How’d yah all doin’?

No. I haven’t acquired the Texas’ southern accent yet but we (me and the group) have so much Houston going on around us that we certainly feel like we’re like the locals already.

It’s been five days since we got here and things are proving to be very exciting.

First thing that we got to enjoy immensely here is (drum roll, please…) what else but food of course! I never had so much Mexican food in my entire life but five days of living here, I felt like I have tasted every popular, fattening and spicy Mejicano food there is – tortilla (which they pronounce as tort-ee-ya), tacos and nachos, chicken bourbon, orange chicken, jambalaya, quacamole, salsa, enciladas, fajitas etc. And everything here is served on large and humanely gluttonous servings. No wonder Americans are getting fatter and bigger by the day. I wouldn’t even be surprised if I gain some weight here.

What I also find so interesting is that there are loads of cars here in Houston. I estimated that there are probably more cars than people here. Everybody seems to own at least one and you wouldn’t find anyone walking on the streets except for a very ones that I’ve seen. A stretch of one interstate highway to the office from our apartment is lined up with hundreds of used cars and trucks (all brands and models) on sale. Our counterparts here in Houston told us that they turn over their automobiles in every two years. That explains the booming business of selling second-hand cars here. (Trivia: when I say ‘trucks’, I meant those big SUVs and pick-ups I usually see in Manila i.e. Expedition, F150, Tahoe etc.) The only trucks I know before learning about that are garbage trucks.

We’ve been on the look out for winter clothes here as well. I was able to find a really good jacket from Old Navy for only $13, tax included (price tags here is exclusive of tax, so everything is multiplied by 185% to get the total cash outlay). That’s really cheap, don’t yah think? (just trying the southern accent here, hehehe)

Shoppers will have a grand time here if they know where to find. Some items were really cheap you but of good quality. It seems like they have gotten sales-crazed like us Filipinos. And there’s one huge sale to look forward after Thanksgiving. Woohoo! I really can’t wait. I even have my dollars ready.

Well, that’s just about it for me here. As much as it seems that I’m having a great time here in the Lone Star state, I really miss home.

But I most definitely miss someone special. I hope he does miss me, too.

I miss you all!Ü