My first time ever on a plane was en route to Houston, TX. Why? Well, I randomly decided to visit my cousin there. That’s why. I guess this is where my wanderlust started. I had never been that far out of the Tri-State area before, so I just wanted to explore (especially since I was seeing pics of others going on these fun vacations). As I got older, I realized that there’s so much more out there to experience. One of my favorite quotes is “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”

Let’s start with my expectations of the big ol’ State of Texas. I think everyone expects to go to Texas and see everyone in cowboy boots/hats, listening to some country music while eating Tex-Mex food. Wrong. Well, I’m pretty sure there are neighborhoods where this does exist, but everywhere I went, it was just normal people in regular clothing. I happened to pass by a small little shop that sold some vintage items and had a cute little selection of cowboy boots, but I didn’t quite encounter that “country/cowboy” culture I expected to. What was also shocking to me was that I didn’t see nearly as many Hispanic people as I thought I would. This picture below was probably the most “Tex-Mex” thing I ever saw in Houston. Getting away from NYC to a much calmer town was great, but there truly is nothing like the nice blend of cultures/people that is NEW YORK CITY.What I did get to experience in Texas was that Texan heat. Now THAT is no joke. One morning my cousins and I drove up to Austin for a tour of the University of Texas, Austin (a beautiful school, by the way!). Taking an outdoor tour of the campus in that blazin’ heat was the worse, especially for someone like me who CANNOT STAND temperatures above 70-75 degrees. Travel tip (which I’ll be giving you much more of in a later post): Do not dress to impress when you know you’re going to be doing a lot of walking in extreme temperatures. Dress comfortable! The heat got so bad that once we left UT Austin, we drove around the city and finally found a relief.

How do we get into this water?!?!?!

This’ll work! Ahhhh!

Another little fact about Texas… Everyone’s big on their Texan pride! Part of my bucket list is to make it to every single MLB ballpark in the country. Outside of CitiField, I had never been to another ballpark so I decided to go to a Houston Astros game at Minute Maid Park (when they were in the National League). The stadium was beautiful, but what stood out the most was the fact that even though the Astros sucked, and I mean SUCKED (they were last place in baseball  that season, if I’m not mistaken), but the way these fans were cheering, you would have thought they were about to win the World Series. Lesson: Texans are big on being Texan!

Who doesn’t take a pic like this at the baseball game. ‘Cause we haven’t seen enough shots like this before, ha.