, I swear it looks like a tropical paradise. Since I love photos of trees, I had to take one of this unusual tree. I think the story is that it was uprooted and planted here way back when. I'm pretty sure it was after the Battle of the Alamo:

Oh, and this is March! Coming from New York City where it's still cold, windy, and absolutely NOT spring, I was in heaven: I was really proud of that shot so you have to see another version :)
I would have LOVED to see the statues and Christian decorations that used to go inside these niches. Obviously (well, I didn't know this) half of the top of this building was destroyed during the battle and it's been re-created.
I mean, look at this! I swear I wasn't in the Tropics:
I absolutely loved this little pond/fountain thing so my husband took a picture of me :)

We also heard this guy (you can sort of see him) give a nice talk about the Battle of the Alamo. It was sooooo dramatic. It was great!! I loved the flags flapping in the wind behind him. Oh, and if you go there, note the big white columned Post Office in the background. Yeah, we didn't and payed way too much for postcard stamps at the gift store. Yeah...
And the fort walls are all covered in pretty ivy....and my husband obviously tired of me taking photos of him :) Oh! And side note, my husband got a "War Eagle" while we were inside the fort and another guy said "Ya'll are everywhere!". My husband thinks it was a rival coach ;)
I waited FOREVER for a professional photograher to leave this pretty walkway to get a few photos. It was so gorgeous!!!

Oh, and this photo of the Alamo with a building (not sure which one) was way too Texan for me to pass up:
P.S. Later on in our travels, Miss Ruby (you'll hear about her later) told us that there are "Ghost Tours of San Antonio". Apparently you meet at the Alamo at dusk and a walking tour is held which tells you the history of San Antonio and why certain buildings are built to keep out ghots, etc. She said it's the funnest way to explore the town. Sigh...next time!

School Days

In case you don't know, I am in the process of getting my Master's degree in Library and Information Science. More in the information part actually. It's throught the University of North Texas. I started while I was living in Las Vegas and after this semester I will only have two more classes...yay!! I do the classes online but some classes require a two or three day weekend face-to-face meeting in Texas. A couple of weekends ago I had to Denton for a weekend which was cool because I had never seen my campus before. AND I got to hole up in a hotel room for three nights which was kind of nice because I don't think I'd ever had a hotel room ALL to myself.

Here's a picture of the campus as seen from across the highway:

I forgot to mention that the day or two before I got there, a freak snow storm hit Texas and dumped seven or eight inches on the campus. I think I was on the first uncancelled flight from New York. By the time I got there though, the snow was melting so fast. I loved that even with the recent snow, the grass is still pretty green. And I LOVE trees...they have such great personality when they have no leaves...

I had to snag a photo of this (look how green!):And the trees were starting to bloom:
This one reminded me of New York (the park benches maybe?):

And there were fountains everywhere! Ok, I still crave water and greenery from living in the desert:

And my obsession with trees: