Christian's First Day in America

Family picture with a Saturn V rocket

My great Uncle Paul would often tell us how they arrived to Ellis Island on the 4th of July, and as such he always called himself a "Yankee-Doodle-Dandy." In similar fashion, our flight touched down in Houston late in the afternoon of July 3, meaning that Christian's first whole day in the nation would be America's birthday.

Heading toward customs I commented to Lyssa about how disappointing America looks whenever you get back. I pointed out garbage on the ground, stains on the carpet, and the interior that hadn't been updated since the 1970s. "I always remember America being so much nicer," I said. Though to be fair, I think it's really just that airports in America are crappy, which always makes for a poor first impression.

We got through immigration and customs surprisingly fast (usually they grill you with more questions, like: Why on Earth did you leave America? Why should we let you back in? Who do you think you are?) My brother Peter and his family picked us up and then drove us to their home. We spent some time catching up and talking about education (since both he and his wife work as math teachers in Houston), and had a little pasta for dinner. In the meantime, Christian got to make two new friends in his cousins Nathan and Chloe.

Christian and his cousin Nathan

Aside from having to go out to buy some allergy medicine for Lyssa (since Pete's family has cats) and forgetting about how American money works (to be fair, I gave the cashier that extra one unaware that the sales tax for the $3.99 allergy meds had sales tax included), the evening was mostly uneventful. We all went to sleep at a decent time and woke up the next morning at a normal time too, which hopefully means that jet lag won't be too much of a problem.

We had breakfast tacos for breakfast, which apparently is fairly standard in Houston. It's a similar concept to a breakfast burrito, though I'm not exactly sure how (to be fair, I'm not totally sure on the difference between tacos and burritos anyway). We drove about an hour south to the Johnson Space Center to spend the 4th of July learning about the nerdiest of all patriots--astronauts. Lyssa and I had already been to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and this one was comparatively smaller and more child-orientated. We took a tram tour which provided some humorous moments (because come on, Kennedy really does have a cartoonish voice) and some inspiring ones (like visiting the current mission control room or a grove of trees with a tree planted for all astronauts who died in service). Overall, I walked away in awe of how brilliant this men and women are. I mean really, where did they come up with this stuff?

Hanging out in the Rocket Park

We headed back to the visitor's center for lunch and saw some of the different exhibits (including moon rocks, and little details of life on the International Space Center). Lyssa tried Dippin' Dots for the first time (it is afterall the ice cream of the future), and we headed back home, fairly exhausted.

We went out to eat at a nearby Tex-Mex restaurant which was wonderful, and totally patriotic too, since it is technically Texan food. I spoke a little Spanish to the waiter which again--totally patriotic--since most of the land we acquired from the war of 1812 was from Mexico and people have speaking Spanish there longer than they've been speaking English (sorry English only advocates, it's true). We went up to the lovely Woodlands area and waited around a bit for fireworks. They finally got started around 9:30. Apparently we weren't in quite the right spot, since there was a building in the way obstructing about a quarter of the view. They were nevertheless impressive, and more importantly, less crowded than the fireworks display over downtown. The only setback of the night was the traffic was pretty bad getting back to the freeway, but once we got on it was smooth sailing.

To America, happy birthday, and to Christian, happy first day in it.