After an eternity during which the day eventually turned into night I finally saw the lights of Texas get bigger as the KLM jumbo approached Houston. So this was America, which I’d seen so much in TV and films. It looked normal so far…
I seemed to end up being one of the last people through immigration and by the time I emerged from customs, the arrivals hall was deserted. There was only one person there. My sister! She took me on what seemed to be a very long drive to their house in West Houston, explaining that the currently empty freeways fill up during rush hour, requiring use of a new toll road called The Beltway. A cold beer was waiting for me when I arrived, but jet lag soon put me to sleep.
First impressions of the USA are that everything looks as expected, yet at the same time rather weird in unexpected ways. Everything here seems larger than it needs to be, the light switches are upside down, the tap water smells like swimming pool water, the are no paths / pavements along the residential streets (something my sister curses repeatedly when going for a walk with my 2 little nephews). In the shops, the price you pay at the checkout is higher than the price written on the goods, because they add tax later for some crazy reason. The street names are in English yet seem somehow contrived (“Dairy Ashford”, “Memorial Drive”, “Briar Forest”, etc.).
Today we went to NASA which was very interesting – they let you tour the Mission Control centre (you see it through windows behind it) and they have an enormous complete unused Saturn 5 rocket outside lying on the grass. I guess it would have been Apollo 18…
This really is the perfect start to the trip, enabling me to get used to the foreign environment, while staying in a comfortable house with someone I’ve known all my life. My second night here was Halloween which seems to be a huge deal in this country. My nephews dressed up, and helped carve pumpkins, and every so often a ring of the doorbell announced the arrival of little dressed up Americans wanting “caaaaandy”.
I helped out by babysitting my nephews last night – the first time I have ever been in charge of little kids! They were reasonably behaved… so long as I was reading them stories…
19 months earlier I had visited our sister & brother-in-law, and experienced the “new to me (& UK)” experience of ordering pizzas by phone and having them delivered to the door shortly afterwards!
Haha! I love it! A fabulous start to a great story I love watching unfold. ☺️
tu llegada a Houston me trae lindos recuerdos de cuando los visitamos muchos años después!!