Favourite 2015 travel photos. Seville, Spain. October 2015.
Catedral de Sevilla
Travel
Last morning in Houston
When I traveled to Houston back in late September, I spent most of my short visit attending sporting events and sampling local craft beers in a couple of nice bars. As my last day in Houston was dawning I realized that I hadn’t seen much of the city. Against a backdrop of ominous clouds, I took the train out to Hermann Park with exploration on my mind.
Off the train and just inside Hermann park, I came upon the Mary Gibbs and Jesse H Jones Reflection Pool, the most prominent feature in the 450 acre park:
More football in Texas
When Sunday morning rolled around in Houston and I pulled myself out of bed, I realized I was heading to my third sporting event in the city in just a touch under twenty four hours. My plan was to spend the morning tailgating outside the stadium, but I had to put that idea aside as I was shaking off some sort of bug that I had picked up the previous day. Luckily, I was feeling human enough to make it out to the stadium for a little bit of pregame poking around, if not for hours of beers and barbecue (still a little bit sad about that).
On a quick walk around the stadium, I noticed that people really take their tailgating seriously. Most had a full smoker of some sort set up which made it easily the best smelling parking lot I’d ever been to. There were also a lot of neat games and booths set up by the team – you could measure your wingspan relative to JJ Watt and run an officially timed 40 metre dash.
Football night in Texas
So after about eight hours en route to Houston and after taking in an Astros game downtown, I had enough time to grab a quick bite and head to my first ever US college football game. This was something I wanted to experience, not just because I’m a football fan, but because I’ve always thought that it would be a unique slice of American culture. So, in Texas where football is a religion like hockey is in Canada, I walked into the stadium at the University of Houston for a Saturday night game between the hometown Cougars and Texas State on a perfect night for football:
Moments in Spain
I have found that, for me at least, the perfect travel moments are elusive and quiet, yet end up being the memories that I cherish most when I return home. Those moments will almost never occur if I try to plan or architect them, but usually just sneak up on me, most times when I least expect them.
This trip to Spain had some remarkable moments, the majority of which had nothing to do with the litany of beautiful sights in Seville, Madrid and Cordoba. I got chills standing with 32,000 Real Betis football fans while they sang to their team before a late Saturday night kickoff. I was drawn to an open window of our apartment in Seville by the sound of three girls practicing their flamenco steps in the cobblestone street two stories below. I’ll always smile recalling the joy on my wife’s face when she could order liberally from a gluten-free tapas menu of a little place in Madrid that had some of the best food of our entire trip. I was riveted by the scene of a man watching over his grandson as he fed pigeons in Plaza Mayor, and to him turning a blind eye when the boy would eat his bread from the ground before the birds could get to it. Simple things.
Spain got its tentacles into me, slowing me down and making me savour so many simple pleasures: an afternoon glass of cava on the roof of our Seville apartment, sleeping in until well past noon to the sounds of Spanish conversations from the streets below, or the taste of a perfect slice of Iberico ham melting away on my tongue. Yes, there were a lot of ham moments. And olives. Oh those olives!
This was a trip I had dreamt about for years, and after two spectacular weeks in Spain, I left compelled to come back to explore so much more of this beautiful, unique country. I’ll write much, much more in the weeks and months ahead…
State Capitol
Favourite 2015 travel photos. Austin, TX. September 2015.
Airport to an Astros game
When I decided to start my trip to Texas in Houston it was with baseball and football schedules in mind. The plan was to fly into town midday on Saturday in plenty of time for a Saturday night ballgame. Then a playoff race between the two teams I was slated to see conspired to have the game moved up six hours for national television. With a few strokes of luck, my flight was on time, there wasn’t too much traffic on the way in from the airport and after quickly dropping my bags at the hotel, I arrived in my seat moments before first pitch between the Rangers and the Astros.
Deep in the heart of Texas
I’m home and a bit bleary-eyed from my late night flight back from a week split between Houston and Austin, Texas. This was a really nice short trip. I started off with a couple of days in Houston, making it into the city just in time for first pitch of an Astros-Rangers game between two teams fighting for a playoff spot. Some delicious barbeque, a college football game and then a Sunday spent at a Texans NFL game made for an eventful visit.
After a final morning poking around Houston, I hopped the shortest flight of my life and 31 minutes later landed in Austin and immediately felt at home. Austin was authentically quirky, filled with great food, interesting art and friendly people. It felt like the kind of city I could happily live in, even if it would take being able to develop the willpower necessary to not subsist on a diet of tacos and barbecue brisket.
A nice first taste of Texas, literally and figuratively. More to come in the weeks ahead…
I wrote his name in the sand
As my San Diego trip was winding down back in June, my mind was starting to drift to my dog, Chewy, back at home. He had probably already forgotten about me, such as it is with dogs, who seem to have the uncanny ability to live completely in the present. With a bit of melancholy coming from the combination of the last day of a vacation as well as looking ahead to returning home the next day, an afternoon walking along Coronado Beach was the right pace for an afternoon.
I had already fallen in love with the beaches around San Diego before Coronado. This sprawling beach just added to my love affair:
Walking the beach, I thought of how this would be my mental health respite if I lived in San Diego. The perfect sand, the white noise of the waves crashing ashore and the stunning views would never get old.
Mmmmm, San Diego beer
Full disclosure – I’ve starting writing this piece about the wonderful craft beer I had an opportunity to sample in San Diego while sitting at my “home” craft beer bar in Halifax. It’s a case of Nova Scotia craft beer fuelling some writing about beer.
Whenever I visit a new place, that city’s craft beer breweries and bars jump to the top of the must visit list for me. In San Diego, seven days would be nowhere near enough time to sample all I wanted to, especially considering some of this trip was work related and needed my full attention. After enjoying a Karl Strauss mosaic ale at a Padres game (my opinion: that might be the perfect ballgame beer), I visited their brewery just a few blocks from my hotel to try some of their other brews. Of the four samples, I really enjoyed the slightly spicy Windansea Wheat and one of their iconic beers, the Red Trolley Ale:
Bluenose Traveler 