Houston day 8 - a day trip to Galveston

Today has been a pretty good day.  We started off by heading to The Heights, which if our rental application is successful will be our neighbourhood.  It's a lovely place.  It's one of the few places I've seen in Houston with lots of people out and about on foot, and it's also pretty green and has a funny mix of funky, upscale and run-down houses and shops.  We get the impression people actually talk to their neighbours there, which was confirmed by a visit to Yale St Gifts & Grill - a diner/antique shop (funny combination, I know!) where a few of the staff introduced themselves to us by name and chatted to us for ages, and also seemed to chat to all the regulars too.  When you're in a city with a grand total of two friends (bless you, Scott & Maggie!) strangers' willingness to talk to you as a friend is a gift that almost brought tears to my eyes this morning.  So we assured our new friends Barbara on the checkout, and Tom and Linda in the antiques store, that we will hopefully be some of their new regulars! Linda loves my Australian accent, which is nice, coz many people here don't understand me.  I have a feeling I will be losing my accent just to be understood.
Anyway, after that we dropped in to Maggie's place to use her scanner for some paperwork things we need for the rental application and borrowed some maps to head off on our day trip.  We went to Galveston, about an hour away, on a little peninsula (or maybe island...anyway, there's a big bridge).  It's a funny place.  For starters, it's so on the coast it's practically in the water.  The water is on the same level as many people's houses, and in fact some houses are on stilts in the water.  Understandably hurricanes are a big worry here.  Many people talk about Hurricane Ike in 1900, not that anyone alive today remembers it, but it's kind of woven into the local memory, even if you're not a born and bred Texan.  Apparently it changed the landscape a lot.  Thousands of people died in Galveston, with craploads of property damage, etc., and it affected Houston quite a bit as well I think.  So now the kerbs in Galveston are about a foot and a half high and have little steps or ramps leading up to them, to lessen the impact of flooding.  Some buildings have "Ike Survivor" plaques on them.  [Some of these details are a load of crap - see "Editor's Comment [Day 12]]
Secondly, Galveston is weird because in some ways it kind of feels like a ghost town.  Today was a public holiday (Memorial Day - the military is a much stronger presence here and they take it much more seriously than we take ANZAC or Remembrance Days) and so maybe that contributed to the feeling that there was a low level of activity in Galveston.  In the 1890s it was the Riviera of this region and the hub for wealthy holidaymakers, shipping businesses and white-collar gangsters.  Four out of every five buildings in downtown are incredibly impressive, more-than-one-hundred-year-old heritage-listed places.  The streets are made of brick.  Horse and carriage tours operate.  It feels a little like Sovereign Hill.  But aside from the touristiness, the area seems quite run-down.  We had lunch, walked around, discovered a secondhand bookstore.  Need I say more? It was a good day.

Houston day 4

As promised, details about business class...there are three things that make QANTAS business truly excellent and all it's cracked up to be.  (Continental, which is what we flew domestically in the US, is still nice and roomy, and you get a free meal which you don't in economy, but it's not incredibly special.)

1. The seats.  In groups of two, with enough room for each seat to recline to become a fully flat bed.  (Actually, at some stages it felt like my head was actually lower than my feet.)  You can adjust them every which way you want, and they even become massage chairs.  No joke.  The sound of the cabin is always filled with the gentle whirring of people electronically adjusting their seats.  Being able to stretch out makes the flight just kind of boring, not the interminable hell that economy can sometimes feel like.
2. The meals.  The service and the quality of food and the real crockery makes it feel like a restaurant (and a classy one at that), just one where everyone is bizarrely facing the same way in rows.  My only complaint was that what with three courses plus coffees/liqueurs afterwards the meal literally went for hours and I wanted to go to sleep.  And then you can order drinks and decent snack-sized meals at any time during the flight.  Pretty special!
3. The stuff.  You get a nice designer toilet bag with three different kinds of moisturisers and an eye mask and ear plugs and toothbrush and toothpaste..  You get a pair of pyjamas.  You get a nice pillow and a really warm blanket (these you have to give back.)

So there you have it! QANTAS business class was a real treat!
Below are some photos of the apartment we're staying in for the moment.  We're going to look at some places for rent tomorrow! Yay!

Houston: first full day

So we arrived last night and pretty much just crashed.  It felt really bizarre.  I was feeling kind of sad and lonely, and woke up scared and depressed at 3.45am.  Good thing I brought that packet of double coat Tim Tams with me for comfort food.  That, a cuddle with Lucas and a couple of episodes of The Twilight Zone (happened to be on TV) cheered me up.  One of my bags is still stuck at LAX so that's a cause for worry.  When you don't have a mobile phone and you're living in a new apartment complex that you don't know how to tell visitors how to get inside, it's kind of strange.
But today is exciting.  We found a fun strip of shops and restaurants on Gray St and had breakfast/lunch at "Ferrago".  Good place! Loving American service culture.  I never saw the bottom of my water glass.  Also the meal wasn't terrifyingly large as I had feared.  A hamburgery/sandwichy thing and a salad, both quite reasonably sized and yummy!
So we have an apartment and a car, both only for six weeks while we find something more permanent.  We've done a little bit of walking around (which no one does, really - kind of understandably as it is REALLY hot outside).  Tomorrow we're meeting with a relocation consultant who among other things is getting me a cell phone, possibly having dinner with Maggie and her husband Scott.  Wednesday I have a cardio dance class thing at the gym in the apartment complex.  So we have things to do! Hurrah! First day I think we can count as a victory!

25 hours til arrival in Houston - Melbourne airport

Keep periodically checking my backpack for the scary envelope only to be opened by a U.S. Customs Official.  Once we get to LAX I will hand that over and be interviewed, the last stage in the visa process.  According to "Living in the U.S." which I was so kindly gifted by Maggie, one of the only people - and the only woman - I will know when we get to Houston, whilst tipping is expected in the U.S.A., it is considered illegal bribery to tip Customs Officials.  Good to know :)
Many people have asked for an update on what the Business Class experience is like.  So far I can tell you that the short queue is nice, as is the lounge.  Yummy buffet breakfast and a comfy quiet place to sit and use Wi-fi are very nice.  One strange thing about the lounge, though, is that the cutlery, crockery and toilet seats are funny, squarish shapes - it's like they're preparing you for life on a plane even though we're still on the ground.  Also the way the toilets flush is a little reminiscent of aeroplane toilets - a sudden, loud rush.
So there you go.  Bet you weren't expecting an update on the toilets.

1 day til arrival in Houston - in transit, Melbourne

So, we had an amazing holiday in Thailand.  We drank many cocktails (including ones especially dedicated to Bry and Emma, who had both asked us to have a cocktail for them! Em, the Long Island Iced Tea Lucas had for you is below!), swam a lot, lay around a lot, ate delicious Thai food.  The breakfast buffet at the resort was amazing and included a whole table of different kinds of tropical fruit - the sweetest pineapple I have ever tasted! The swim-up bar was alas not operating, but we still got served drinks by the pool.  When you ask for coconut juice, they hack open a coconut, put a straw in and give it to you!

For the first five days we barely even left the resort.   We just needed a lot of resting time - we were both pretty sick and stressed and strung out from packing up and saying goodbye.  Enough time each of serious talking and silly talking and no talking to process the huge thing we are doing in moving countries.  Once we got up the energy, we rented a motorbike and visited some other beaches and a waterfall, and went on a guided tour of some Buddhist temples in the area.  Two were cut into caves, which was pretty cool, but my favourite was a really brightly painted one with huge and detailed statuary and amazing architecture.

Right now we're in Melbourne, just picking up some more luggage and saying a final goodbye to the city before we leave bright and early tomorrow morning.  I feel so much more ready after our holiday to move.  Physically and emotionally rested, plus I got some good thinking time in about my attitude toward myself and the world.  I am just a teency bit more grownup after the last couple of weeks.  More ready to own my decisions and speak and act with power.  I had a cool experience at the first temple we visited.  They have these giant gongs outside some temples with round bumps on them.  You kneel before it and rub your hands on it, and it makes a different sound for everybody.  The belief is that if you make a really loud sound, you know you are a good person.  It was pretty special to hear the powerful, low sound it made for me, with a nice loud ring to it!

I am a little worried about going to a place where I know a few people, but Lucas is the only one I know really well.  I think it's the extrovert in me - I need more people otherwise I get grumpy and irritable! Better make some new friends fast! Plus I think skyping my family & many friends from Melbourne will help.  So, you know, get in touch everyone!

15 days til arrival in Houston - officially in transit!

Lucas is my saviour.  He has cleaned the house so thoroughly, taking over right at the point when I've become too overwhelmed to make decisions! All our stuff is packed up and scheduled for shipping.  Yesterday was a long but lovely day - I went to visit Grandma to say goodbye while Lucas scrubbed his fingers raw at the house, then Brigid came over to exchange a car for an acting workshop, and Hayley helped with the cleaning.  Simon & Hayley witnessed our little ceremony, burying my wedding bouquet in our courtyard so we know it will always stay in our first house, and Ray & Cheryl joined the four of us for a Benino's pizza picnic dinner on the floor of our empty lounge room! Then we left our house for good. Said goodbye to Ray & Cheryl (our landlords) - hard to express what you want to say after five years of living in community with them.  Staying in Ballarat now for Mothers Day weekend before heading off to Thailand tomorrow!

19 days til arrival in Houston

The packers are here.  I'm hiding out in the study because that's the room the packers aren't allowed to go in.  This feels exactly how I was told it would feel - I'm totally out of control while three men in hi-vis vests swarm all over the house packing stuff up with remarkable speed and craploads of paper.  It was a little anxious-making at first but I've calmed down a bit now.  Brain not quite working coz we were up until after 4am cataloging everything for insurance purposes.  Was kind of fun to do an (almost) all-nighter with Lucas - don't think we've ever done that before.  Am wearing crappy strange clothes that are not worth keeping to pack, including a bright green woollen jumper Lucas picked up off the church trading table ages ago and hasn't worn since!