Checking the alarm: it was 7am. Let’s sleep in for a just a little longer - our Houston Space Center ticket is for midday.
Checking the alarm: 10:50am. Oh dear, we have accidentally slept in far later than intended. Damn you, jet lag!
We quickly pulled ourselves together and hit the road. Dan did exceptionally well navigating the spaghetti junctions with some help from myself and Mrs Google Voice.
The weather in Houston today was dismal. I was glad we were doing mostly indoor activities, because it was a balmy 10C feels like 6C kind of day. Unfortunately, due to the weather being so bad, the Space Center tram was initially cancelled - and then booked up with previous customers. I had overheard another teller mention multi day entry and asked our teller, who begrudgingly put our name down on the list. We will tram tomorrow instead!
As we had rolled out of bed into the car, our first stop was food in the cafeteria. We had to order via these weird kiosk machines, and then wait at the appropriate food stall for it to be completed. We shared a pork roll with potato salad and a freshly made custom salad. it was tasty and what we needed!
Inside the museum we saw, unsurprisingly, many spacey things. Dan was particularly excited and was filling me in on many facts that I didn’t know. For instance I learnt that there had been more than one moon visit. How did I not know this? What an idiot.
One of the attractions was a screening room where we watched a video about astronauts talking about the beauty of earth from space and how much they appreciate - and fear for - Earth’s fragility. It made me tear up. I’d love the see Earth from space but a) I’m afraid of heights and fast moving things and b) I’m not rich. Or particularly smart.
Other attractions included a complete space shuttle replica perched atop the real jumbo jet 747 that carried the shuttles between launch sites, as well as the real Gemini 5, Mercury 9, Apollo 17 and a replica Skylab, amongst many other things.
I found the moon rocks fascinating (and shiny) - I knew from my time in the engineering dept at the Uni that mining asteroids and the moon would be particularly profitable due to the amount of minerals able to be gathered. Dan and I even held hands on the moon! …rock.
After a couple of hours here it was closing time, so we made our way across the road to a Chick-fil-A (pronounced chick-fi-lay for other philistines like me) to continue my obsession with American fast food chains. We both ordered the “entree” size which was larger than any normal meal at home. :/
By now it was 6pm and guess where we were heading? Back to the Space Center! We had bought combo tickets that included the Galaxy Lights exhibition. I was a little worried it would be kitch, but Dan and I had a blast! Outside they had decked out the jumbo and shuttle and a few other areas with space-specific lights, including a solar system, and inside we attended a presentation about light (which we expected to be a movie, but was presented by a zealous space Center employee). we also lay on the museum floor to watch balls drop. Repeatedly. To music. It was more entertaining than pubescent (btw this sentence has provided to you by Dan). I was going to say “Undulated light spheres moving in sequence to music” but Dans version sounds better.
By now it was time to head back, so we battled the spaghetti junctions again and arrived in one piece at our apartment. Tonight we tried the other beer hall next door to last nights beer bar. This one was called Holman Draft Hall and it had a hundred craft taps. We had no idea we had organised our accomodation near so much amazing beer! We had a couple of tasty brews before calling it a night. We’ll be back at the Space Center tomorrow - stay tuned for the next instalment!
No comments:
Post a Comment