Houston

I slept well in my private room but hadn't realised that when I left the window open that the window screen had holes in it. I was covered in mosquito bites.It was quite clear what position I was sleeping in when I was bitten, I had a line of bites on one side of my face. Luckily for me I still have a bit of a tan on my face and the bites were barely visible. I had to try and exercise some self control and not keep touching them. Again I had to fight to get into the bathroom for a shower and it turned out that I was fighting with the French students again, they were staying in the hostel too. That's what happens when there is only one hostel in a city.
My first full day in Houston was a Friday and since I wanted to leave on the Monday I had to go to the Space Museum and NASA mission control,it's closed on the weekend. The bus was fine, other than it only runs once an hour, luckily for me the guy in the visitor centre had given me the schedule the previous day and I was all set. Houston is completely enclosed by interstates making it very pedestrian unfriendly. The museum itself is very unimpressive from the outside. I went straight to the back of the main building to board the trolley that takes you into the Space Centre for the mission tour. I had really come to see the mission control that was used for the Apollo missions. We went there first. I loved seeing mission control, this room has seen so many historic moments and was in use right up until 1991. The current mission control is on the floor below and the space station mission control is next door. We were able to see live feed from both mission controls as the space shuttle Endeavor was in orbit with the space station at the moment. Our guide gave us loads of info on past and current missions, as well as pieces of trivia ,which I love.
We drove around the NASA site and the guide pointed out various buildings, without this it would have been very boring. All of the buildings are a nondescript grey and only marked with numbers. Next we went to the space vehicles mock up facility. Like the name suggests NASA has built mock ups of the vehicles used in space for the astronauts to train on. Then it was on to the Rocket Park. In truth the park only has two rockets outside and then a Saturn V rocket in the shed. Unless you see it I can't describe how huge this rocket is and to think that all of it can only be used once. The space shuttle will only fly another four missions and then the International Space station will be served with rockets from Russia. It seems like a giant leap back somehow. When we were leaving NASA I saw some long horn cows. NASA give the Longhorn Heritage group some land and it's here that the Texas Longhorn state champion is housed. This cow is worth $500,000. Some cow.I wonder what he would taste like. In the museum I saw a couple of movies and an exhibition but my heart wasn't really in it. A lot of the museum is geared towards children and therefore some of it is downright childish. There isn't a lot there for adults, I think the museum authorities are missing an opportunity here. While I was waiting for a documentary to start I ran into the French students again, I felt I was being haunted but this would be the last time. I was checking out of the hostel and staying with a CS'er for the rest of my stay in Houston.
Once I had got my stuff from the hostel I walked to my couchsurfing house. I was walking down the street and there would be a nice house interspersed with ghetto houses and abandoned buildings. I was expecting that I would be surfing in a ghetto house, knowing my luck. I was wrong. Fantastic! The apartment building was surrounded by a metal fence and looked to be in really good condition. Yeah! I called Cory, my host and he came out to let me in. He was absolutely lovely, he got me settled and we went out for dinner to his favourite Mexican restaurant. The food was good but Cory said that the Margaritas weren't so he would take me somewhere else for those. He was right, the Margaritas we had at another restaurant were great and well priced. It was a good start to my Houston couchsurfing experience.
I spent Saturday in a museum, The Menil Collection. This is a museum scattered across four or five buildings and houses the private collection of Jean and Dominique de Menil . The first one I went to just contained a light installation, it was very pretty but I didn't get what the artist was trying to convey so it was rather wasted on me. What wasn't wasted was the completely empty toilets. They had at least six stalls in the Ladies, considering that some bars don't have this many this is impressive in an art institution where I was the only visitor. The next building houses the bulk of the collection, I started with the Surrealism exhibition. This is a good collection, they had some Picasso's, whose work I generally don't like but that wasn't all there was there. There were some paintings by an artist, Yves Tanguy that I really liked and think my friend Claire will too. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the exhibition, something I don't think has occurred before with Surrealist art. I viewed the Contemporary exhibition but unsurprisingly did not enjoy it. There was the usual range of canvasses painted in just one colour as well as a stuffed horsed with a wooden sign post stuck through it. The collection did include some Andy Warhol paintings which I can handle. The next exhibition surprised and confused me a little. The bulk of it was taken up with artifacts from the ancient world, so Greece, Rome, Egypt and Persia. There were even some Celtic items thrown in for good measure. Most of the items were pots, carvings, jewellery etc. , but as I was walking through the exhibition I turned a corner and came upon a piece of modern art. It was a mannequin girl, strapped into a wooden box as if she was ready to be shipped off somewhere. The other piece of modern art in this part of the exhibition was some taxidermied dogs. I don't get it. I know that doesn't mean that it's not real art, I guess I am just traditional about my art. The last collection I viewed was the African, Pacific Islands and Pacific Northwest. There were a lot of drums, totem poles, statues etc. It was an interesting counterpoint to the modern art collection but did go hand in hand with the ancient world one.
I went to the Rothko Chapel, the inside of which is hung with only Mark Rothko paintings, i.e. paintings that are solid blocks of one colour. In this case the colour being black or dull black. If I was being charitable I might say that the colours of the paintings range from black to grey. The chapel itself is an exceedingly plain, octagon in shape building built to the Menil's specifications. It is a non-denominational chapel and was in use for a wedding on the day I visited. Needless to say I didn't spend a great deal of time in there, I preferred the chapels grounds. Lastly I went to the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, here is an exhibition space which is absolutely not the focus at all but rather an incredible backdrop for two amazing frescoes. The chapel is basically a concrete box on the outside but a stunning and well imagined space on the inside. I loved the chapel and the frescoes and the fact that you can visit for free to see this amazing art and space is fantastic. Here I was able to sit and just enjoy the art and the building. Awesome. Who would have thought that such a thing could be found in Houston,TX!
That evening there was going to be a Couchsurfing party in Galveston and since Cory and I didn't have any other plans we went. Galveston is only about 45 minutes drive from Houston. I met Liz, Maria, Bernadette and a couple of other guys were there when we arrived at the house. The house had been reserved for two nights and everyone had come and partied on the Friday night so there was only a few of us that night. We decided to play Trivial Pursuit, we played in teams and Liz and I totally rocked and won. I was definitely helped by having consumed half a bottle of wine as I didn't question my answers, I generally double guess myself and talk myself out of the right answer instead of going with my instinct. It was a nice, relaxed evening. Perfect.