About a five hour flight on AA from NY to Dallas / Fort Worth. These airlines are really cutting down on their benefits, not only do you have to pay for any luggage you don't carry-on, you don't even get meals anymore. I really liked the DFW airport for the whole thirty minutes we were there, clean, new, big, lots of places to get something to eat - everything you need. SA wasn't bad either, and it was the first so far that advertised free wifi!
Looking out the window on the approach to San Antonio, whatever area we were flying overhead looked so picture perfect. They must have been new estates or something, because the road plan was neat and all of the houses looked the same, lots of pools and all that - what happened to that whole housing meltdown thing?
The hotel in San Antonio was in a great location, right in the middle of the city and on the River Walk. The only problem - no fridge. What kind of a hotel has no fridge. In terms of the hotel costs relative to the city and the other alternatives, this (or Hollywood) was the most expensive hotel we stayed at - and they don't have free breakfast, don't have a fridge, don't have any guest laundry services either I think. I guess we were paying for the location.
It was late afternoon by the time we landed, so just enough time to do a little exploring in downtown before heading off to the Spurs game. From the instant I stepped out of the hotel until at least the third day I was totally disoriented in this city (and this one only). For some reason the city was just messing with me, I don't really know how to explain it but it always felt as if I was going in the wrong direction, and when I was heading east my instincts were saying I was heading west. Even when I had a map right in front of me, it just didn't seem right.
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| The view from the back entrance of the hotel. |
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| The famous river walk, with restaurants and water taxis. |
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| Some big red art thing. |
Made our way up the River Centre Mall which was possibly the worst advertised mall I've ever been to. You just couldn't work out how to get inside the thing. I ended up walking all the way past it before realising I'd gone too far. One side of the mall is just a parking lot entrance, but this seems to be on the side that would get the most people coming past. At least put up a few signs or something.
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| The Alamo entrance to the north (and I took me a few moments to work that out) of the mall. |
Had fun trying to work out how to get a bus to the Spurs game. They have a handy information center in the middle of the city with all of the bus schedules, but the guy at the desk couldn't tell me for certain how to get there, just a rough guess. When I asked him if the buses are any more busy on game days his response was "No more than usual". Very strange...
Made it to the game with no real issues, except for the fact we were waiting for a number 24 bus (I think) and the driver of the first 24 bus said it wasn't going to the arena, wait for the next 24. Why have two buses with the same number, heading in the same direction out of the city, that go to different places??
There was a huge line to get through security - rather than having metal detectors they must have found it more efficient and cheaper to have staff using hand-held detectors to scan each person individually, then a second set of staff for checking bags after that.
Sadly both Duncan and Parker were injured for this game, but Richard Jefferson played well in their absence and I finally got to see the home team win a game - which is always more enjoyable as a neutral observer.
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| With camera this time. |
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