Houston... the place

The Drive:
We drove from New Orleans to Houston in about 6 hours. The whole time we continued listening to our book on tape, Rebecca Wells' The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder. We were really into it especially because the setting was New Orleans and having just spent a few full days there, we understood many of the references. I will describe the car set up later but basically it was hard to hear the story. Despite it being hard to hear, it worked well enough for us to be addicted to the story. When I say addicted I mean addicted. Carla who normally sleeps the entire car ride would stay wide awake. We would even drive places just to listen to the book. This means, driving to a park just to sit in a shaded area and listen. It was bad.

Arrival:
We were really lucky to of had such a generous host. Mark is an officer in the Houston area alumni association. He graduated in 2003 and lived in singapore before moving to Houston. We arrived on thursday evening but he had dinner plans (originally we told him we weren't coming until friday. oops.) So he showed us around Mid-Town where we picked a bar called "the front porch," to hang out at while he was busy. One of Mark's friends, another 2003 alum, Andrew, joined us for a while before Mark came by. Andrew was the president of Cloister, a member of the crew team, and was working for Chase as a geo-scientist. Simply put, he looks for oil. Then Josh, a footnote '09, Claire '10, and a few other alum stopped by as well. We proceeded to go bar hopping.

Turtle Racing...
Every Thursday night there is an outdoor bar that has turtle racing. They put 10 turtles in the middle of a circle under a trash bin. Everyone picks a number of the turtle they think will win. A volunteer from the audience lifts up the trash bin and the first turtle that makes it out of the circle wins. When people's turtles get closer to the edge their supporters start cheering. The cheering scares the turtles and makes them slow down. The crowd goes from elated and excited to pissed off. If your turtle wins the most times then you get a free beer. BEST PART: There was a gentleman there holding what looked like his 3 year old daughter. It was midnight. He was going for turtle number 5 and he almost dropped her when his turtle won.

DAS RACIST...
We went to a bar called Cheers. Apparently it was going out of business so they were giving things away and selling everything cheap. Josh and Mark really wanted to play some old drinking games that since our time at school have slowly died. But Carla and I are always up for a game... especially Robo (p-ton version of quarters). For those of you who don't know what robo is, I'm not going to explain it but the objective is the same as any other drinking game you have played... Step one: get some object, whether it be a quarter or ping pong ball or whatever, into a cup of beer. Step two: then drink that cup of beer with the dirty object in it. Step Three: repeat.  We played some robo and then these guys challenged Mark and Josh to a game of Beirut (beer pong). They were winning but had trouble with the last cup. There was a disagreement about rules and Mark was getting frustrated because these guys weren't the brightest nor were they reasonable after drinking so much. So to stop the arguing I stood up, took the ball and made the last cup (of course I'm going to tell you about how good I am... if I didn't you wouldn't think this blog is mine). Bam. Game over. Argument over. time to leave. Not yet... the one guy started telling Mark that he likes him because he isn't like most asians (Mark is asian). O great. Here we go. Mark got all upset so to make him feel better the guy decided to start saying negative things about black people. Really? Mark looked like he was gonna punch the kid but we all just left. The entire walk to the next bar, Mark and Josh were trying to convince us that not everyone around there is like that... a similar incident happened the next night and ended with Ashley '03 telling us the same thing. Houstans? Houstonians?aren't racists! 

Wonder Bar....
? ? ? ?

Ring of Fire...
This is the name of a drinking game similar to the one described above, you know, where you get something into a cup of beer and then drink that cup of beer and then do it again, but the difference is that this game was not introduced on the Princeton campus until spring of 2010 so for Mark and his friends it was completely new. We are always looking for new exciting things to do, new games to play, new ways to party and enjoy each others company. Why? Why not? Maybe we all have adult ADHD? Who knows. Anyways, Carla, Julie, and I introduced this new exciting messy game and everyone loved it. I had forgotten how much fun it could be. We played it so much at school that it got a little monotonous for me, especially because we all got too good at the skill involving Step One: getting an object into a cup. It is a fast paced game and you can really get into it without really realizing your own ridiculousness. Mark would yell absurd things over and over again every time it was his turn. I probably shouldn't say it... which means I'm gonna say it... It was kinda like he had tourrettes.

Conclusion:
Alright, so we go to a bar to watch some turtle racing, drink, listen to some racist people, drink some more, play games, dance a lot (if you were wondering what wonder bar was... it was a club with lots and lots of dancing... see what I just did there? kept you wondering. Clever, I know.), drink a little more, eat pizza, and walk home but those things weren't my favorite parts. I could have been in any city with a bar strip and essentially done the same thing. I have done that same thing in many other places. We would do that every weekend at Princeton. The reason I came on this trip in the first place wasn't to keep doing what I had been doing at school for the past four years. The point of this whole thing was to clear my head, get a slightly clearer idea of what I want to do in the next chapter of my life, meet new people and hear about their experiences, network, see things, explore, be on my own time, and umm... party a little. Who am I kidding, you all know that I like to have a good time. But with that being said, what I really enjoyed out of the trip was simply talking to Mark and his friends. Whether it was by the pool, at the bar, in his apartment, at a hole in the wall restaurant or where ever, I like to hear people's stories. I think I like hearing stories even more than telling them. I know that is hard to believe, I mean look at how long this blog is! Will it ever end? Eventually. 

The next post will be all about the people I met... some of their stories and in particular, why they stuck with me. And a little snippet about food. Can't be on a trip with Carla Chow and not eat!

-Rachel
P.S. I kept hearing from people, after I would tell them that I was stopping in Houston on my way to Austin, that Houston is lame, especially in comparison to Austin. But you know what? I had a great time there. They must have never been to the Wonder Bar.