Friday 7th November 2003, Day 55/273 - Houston, Texas
Well I feel like I should be making tracks to Dover for Old Boy's, but instead I find myself in the front seat of a pickup truck with Dawn (from the hostel and driving) and Claire (Aussie) on my way to the Johnson Space Center and Space Centre Houston. It's a bit of a squeeze, but I decided to split Dawn's charge ($25) with Claire rather than go through the torment of public transport. We bought the admission tickets at the local supermarket ($10.95) there by saving ourselves $7.00.
The Johnson Space Centre is about 30 miles south east of Houston and apparently isn't named after my Gran, but after some former president or other. The centre has a tram tour that takes you into the main facility and shows you the historic mission control (where all the space trips from 1962 to 1996 were controlled from, including all the moon missions), the laboratories and testing facilities, hangar X and the astronaut training facilty. Back at the tourist centre you can watch all manner of movies about space and take part in simulations.
The Johnson Space Centre isn't as set up for tourists as the Kennedy Space Centre, but there is far more to see here. The tour could have been made more interesting but our guide was a bit lame.
After the tour we dropped Claire in Galveston, where she is meeting a friend before a cruise round the gulf of Mexico.
Finally I'm in a hostel with some decent sane folk, so I went for a beer with the boys in the evening. Shanon (who is moving down here from Indiana), Kristian (who's a Norwegian, living in France and looking to move to the US), Rob (a canadian who is here on a course) and I zig zagged through the safe streets of Houston to an 'English' pub called 'The Black Labrador'. It was your typical foreign attempt at an English pub. There aren't many English pubs that I can think of that have a giant chess board outside. Anyway we had a nice night and I spent the money I'd earnt all over again.
Moan of the day - Why would the hostel put a short arse like me on the top bunk. I think it's my first time on top since school. What makes it worse is that they are the tallest bunks in the world and then doubly worse is the fact that there is no ladder and no side bars to stop me from falling 6 foot. Shanon is beneath me so I get to stand on his head whenever I am trying to scale the bunk and he's complaining because apparently the bunk rocks all night. I'm complaining because no one else will join me in a bed run of dorm raiding the girls room.
