Merry christmas everybody!!

Laging behind on the posts again, but I am sure you alll have been sucked into this Christmas thing again, just like us. We arrived in Jamaica on Sunday and immediately got started with getting everything sorted for the festivities.

But that doesn't mean we haven't had time for adventures, and anyone who has ever felt ripped off by airlines in the past may just get a kick out of the story of how we left Houston, twice, to get to Jamaica.


The story starts on Saturday when we got up at the crack of dawn, actually dawn broke while we were driving to the airport, at 7 am to catch our 9.00 flight to Dallas, where we would change to a flight to Miami to then catch the 3rd flight of the day to Montego Bay.

We got to Dallas and were waiting for our flight when they announced that the flight was overbooked and they would need 6 people to give up thir seats, for a compensation of US$150. No takers, since a lot of people were traveling that day, there were actually another 46(!) people on standby. The offer rose to $200 and $250 and Still no takers. So we thought that if they could get us to Montego Bay some other way, we'll be happy to take them up on it, since we didnt really mind not going to Miami. They couldn't, and the offer duly went up to $300...

Thats when I had an epiphany.

Due to a miscommunication between me and my brothers they had given us two tickets to a basketball game in Houston as a wedding present... 12 hours after we left (well, I might have given them the wrong date, but never mind...). So, I asked them if they could get us back to Houston, in time for the game, and then to Jamaica on Sunday, but surely that would be a longshot.

But lo and behold -they could do it, though it took a fair while to cancel and rebook the tickets, and they had to put us in business class between Miami and Montego Bay. So we called Suzanna in Houston and told her we were on our way back, and quite happily boarded our flight.

So to summarise,

• we got American Airlines to fly us back to Houston so we could catch our basketball game
• We were upgraded to business class to Montego Bay
• And they gave us $600 for the inconvenience.

Got to love that deal!!
Once we got to Houston, we were picked up again by Neil and Suzanna, and headed back to their flat to get some dinner, play a little with young Matthew and rest a bit before the big game. Neil dropped us off and we managed to negotiate all the obstacles on the way to our seats (read the security guard that would not let me in because of my 'professional' camera) and sat down to watch the spectacle, and only half of it was played out on the court. It was almost as interesting watching the audience as the game it self, people were drinking enormous amount of beer and eating tons of corn-dogs, burgers and popcorn. And the few people who did not have a team jersey at the start of the game had one at the end. I am convinced the GDP of a small country was spent there that night, but it was a great night out.

The next morning we once again left Suzanna and Neil behind, promising we'd be back soon (but not today, we were quick to add) and now we're settling in for christmas, and we're sure you're doing the same.

So from us all to you all a very merry Christmas.

Houston we have a problem

That famous movie quote is yet another reason why we've all heard of Houston, and another reason for us to check out the local space centre for an out of this world experience. But first, we were roped into a far more important job - setting up and executing a photo shoot for the most important person in the house. Of course we're talking about young Matthew, who was kind enough to pose for us for this shot.


Johnson Space Centre...
...as it is currently called is where all the action went down 20-30 years ago and when man was still excited about going into space. Admittedly the excitement has died down somewhat since then but we wanted to rekindle a bit of that wonder about space that we had while children and relive a bit what the fuss had been all about.

It was all there, the spacesuits, the real, honest to goodness control centre from the first moon landing, the rockets...



Texas Dinner
In the evening we went for an all American Texas steakhouse for some dinner, and this came highly recommended by a colleague of Neil's. We arrived to a place with an outside seating area of picnic style long tables with a certain air about them, and quite a few people were there as well. Inside was ever more 'rustic' as Suzanna put it, it looked like a saloon but with a kitchen-bar instead of a liquid one. The beer instead was in a wooden through packed with ice. Rustic indeed.

Though the food was nice, and very Texan. You had a choice of about 15 different types of meat which would be accompanied by 2 types of vegetables, out of a selection of 5. When we got to the vegetables section there was potato salad, re fried beans, rice, coleslaw and something unidentified, and when we asked if any of the vegetables included, well, vegetables the answer was a very quick and proud,

"no ma'am!... well maybe the coleslaw, i think that has carrots in it".

Classic.

A uniquely Texan experience

Killer flights
We finally arrived in Houston at 21:05 on Tuesday night after flying for 24 hours though ironically we left Auckland at 15:40 the same day. A bit of a groundhog day experience... We were very happy to see my sister at the airport, not only because it was very noce to see them but also partly because we knew it signalled the end of 30-odd hours in planes and airports.

Drop dead gorgeous baby
Of course the reason we are in Houston is to meet our newest nephew and my sisters first child, the beautiful Matthew Alexander who was born two weeks ago. So far he has been asleep most of the time that we have seen him as he hasn't quite understood yet that night is for sleeping and not day... Good thing the walls are thick in their apartment, and in some situations jetlag is quite useful! We woke up the next day after an 11-hour sleep during which we had not heard anything of Matthews alleged crying stints throughout the night.

Texas shoot em up!
Maybe it was the jet lag, or maybe we ate a strange mushroom on the plane on the way over but we thought it would be a good idea to have a truly Texan cultural experience while we were here. Going to a shooting alley.

Just to make sure it would be ok, I called them up before we went over and asked if we needed a license. The answer was no, they just needed to know that we had some experience with a handgun and if not they have a short class we could take and then it would be fine.

The place was scary! The sign on the front door let us know that they were a glock dealership and when we walked in, there were small hand guns on display in glass cabinets for you to hire and the bigger guns for purchase where on the back wall in full view. We nearly changed our mind and turned around and left when the guy at the till said (in an American accent) "Hi, can I help you". We signed up for the class, choose our gun (a glock) and waited around for our teacher.'

Shortly afterwards, this big, muscular, military looking guy turned up and led us to a classroom. He asked us some questions like "why were we taking this class?" and "how much experience did we have?" and "had we ever loaded a magazine before?". I honestly don't think that he understood that I had never shot a gun or even touched a bullet before. I tried to explain that it was illegal in the UK and that not even the police carry guns there and he definitely thought I was pulling his leg.

So we went through the basics - this is a gun, here is the safety, this is how you load the bullets (I discovered that there were actually 15 and not 6 bullets in the magazine) and this is how you aim. Then we headed to the range to shoot.

If the entrance was scary this was even more so. We passed normal looking people calmly practicing their shooting and stepped over spent shells on our way to our boothe. Our instructer was very calm and professional though which calmed my nerves a bit and after Johan showed off with his brilliant and accurate shooting, it was my turn to step up and have a go.

I guess that you never really appreciate a situation until afterwards. The first shot was rather scary and then the instructor reminded me of how to stand, aim and press the trigger and that was it. I didn't do nearly as well as Johan but I wasn't too bad either. It wasn't until afterwards when my heart stopped racing that the magnitude of it all hit me. I now know how to shoot a handgun, followed very swiftly by, what a scary place the US is! This act that in many developed countries in the world is extreemly difficult or illegal to do, is commonplace and even normal in some places in the US. Definately a defining cultural experience.