I Could Live Here: Houston
Driving through the South, I could actually picture myself living there for a few years. Overall I feel like people have real pride being Southerners, and importantly, people enjoy eating in a way that's much closer to me than say, in Cincinnati. I mean, I feel like eating actually brings JOY, and eating well doesn't always mean going to some upscale contemporary American restaurant. You know the type, all of the mains are in the $20s, they use ingredients with some sort of important pedigree, and utilize "stacking" as a presentation technique.
But when I got to Houston, I felt that "I could really live here for real!" Maybe it was because it just reminded me of home in California: people diversity, food diversity, art, culture...
Shopping Culture: Our hotel was across the street from the Houston Galleria, a mall with anything you could imagine and then some! They have a de Beers store, and a Dylan Candy Bar for example.
Science Culture: We spent a full half day at the Space Center Houston. Went on a tram tour of the campus, got a "briefing" of the upcoming space shuttle mission, saw a few documentaries about the history of the space program and being an astronaut. Funny it may seem, but I sort of get emotional with feeling proud to be an American learning about this sort of stuff.
Art Culture: I could live in Houston, but I really want to live IN the Menil Collection! The Renzo Piano building is quite spectacular inside, but really respects the scale of the surrounding neighborhood outside.
Here's the Dan Flavin building in the Collection. At first I thought that this WAS the installation (green neon on the outside), but there's actually a couple more inside. We'll be seeing him again in Marfa.
Food culture: On the advice our our hotel's front desk (highly recommend the Homewood Suites by the Galleria by the way), we cruised down Bellaire Blvd in search of Asian food. Taking surface roads from the Galleria, we drove through a Mexican neighborhood, and then a Chinese/Vietnamese neighborhood. We just looked for the restaurant that had the most cars parked outside and went in!
