Downtown Houston

Free at last... free at last.... free from all things crawling, flying, slithering.

We drove into Houston yesterday.... I put on my city clothes, which haven't come out of the closet in too long a time, and we left early in the morning.  My husband and I went to the Science Museum..... they had a special film on D-Day and the Normandy invasion, and then we also saw a special display of Italian jewelry made by Bulgari.

The museum was crowded with kids on field trips, each class wearing different colored tee-shirts... nice to see that kids are interested in museum trips. (And not one child was holding a cell phone or a video game.)

The Bulgari exhibit was hushed and very quiet, all the jewelry displayed in glass cases in a series of very dark rooms. Wonderful examples of hand-made, one-of-a-kind jewelry creations. The museum had set up two small rooms within the display area, one room showing a movie montage of celebrities wearing Bulgari collections, and the other room's movie showing how the pieces are created and designed.

We haven't been to that museum in five years, which is ridiculous, because we used to go there once or twice a month when we lived closer to Houston.  They've changed the grounds outside the museum... what used to be a huge parking area is now being turned into beautiful gardens. So parking in the museum garage is a must-do now.  While we were there, we joined the museum as members, to get discounts on events, and even discounts on the parking.  My husband was thrilled with the discounts... I was thrilled that we joined because now I know we'll keep going back.  It takes an hour and thirty minutes to drive from here to there.... certainly not too long a trip for a bit of culture and city-life.

After the museums of London, where each had such a beautiful cafe with gourmet-quality foods, we were sad to see that the Science Museum still offers just McDonald's as a food choice. (Sorry, McDonald's, but I'm not at all interested in your foods.)  We found a "Dim Sum" Chinese restaurant for lunch, in the Rice Village district of Houston..... and then before driving back up to the Hill Country, we went to our favorite Houston Greek restaurant (Niko Nikos) and came back with home-made dinners that will last a few days.

Granted, the traffic within the city of Houston is horrible:  road construction here, detours there, bumper-to-bumper traffic over there, parking restrictions here.... absolutely horrible.  But the city of Houston has a plethora of ethnic restaurants offering delicious foods from all corners of the globe... their museums and theaters are first-rate (except for the lack of quality cafes in the museums).... but a dose of culture and city-life every once in a while is certainly worth the traffic nonsense.