I'm going to Americah!!
 

I thought about playing it cool and not making a big deal out of it but then I remembered I haven't attention-whored in AGES!

Anyhow, today I got the final confirmation that I am indeed going State-side, unfortunately it's for work so it's unlikely I'll see much more than the inside of office buildings, hotels and airports. We are traveling on Monday (yes, this Monday!) via Frankfurt, final destination - Houston, Texas. (:

Anyhyoo, this be my first trip across the pond, and for anyone even remotely acquainted with me on this forum, you'll 've noticed I'm essentially American on the inside so visiting my cultural would-be homeland is gonna be SUPER exciting.

For anyone who has ever been to or continues to live in the area, this is the time to shout about some cool things to see (if I have some time to explore, which given past experience with these sorts of trips, is a bit unlikely BUT STILL!) and/or your mobile phone numbers/home addresses and other stalk-friendly information.

Yay!
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...r/americah.jpg

Houston! I lived there 14 years. Do you know what part of town you'll be staying in, and how long?

Yeay, Adidasss! That's very exciting! I wish Iowa weren't so far out of the way. :( No one ever comes to Iowa. :( :(

But you should have fun in Texas. Just don't assume those Republican sexist, homophobic people down there represent all the U.S. ;)

It has been a long time since I've been to Texas. I was in El Paso with my Mexican-American college boyfriend one summer, and we went across the border to Juarez several times, which was all very interesting. I like seeing the historic forts.

I hear Galveston is nice. Will you just be in Houston, though? Hopefully some Houston Texans know what's nice to see there.

Houston WTF? I hate that place. Congrats on your trip though, hope you have a good time. Good luck with Houston airport BTW, it's named after Bush for a reason, it ****ing sucks.

Well our American office building is on Park row which according to google maps is near some huge-ass park called....um, George Bush park...:\
Well actually, if I ever get a chance to visit properly with my sister, we definitely plan to visit Iowa. Middle-America is what it's all about...;)
Just Houston, yeah. I wonder though, how much is Houston like the rest of the U.S. (excluding New York and San Francisco), architecturally, culturally, people-wise? Are(n't) big American cities pretty much all the same?

Nope. I think you'd find they're fairly different from each other from region to region, in terms of architecture and culture.

Houston is the stereotypical cowboy city. The entire city was built on Texas oil money. You'll probably never see a city where American Football is so popular. George Bush is god as far as they are concerned. Period.

I definitely wouldn't say all American large cities are the same, they are VERY different depending on where you go. Like VEGAN said, don't let Houston be your view of America as a whole.

Urgh. This doesn't sound very promising, does it. :/

Excellent! :thumb: I'll plan to see you then, Adidasss, and show you all around the...corn. :/

Houston is an enormous city and I don't believe it's so much different from other huge cities in the middle of the country and the people there are nowhere near as homogeneous as you suggest. Sure you can generalize a bit but this is like saying that all people in, say, Los Angeles have bleach-blonde hair, plastic surgery, drive convertibles and are all assholes.

I live in Austin and although it is much more, um, liberal and whatnot - it is also much smaller and people still need to go to Dallas or Houston for world-class things like theater, museums, and restaurants. Lay off Texas, people. Houston is a fine city to visit.

Yeah, maybe in a political cartoon. We do have real people down here, y'know. I'd actually say the city of Houston is far more "liberal" than people think. We even have a gay mayor. Anyway, it's not the best city to base your opinion of the U.S. off of, but it's not bad at all! If I was a more reasonable distance to it (I'm about an hour offset currently) I'd say let's grab a beer. Then again I wouldn't say that because I'm not 21 and couldn't go to a bar and drink it. So the most we could do is grab lunch, which is kinda weird because I don't even know you well over the internet... so, yeah anyway have fun! If you get any free time, Houston's concert houses and it's theaters are pretty nice, and Rice Village is a fun place to hang out.