Day 16 - Friday 25th September 2015
Written by Kev
Our final day.
Tam and I get up at 7.30am as we are meeting up with Sharon and
Evan at 8.15am for our Segway tour.
We walk to the office where it starts and our guide, Aiden, gets
up to sign the relevant paperwork and runs through the basics of
how to use a Segway. We each take a turn to have a go on the
pavement in front of the office and Tam is having a few problems.
She can’t really get the hang of moving your weight forward
and backward to start and stop. Aiden trains everyone else and
then returns to Tam for more instruction. She’s not
confident at all and tells me that she doesn’t think she can
do the tour. I tell her not to worry and I’m sure it will
become intuitive as soon as we get going. I have my fingers
crossed behind my back at this point. After a little more
practice Aiden thinks she’s ready to go and we all ride down
the block to a park where we are let loose to practice for
10minutes.
Tam is now much
happier and we set off through the city. It’s not difficult
to get the hang of it and we zip around the place following
Aiden. We stop along the way for him to tell us about the history
and explain interesting facts.
After an hour or so we stop at La Villita, a village like
collection of shops, for a pastry and a drink. Aiden takes our
photo and some of the more interesting places, such as in front
of The Alamo.
The tour lasts
two and a half hours and we cover a fair bit of ground. It’s
tremendous fun and a much better way of seeing lots of things
than a hop on hop off bus. After her initial trepidation, Tam has
loved it.
We thank Aiden and give him a good tip. The name of the company
is Nation Tours.
The 4 of us
then walk to The Tower of the Americas. It costs $10.95 to go to
the observation platform and watch a 4D film or you can go to the
bar for nothing. Guess which we chose.
You ride up on an external elevator with a glass front, so the
view keeps getting better the higher you go. The bar offers a
360° view of the city and the restaurant just below us slowly
revolves. You can see for miles and it shows just how flat this
part of Texas is.
We order beers and Tam and I split the Shrimp and Crab Fondue
with Garlic Crostini. This is lovely and large enough that the
two of us still leave some. We have fun chatting away to Sharon
and Evan for an hour while looking at the fantastic view.
Tam wants to visit the nearby mall, so we go there next. Thank goodness that Tam’s tolerance for shopping is lower than it used to be and we escape after 45 minutes only $80 lighter. Evan and I discuss passing the time in Victoria’s Secret, but come to the conclusion that this might be deemed to be a little creepy.
As shopping malls go, this one isn't the ugliest.
Back to the hotel where Evan is leaving us as he is starting a brand new job and has to go in for a few hours. We will not be seeing him again before we leave, so there is much hugging and kissing. Tam says goodbye too. Evan is a good lad and we’ve enjoyed his company for the last few days.
After showering, me, Tam and Sharon walk to a nearby cocktail bar, Zinc, at 4.30pm. I have a Ruby Red and Tam has a martini. I like the bill, as the cocktails are $4.50 each as it’s happy hour.
At 5.15pm we
meet up with Deb and Matt in the lobby of The Contessa and we get
a taxi to the Pearl Brewery district. This is an area of the city
that is being rejuvenated with restaurants, bars and condos.
We are eating in Southerleigh Fine Foods. It’s a wonderful
old brewery building and is like an industrial pub inside. They
have many craft beers and the food menu looks good. Keith has
joined us for the meal.
We start with Chicken Cracklin’s for the table to share.
These are similar to pork scratchings, but made from deep fried
chicken skin. For main course Tam and I both have the steak. She
has macaroni cheese with crab as her side, while I get the mashed
potato. The food is excellent – the steak is as good as any
we have had on this holiday and we’ve eaten a fair bit of
beef!
The beers and wine are also good. The only slight disappointment
is the dessert, a sort of peanut butter brownie with salted
caramel ice cream. It sounds better than it tastes. The service
is also very good in contrast to last night. We split the bill 3
ways and it works out to $140 per couple including tip, which is
good for the standard of meal we’ve received.
We walk across
to the Blue Box Bar for another cocktail before moving to La
Gloria, an outside margarita bar. We sit on chairs in a grassy
area looking over The Riverwalk. It extends for miles through San
Antonio and you can walk along its full length.
Drinks dispensed with we say goodnight to Keith and get a taxi
back to The Contessa. Deb and Matt go to bed and Sharon comes
back to our room to pick up her things. We chat for a while and
then Tam and I decide to stroll one last time along the
Riverwalk. This invariably ends up in a bar where we sit at the
waters edge for a final Manhattan.
Back to the hotel and bed at 12.30am.