There goes the neighbourhood...

Sunday was the Houston marathon, of which i had a couple of mates running either it, or the half, so i blearily got out of bed to go and watch, it actually ran pretty close to my house in the Museum District. this afforded me a walk around the neighbourhood, something which i hadnt really previously done. in a rather cunning town planning scheme, they have put 99% of the museums together...which is where i live, which is fantastic, the fine and contemporary art galleries are 15 minute walk from my house. i am also pretty close to the university, and amazingly the stadium - which is bigger than most football stadiums in the uk - belongsm to the university...they take sport very seriously here. i ended up an hour later in Rice Village, which is a very cool place, doesnt look like a village, but is where a lot of the cool bars and shops are...including The British Isles ( a lot of ex pats live in rice village), they have a British shop (there are a lot of uk people here, mainly from aberdeen due to the oil business), which apparently sells english food and sauces and tea bags etc...they even sell dart boards, ww2 model aeroplanes and any other cliche english thing you can think of...cant work out if its patronising or cool...ill err on the cool side. i acutally live in a very lovely part of houston. i remember showing a picture to an australian friend, who was amazed that they have sky scrapers...i think they were expecting a scene from a western film or something, conversely, i was pretty amazed at the tree lined roads, just outside the city centre...very happy with where i live and my house is now almost there...and am beginning to fall in love with houston, and havent even scratched the surface yet...