I've lived in the Houston area for almost 15 years and finally, after all that time, put my comfy shoes on and became a tourist to learn a little history about the 4th largest city in America. It's really a funny story. For Christmas, Kenny and I were on the same wave length. I got him an Urban Adventure gift certificate for a Historic Downtown Pub Crawl and he got me the same one only it was a Heart of the Tunnel Walk. That was December. It's now April and our gifts were about to expire. (We tend to wait to the last minute, always.) We had to use them. So - we planned the beer tour on Friday night with some friends, the Rivenesses who also bought the deal and then Kenny and I toured the tunnels this afternoon. That's a lot of Houston history in just a few short days.
On Friday, after all the work of getting our schedules together with our friends and finding a date, and then finding a babysitter, we thought we were set. But, we didn't plan on Kenny getting sick for the entire weekend. So, trooper that he is, he drove downtown with us with the hope he'd be able to at least walk the tour, but instead he spent his entire night sleeping in the van and searching for places to throw up (sorry, too much?) while I played third wheel to the Rivs and traipsed around Houston bars having a grand ol' time. And it was a grand ol' time. I left with a gob of interesting fun facts about the beginning of our downtown, the important players, brothels, odd bar owners, and ghosts that still walk old creaky haunted saloons, not to mention a few fantastic drinks. I really enjoyed Kenny's Christmas present. 
The best part though was when our tour guide walked us by a building on 320 Main street and told us that this was the original Young Women's Christian Association, which is the place my mom boarded in the 60's before moving to Germany. Small world. I've actually been online trying to verify the information is true. I ended up watching a 30 minute video on the history Houston YWCA. I'm totally wrapped up turn of the century Houston right now. Thankfully, today Kenny was much better and we made a second trip downtown. This time, a cowboy hat-wearing tour guide walked us around the city and gave us information that spanned why Texas has 6 flags, to where every bit of marble came from to make the 1900's Chase bank that remains completely unchanged today. I found out fun facts about the founding fathers of Houston, information about art around the city, the tunnels that connect 180 building downtown, and we went up to the 60th floor of some building (to be honest, they all kind of run together after awhile) and got a great skyline view. Another great trip - but without the cosmos and fruity drinks and instead of fun Friday night young people, it was more serious tourists. And I won't lie and tell you it wasn't a little awkward walking around with cowboy hat guide while professionally-clad men in ties and high-heeled women raced around with important work to do. Despite the desire to tell everyone we passed that we were Houstonians and not just out-of-town guests, we learned a great deal about this big city. My take-away between both tours is that Houston likes to do things BIG, like the rest of Texas. I lost count at how many times cowboy guy said, "It's the biggest in ...." "It's the tallest one in ..." "It's the only one with ...." And while I already knew it, Houston is very, very proud of itself.
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