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San Antonio - Part 2
Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino
Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
An exploration into what makes Texans unique, the heat of Texas and the odd adventures of Mojitos and Pool Attendants.
The Westin Hotel has a pool. Texas is hot. I am a wimp with heat (as I’m sure you could tell already). The combination doesn’t really need a mathematician to add up.
I went down to the pool and was fortunate to find it was simply, me, a pool, and Rafael the pool attendant.
I climbed into the pool to attempt my backstroke and look at the tops of tall buildings surrounding the hotel. Considering Rafael was there I felt it necessary to say the requisite trivial conversation to simply acknowledge each other’s existence.
"It’s quite hot out." It was true, and it seemed to work.
"Yes." he said with a bit of a Spanish, half drawl/half Mexican accent. "...but heat is really only a matter of perception. I find that the dry heat that can be found locally has an almost therapeutic quality about it."
I paused with my mouth hanging agape. This wasn’t a good idea, as I was doing a backstroke and then got water in my mouth. Here I was standing in the pool with these beautiful little fountains shooting overhead, s Rafael discussed philosophy with me while watering the plants. I was simply fulfilling my obligatory hellos as I cooled off.
"This is true, Texas’s dry heat is rather..." I was trying to think of something deep to keep up with his philosophizing. "...rather good." Doh. I lost the ball. A complete fly ball to left field.
"One has to adapt to his surroundings and see the positive within the world." He watered his last plant and walked on.
I was left doing a very bad backstroke, spitting out the water that got into my mouth (because my mouth was still agape), appreciating the beautiful cloud formations and the tops of the tall buildings.
I went upstairs to the room and found Margherita a bit excited from having gone to the gym. No, I’m not talking kinky-talk. She simply was nervous that we were now running late. A quick visit to the gym and she’s already filled with energy.
"Your shirt it not ironed." She screamed in a panic. You would have thought the world ended.
"I am a man, I don’t need to iron my shirt."
"What will Staci say about you if she sees your unironed shirt."
"That I’m a man." I responded coolly.
"Nobody is saying that about my husband."
I’m not sure if she was aware of her reaction but I was about to prove her wrong. I grabbed the iron and proceeded to iron the shirt. I got across the right arm, and the chest and was working on the left arm when she came in screaming.
I don’t know why she was screaming but if she didn’t scream I wouldn’t have burnt myself. She felt that ironing the shirt while it was on me wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but I felt the triangle scar on my left arm implied my manliness. I was in Texas and certainly needed to keep up with the Joneses.
We grabbed a Zone bar and ran out to see the Alamo. This is where I fell in love. Not with the Alamo but Dr. Richards. [I thought I’m allowed to have an odd, "love" joke occur right after the manly incident as it just balances everything out.] Anyway, Dr. Richards knew all there was to know about the Alamo and took me right back to my San Antonio/Texan identity theory.
I’m not going to bore you with the basic things people say about the Alamo. Yes the main church is smaller than you’d expect, but then you learn that the compound is big. The Alamo is located downtown, but at the time of the famous battle, it was located outside of town and the town grew around it.
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Dr. Richards in front of the Alamo | |
Those are the basic obligatory quotes. I’ve now gotten them out of the way and can continue.
The first thing is that the actual "Alamo" church is small, but the compound is big. About a full city block, maybe two. These men were surrounded by the Mexican army and these roughly 200 men had to defend the compound. Well, they didn’t have to, but they volunteered to do so. Actually, all of them volunteered except for one, but that’s not the point.
When you look at the compound my first thought was to space out 200 men around the compound. It didn’t fit. There simply was too much space and too little men. No matter how you cut it there were never enough men to accurately defend the fort. And they knew it. They didn’t just know that they were outnumbered, that was true, but they also knew that they would lose no matter what. There was always going to be a gap in the fort. And they fought the battle anyway.
I found the concept mind-blowing. Davie Crocket fought there and he was a well-known senator and a living legend. He basically decided to sacrifice his life for this. They all did. Yes, they thought recruits were coming, but this was not a safe bet by any stretch. Unless the entire US army showed up, they were quite outnumbered.
Anyway, this leads us to part two of the mysterious enigma that is Texas. When I went to school I could have sworn that the Alamo was presented as the US defending itself against Mexico. If not in school then at least some sort of Warner Brothers cartoon led me to believe this. Anyway, I was completely wrong.
My new best friend Dr. Richard taught me one major lesson. "History is usually taught in chapters which most people segment, but each chapter affects the next." Okay, I’m doing my best to paraphrase but I think I got across his point.
The Alamo wasn’t the U.S. defending its soil. It was the northern most Mexican state. Mexico invited some residents of the US to settle in the region but it was still Mexican land. There was some talk of seceding and becoming their own country of Texas, but again, no United States here. If you looked at a map it would say Mexico. In fact, the only talk of America seemed to be after they become a country. One Texas President really wanted Texas to become part of the US and another didn’t. In fact, to this day, Texas is the only state that’s allowed to secede from the union without much problem and they can even fly their own state flag higher then the nation’s flag.
But it is my belief that this one event in the Alamo was a catalyst for what made Texas unique. This one event started this big ball rolling. People decided to defend Texas (which was really just a Mexican state) from the Mexicans. Imagine the type of people who would come to this dessert, nomad land (or so it was thought), just for a better chance. Adventurers. Men like Jim Bowie and Davie Crocket. Their death at the Alamo became a rally cry that started things moving. When Texas became its own country they were the only fully established country that joined the union. (Actually Hawaii was too, but that was a kingdom and will really just screw up my theory).
Anyway, Texas was able to play the politics guard quite well and hinted that they might hang out with Britain a bit, and of course the US didn’t want that. Plus, the US new the type of people who went to Texas. Crazy men, tough men. Men who would make people like Gary Busey look sane.
Lo and behold you have a unique culture made up of unique individuals. Men who came to Texas to defend the Alamo and die for this principal. Out of this madness was born a state that is unique upon itself.
Texas.
Whew. I’m tired after all that. But you get the idea. After talking to Dr. Richards for what felt like hours and sucking his brain dry, my entire perspective on Texas was changed. It was more unique than I had once thought and the state has every right to think that way.
After playing at the Alamo all morning we went out for lunch at Staci’s favorite restaurant, "La Forgota". It means, I forgot or something like that but it was rather good Mexican food. I think we had some Margarita’s but I was getting pretty dizzy so you can’t really rely on my memory in this case.
From lunch, we ran over to Market Square, which is essentially a large building containing Mexican crafts and of course the vendors to sell them. One without the other would be a rather bad thing. This is the largest Mexican market outside of Mexico. If you’d like your stereotypical large Mexican hat, a piñata, or any other odd looking souvenirs to bring home, this is the place to do it.
From there the next logical step is La Villita, which is the original historic district. All of the buildings are from when the city was originally founded and in each of these buildings are traditional shops and the such. Jewelry and bonsai and some craftwork shops. You run from air-conditioned store to air conditioned store and prepare to say, "Just looking".
From there we went back to the room to change for dinner. Coming up was a meal that I was looking forward to. That is not to say that I didn’t look forward to other meals but I was particularly looking forward to this one.
We dined on board one of the riverboats where dinner was served by the restaurant, Texas Land and Cattle. A few restaurants on the Riverwalk participate in this offering, which allows you to basically do a mini tour and a bigger tour. The mini tour happens while you eat your dessert. After dessert, they sail back to the restaurant, pick up dinner and you eat and have the longer tour on the boat too.
The combination of the cool night air, the tour from the boat, seeing the sites of the Riverwalk and food was brilliant.
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Riverboats on the Riverwalk | |
On board, one of the men in the group, Chris, spilled his famous Texas Land and Cattle steak on his pants in a location which really was a bit embarrassing. I don’t think I need to spell it out for you. A woman across the boat saw this and suggested that he put some lemon on the stain to "clean it out". Considering the location of the stain it was getting a bit funny. To dry off the lemon she suggested sprinkling it with salt. This was coming from a cute elderly woman who didn’t have a devious bone in her body. Watching Chris’s face as he sprinkled salt and lemon on the crotch of his pants was simply a topper to the evening.
I poked him with my elbow. "Maybe you’ve made a new friend. She’s just got you to salt and lemon yourself to prepare to be her dessert."
Ahh, the river, the good steak and Chris getting lucky, it was a good meal.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
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