Road Trip Dallas & Ft Worth

Whilst in Sakhalin they have snowstorm after blizzard after snowstorm we are walking around in our flip-flops this weekend, picking out garden furniture and going for a round of golf or some lunch 'al fresco'. Yeah, sometimes I really miss already not having any serious winter - days that you'd rather stay at home in front of the fireplace or feel very much alive coming back in from the outside having battered the elements...

Anyway, there are good things in Texas too.....and roadtrips is one of those. Last weekend with Eelco's parents in town we opted to go on a road trip to Ft Worth and Dallas. Together they are called the metroplex and Dallas on its own is the 9th biggest city in the USA (Houston being 4th). Apart from the TV series in Texas Dallas is known for the 'culture' and 'Architecture' and world wide the town is known of course for the Kennedy murder.

Above a picture of the 6th floor Museum in Dallas, the square top green window on the right is where Oswald shot Kennedy from, and if you look real close you can see a cross painted on the road...there are two, marking the locations where Kennedy was hit.  Eelco being an avid believer in conspiracy theories (i found out after 10 years together...) knew a whole lot more about the issue then I did and was fascinated by the 'guys on soap boxes' outside the museums explaining what was all wrong with the case as made by the state. I actually was pleasantly surprised. I had expected a very American, patriotic museum, and fortunately it was as I had hoped a lot like the Loch Ness Museum in Drumnadrochit. Why you may ask,...well the Loch Ness Museum does spend a lot of time trying to explain  what people may have seen instead of a monster, and if for instance natural effects could have caused the sightings, or photo trickery etc. Well the 6th floor museum also at least spend some time and displays on the conspiracy theories, on the things around the arrests etc which did not add up and also mentioning the voices that wondered whether Kennedy would have been as popular if he would not have been murdered and have lived to see the effect of his policies.
We also spend some time in Ft Worth, which instead of Dallas is not known Internationally as it is Texas hot spot for a very local issue....the Stockyards. The city is also known as Texas' country & western capital and hence we made our way over to the very Disney-esque Stockyards. After several pit-stops, all the souvenir shops, the tiny not so fascinating but very Texan museum and avoiding the carriages and forced photo moments with people in cowboy outfits it was finally time for the 'live cattle drive'......well the above was it. Yep, it was anunced as quite an event,....we enjoyed it of course,...but it may have been a bit 'oversold' in the brochures etc
Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun as you can see from the Picture. We only got tricked into 1 Valentines bouquet and also managed to do the Dallas Art museum (many Mondriaans!), some heritage museum in Corsicana (which was worth the visit for the organisation of the museum alone, and of course some famous country singer who was especially very famous in the Netherlands - ever heard of 'Lefty' Frizzel?), spend a night in a motel in the middle of nowhere, have breakfast at the Waffle House Diner, Brunch in posh and hip Dallas, the Mall in Arlington, visit a steak house, some road side restaurants and of course attend the 'Valentijns-Klaverjas' event in the Sheraton at Six Flags (no smoked sausage to be won, so I did not bring my a-game -;)).
And last but not least,.....all of this was made possible because we had Eelco and his truck. The (Ford) Expedition provided a very loyal service (although we all missed the fur tail from the rearview mirror) and made us feel right at home the 14 hrs or so we spend on the road that weekend.

PS Sjoerd - je zou nu commentaar moeten kunnen leveren - tegen de spam moet je wel een woord natypen dat gegeven word....Success! PS2 heb ook wat foto's van jou gebruikt. Hoop dat je Copyright niet te hoog ligt!

Superbowl

First of all - a picture of the inside of the tank Eelco went to check out in LA, as evidence that you have not missed much...(see blog 2 weeks ago)

And a picture of me painting our bathroom

What I really wanted to write about is the Superbowl. Superbowl Sunday was last Sunday, and the Superbowl is the grand final of the American Football competition. And by lack of supporters & participation in the sport by most other nations this games is also automatically qualified as 'the American Football World Cup'. 

The event in the US is pretty big and significant and covered daily in the weeks ahead in all radio shows and news etc. Most people apparently watch the game by means of a Superbowl-party, meaning with friends at someone's house or some special venue. We where invited at Janko & Rebecca's house, with some other couples (and lots of babies), and the company fortunately included 2 guys who at least knew something about it and could explain.

The game only exists of 4 x 15 min quarters, however, as the game is stopped throughout every time a tackle is made (and probably for other reasons I have missed) the average Superbowl games lasts a full 3 hours! The challenge is to stay focussed enough in all the breaks to no miss the action. For every 1 min of action you are watching 3 minutes of reviews and mainly commercials...

As the game is not necessarily guaranteed a good show itself, many people these days appear to watch for the commercials. Most if not all commercials around the game are developed specifically for the event / the day and no cost is spared. There is a huge amount of celebreties involved and the cost in 2008 where an astronomical 2.7 million USD per 30 sec!. Personally I also missed many of the commercials but the reviews say there was no clear winner and you can see them all again on internet (or only the good ones). They where more interesting then in an average commercial block as the local lawyer firm from around the corner having a home made commercial showing their founder and the daughter or something never make it to the Superbowl, pfew. One of the commercials was even in 3D and you could pick up the paper 3D glasses at some of the shops in advance.

All in all apart from the halftime show by Bruce Springsteen there was not much on those 3 hrs that kept my eyes glued to the tube for the full time. The game was not that boring and pretty close, with some of the longest runs ever but it was easy enough to just get back into it of you had missed 15 min. I thought the game took too long to stay focussed. So did most others as many went home at half time (or maybe it was the babies -;) The Pittsburgh Steelers won, for the 6th time in Superbowl history by a narrow margin, I heard deservingly so.

The atmosphere in the stadium or at a party with many supporters of the relevant team must be pretty good and of course for the talk at the coffee machine at work you want to see the game,..(nobody has mentioned it at all in my office)..but apart from Rebecca's good food and all the nice conversations, y'all didn't miss much! Last year LSU won, and as we have many people from Louisiana in Houston and in the Oil Industry (so also in Sakhalin at the time), we can see how in a situation like that also Houston would be a mad house.

The scariest event of the day was the drive home after. The roads where packed and there where many very obvious less concentrated drivers. Drink driving is here also not allowed but still more common and on the road I normally take to work, usually packed wit patrol cars I saw none that night!