Austin, Houston, San Antonio

So writing this in our hotel room in Grand Canyon Village. Its been a while since my last update so i'm gonna make this a double blog! We spent 4 nights in Austin, Texas staying in the HI hostel. It was located right on a lake downtown about a half hour bus journey away from 6th Street. Had a couple of good nights out there and managed to meet up with some Australian friends we had met earlier on the trip. Again, there was no shortage of cheap beer! Austin calls itself "the live music capital of the world" but we didn't actually see much live music, certainly not as much as Nashville or Memphis.

Austin has the second largest bat collony in North America. Every night at sunset around 1.5 million bats fly out from under "bat bridge" to go and feed on insects. We went and watched one night, hundreds of people line the bridge and wait for the bats. They absolutely stink but it's an amazing sight. We also checked out South Congress or "SoCo" as the locals call it. This is a really trendy part of town where there are loads of Boutiques and arty and crafty shops. We also discovered our favourite burrito place there, Freebirds! England needs one of these big time! Went and had a look at the Texas capital building which they proudly state is 12 ft taller than the Washington Capital building. Remember "everything is bigger in Texas!"

After Austin we caught the Greyhound bus to Houston to meet some family friends who were putting us up for 2 weeks. We had an absolutely fantastic time there, not least on the first thursday when my Dad turned up to meet us completely unannounced (well allmost). We went out one friday night to a homecoming high school football game. A great night and gave us a taste of real America but it all felt like something out of High School Musical.

The next day we went to see the Houston Dynamo's Vs Seattle Seahawks in the final game of the MLS season. Houston had nothing to play for but won 2-1 in a fairly entertaining match. About 20,000 fans were there and the atmosphere was great, loads of streamers and the mexican fans there made noise from start to finish.

When asked "What is the one thing you'd like to do whilst in America?" earlier in the week, Ash had answerd "fire a gun" So the following weekend we were taken to a firing range. The first couple of shots we're pretty nerve racking as there's so much to remember. Ash had an embarressing incident when a hot bullet shell flew down her top, although now she has a pretty cool scar!

Whilst in Houston we also did a day trip to San Antonio with my Dad. We visited the Alamo, went up the Tower of the America's, and had lunch down at the River Walk. We learnt a lot about the history of Texas, and discovered even more when we visited San Jacinto (an old battle field where Texas won it's independance from Mexico).