Howdy Houston! 🤠

Heya! Sorry for the late update, Houston’s been a little crazy and I lost track of time!

So, when I left you last time Abby and I were in the middle of our horrific two day bus journey!! The journey was so long and we hardly got any sleep at all, partially because it was uncomfortable but mostly because of the noisy people around us 😩 We did eventually manage to get a little bit of sleep though and when we finally arrived in Houston we were ready for our walk to the hostel! We got there a few hours before check in so we dropped our stuff off and went out in search of some food. After we’d eaten we had a nice little walk round and found a cool bookshop, where Abby picked up and new book and I was almost asked out on a date by a man called Neil (very flattering considering I’d just got off a two day bus 💁🏼🙈!) After our time in the bookshop we went back and checked into the hostel, meaning we could finally have a shower!! We were then able to do a food shop, have a wander, and head to bed for an “early” night!

Our first official day in Houston just happened to be Presidents Day (a bank holiday) and so naturally it rained all day!! This didn’t stop us though, we still powered on through our 45min walk to the downtown aquarium so we could get started on our city passes. The aquarium was pretty fun (they even had a tiger there for some reason!), not a big as I was expecting but it was a nice way to start off our stay.

Day number two was extremely exciting as we spent the day at NASA!!! 🚀 Altough the journey out there was long (1hr 30mins on the bus) our time there was amazing!! We got to learn about the hopeful trip to Mars, see photos of past mission crews, see lots of memorabilia, touch the moon and Mars, take a tour of the training facilities, see the old mission control centre (aka stand in the footsteps of QEII 👸🏻, at least two presidents, and (our favourite) Tom Hanks) where they had all of the old equipment and the badges form all of the mission they had controlled, see a Saturn V 🚀, walk around the Independence Shuttle, and have a blast in the gift shops!! All in all it was a day well spent! After a busy day we had a nice relaxing evening at the hostel socialising with some new people!

Day number three was spent at the Museum of Natural Sciences. This was again quite a walk away but thankfully today it was so hot and sunny, so we didn’t mind too much! The museum was quite fun. They had lots of different exhibits, my favourite two being the Egyptian exhibit and the dinosaur bones 🤓 we spent a long time walking around here, taking in all of the history, being creeped out by the stuffed animals (some of which moved?!), and taking lots of photos (this was mainly Abz, the photography master) After a nice day at the museum we spent the evening by the pool hanging out with some more people at the hostel (we’re clearly becoming social butterflies  😂🦋)

Day four was spent at Houston Zoo. This was a very interesting experience because American zoos are tiny compared to the ones back home!! Abby and I were shocked by how small some of the enclosures were, they were like a third of the size we have for the same amount of animals, and lots of the animals were mixed together which was a little strange! However, even though we were very confused about what was happening we still managed to spend a few lovely hours (because that’s all you need!) walking around and admiring the animals, and our mascots Ellie and Tilly got to see some of their family!! After our day at the zoo we once again spent an entertaining evening chatting to people at the hostel. Although, somehow, this night was spent chatting about very random things until about 4:30am!!

Day number five was far more relaxing than our other days in Houston. We decided to go to the last activity in our city pass booklets, the Children’s Museum. Now, for some reason, neither me or Abby seemed to understand that the Children’s Museum is meant for actual children. This led to an extremely awkward conversation at the front desk when we told them that we were there with any children 😳 It wasn’t too bad though, we did still have a nice time seeing all of the cool kids activities haha! Shockingly we didn’t spend too long at this museum and we soon made our way back to hostel to enjoy and afternoon of relaxation after our late night.

That’s all from me for now. We’re heading off to New Orleans for Mardi Grais on Sunday so next time you hear from me I’ll probably be sitting in a hostel draped in colourful beads 😘😂

Until next time!

V x