Sunday, 19 October 2014

Dallas, Texas, USA.

The short:
Dallas was actually very different to what I had expected. It was much prettier than the vast cowboy land that I had in mind, with an incredibly nice and attractive downtown area that features unique high rise buildings, which are lit up in all sorts of fancy ways at night. 


Even the people are perhaps the polar opposite of what I had imagined, as a large number of the women we saw were slim and good looking to the point of being unrealistically so, with hair freshly curled; teeth frighteningly white; skin rather orange and beautifully manicured nails. I had never thought Texas could be a hub for plastic surgery yummy mummies! But wrong I was. Clearly though, I was more interested in scouting out the women than Thomas as when I mentioned this to him he didn't seem to have a clue what I was talking about, but that's men's observational skills for you I suppose! It was beautiful weather whilst we were there with temperatures in the mid-20's and, as Thomas pointed out, strangely windy. Despite the Texan drawl (which I LOVED hearing), the people we engaged with were very charming and sweet, and I was unexpectedly very impressed by Dallas overall.

The long:
Saturday:
We checked in to our hotel a little after 3pm and did a quick turnaround so as to make the most of our short time in Dallas. We went to the highly regarded botanical gardens for a mooch around in some beautiful surroundings.


I found the general layout and some of the flowers absolutely stunning. Here are some of my favourites:


Clearly I am not alone in this view, since Thomas and I passed a number of couples that were either getting married or doing photo shoots in their wedding garb. 


^ All pretty gorgeous settings. My favourite is the last one and I definitely wouldn't mind having such a tree-lined avenue to lead me to my house, but I'm not entirely sure about them as wedding venues with strangers wandering around, but each to their own.

The gardens had thrown themselves head first in to the Halloween hype and I was more than happy to join in with the other kids.


I mean, you're never too old, right?


^ I discovered that I find white pumpkins rather beautiful. I can imagine them carved out with twinkling candles within making a nice addition to the million fairy lights at my wedding, and is unique too.


^ And how cute are these?!

It seems that I've turned into a pumpkin junkie but, seriously, who knew pumpkins could be so versatile? We left the botanical gardens and headed to downtown Dallas to check out the much-anticipated food trucks and have a stroll around the area.


^ This very attractive church was just in the centre of everything and Thomas and I thought worth taking a picture of, before examining the transportable munch on offer.


After much deliberation Thomas opted for a deli sandwich in the form of a "meatball hero", which he claims was a thousand times better than the Subway version, and even credits as having the best meatballs that he has ever tasted. The trucks were situated right next to Dallas park, which is really nice, so we took a pew on one of the chairs whilst he tucked in to his meal.


Next stop was the American Airlines Center to watch the hockey match that we had bought tickets for between the Dallas Stars and Philadelphia Flyers. But, first, we needed to get some cash out to pay for the exorbitant parking near the stadium. So we joined the queue of cars waiting at the drive-thru ATM; possibly the smartest invention ever, to withdraw.


The hockey game itself was a totally different experience to the basketball match that we watched just over a week before. Firstly, it was freezing; duh, it was at an ice rink, I should probably have thought that one through a bit more. Secondly, the fans that were there were of a huge spread with old; young; rich; poor; smart; scruffy; slim; XXL; and all the rest, there, versus at the basketball I would say that the crowd was made up of a much narrower variation in the types of people that attended. Naturally, I did some excellent people watching. Thirdly, the area on which they played, i.e. the rink versus the court, was of a size to be expected (fairly large). 


Finally, the hockey game was incredibly close throughout with the two teams literally taking it in turns to score, keeping everyone totally engaged and making it a really exciting game to watch. Thomas asked me which experience I preferred and I honestly could not tell you because they were so different. I really enjoyed both, though, and would definitely like to see some sports matches with you MJ!


I was particularly taken with the "Ice Girls", who appeared at regular intervals to shovel the excess ice shavings from the rink into large buckets, whilst their companions shook their booties and pompoms just above them.


There was, once more, an excellent atmosphere that was so great to be a part of.


Dallas Stars supporters, unsurprisingly, comprised the vast majority of the crowd, and I loved their energy and excitement for their team every time they scored. Hockey is also a pretty easy game to follow so at least I was winning on that point! The game finished on a tie, with the Philadelphia Flyers scoring two of their goals in the last few minutes of the game, making it fairly "sitting on the edge of your seat" viewing material. 


The game thus ran into overtime, with the Philadelphia Flyers scoring the settling goal. Thomas and I headed back to our hotel, making our second drive-thru experience of the day on foot to KFC.


^ I have to say that I think the bays are pretty clever, and I have also noticed several Starbucks drive-thru's, making getting that skinny vanilla cappuccino on the move all that bit more possible; I would like some of these in England please! 

It had been a great day full of really varied activities, so we went to bed happy chappies.

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