5..4..3..2..1..Happy New Year!

Our family had many reasons to go on a short vacation to San Antonio for New Year’s Eve, 2006. We had just been through an extremely difficult year that involved my father fighting for cancer and my brother being hospitalized twice for collapsed lungs; needless to say, in amongst these and the numerous other things that happened in 2006, we hadn’t taken a family vacation in an extremely long time. I was actually home for the Christmas holidays this year, since my mother had threatened to kill me if I abandoned them for the glowing shores of Australia again, so the entire family was together for possibly one of the last times before my brother starts college and I move to Australia. Plus, an added bonus to all this was that, on the way, we could visit both the University of Texas and Trinity University so my brother could make a more informed decision when the time to choose a college comes around.

The vacation started, as all of our family road trips do, with us loading entirely too much luggage into the car. I had a bit of difficulty finding room for my backpack between my parents’ suitcase and the kitchen sink. Finally, with stuffed elephants being pushed out the window by all the spare Chex Mix and water bottles and the van packed for at least a five-day excursion through the wild (rather than 2 days through the Hill Country), we were off.

Our first destination was Austin. We drove through the never-ending construction of I-10 to US71, which took us directly into south Austin. Rather than go up I-35, which always seems to be backed up, we took 1st St directly north, past the Capitol Building, to MLK Blvd. You can tell that this is part of the UT campus because everything, including all the buildings and street signs, suddenly becomes burnt orange with copious Longhorn decals. We parked and had a nice walk around the campus, looked at a couple dorms, and realized there was absolutely no way to get into the Bell Tower. My brother liked the campus, although the thing that impressed him most was the food selection in the dorm we looked at.

From there, it was on to San Antonio for a day of family fun before bringing in the New Year with the most fireworks I’ve ever seen.

Quick Tips:

As with celebrating the New Year anywhere, you need to make reservations early. San Antonio had 250,000 revelers in the downtown area for New Year’s, and from what I could tell, pretty much every hotel was filled to capacity. My friends, whom we celebrated with, normally make reservations at the Hilton, which faces, head-on, the fireworks display from the Tower of the Americas. However, they tried to book in September and found that all of the rooms facing the fireworks were already gone. We were lucky enough to book in the Marriott in October and still get a room, albeit, the cheapest room in the hotel and one that had a spectacular view of the opposite tower of the hotel and my friend’s room in it.

It is best to get a hotel room in downtown for the night, rather than driving in and driving home later that night. The crowds on the streets were huge, and while standing, dancing, or riding the rides was fun for a little while, after an hour and a half or so, we became tired and could no longer feel our faces from the cold. It was very nice to have a place to crash and take some pressure off our legs for a while, and plus, at midnight, we didn’t have to fight for a space where we could see the fireworks. Yes, we weren’t part of the same party atmosphere and could only vaguely hear “Auld Lang Syne” at midnight, but we had family, friends, and champagne on our balcony. My family thoroughly enjoyed bringing in the New Year exactly where we did, and we didn’t have to fight the crowds and eventually, the traffic, whose cacophony of honks could be heard for hours after the New Year. Plus, driving home on New Year’s is a recipe for disaster, with the number of drunks on the road; we felt much safer snuggled up in our warm beds, listening to people attempting to perfect the car horn version of “Auld Lang Syne.”

Best Way To Get Around:

Like everywhere in Texas, San Antonio is not really a place to be without a car. There is a bit of public transport, but I think it’s about the same as Houston’s—convenient if it happens to run anywhere near you, but the other 90% of the time, absolutely useless. You can take a Greyhound bus from Houston to San Antonio and stay in the immediate vicinity of the Riverwalk, which will keep you occupied for an afternoon, but after that, having a car is very handy. We couldn’t have gotten to most of the places we went on this trip by public transport, and the city is certainly too spread out to go anywhere outside downtown by walking.

When driving from Houston to Austin, don’t take US290. It may seem like a quicker route, but whenever we’ve taken it, we’ve been slowed by construction and multiple speed limit changes when going through towns. We’ve always found it much quicker to go I-10 to US71.

Driving from Houston to San Antonio is a simple, straight shot down I-10. Traffic builds up before Columbus, which is about 70 miles outside the city, but after that, it’s pretty dull, 70mph driving. After a while, a few hills start to appear, which gives the road a bit more character, but doesn’t make the drive much more interesting.

Our favorite place to stop along I-10 is Schulenburg, located halfway between Houston and San Antonio. This small town, famous only for its 2A-state-winning-football team, has plenty of fast food, including McDonald's, Dairy Queen, and Sonic. We normally don’t stop there, but instead take a little bit longer at the Oakridge Smokehouse, my dad’s favorite restaurant ever, which has a buffet of BBQ and other southern fare. My mother was particularly ecstatic when we stopped there on New Year’s Day because they were serving cabbage and black eyed peas. This meant that she didn’t have to cook them, but we still got our dose of good luck to start the New Year. She forced both my brother and me to take a couple black eyed peas since “you didn’t eat any last year, and look how that turned out for us!” I say “take” because that’s what we did—swallowed them like pills—since they really are the most vile bean ever grown.

Even though we had a reservation in the Marriott Rivercenter for New Year’s Eve, we decided it would be easier (and much cheaper!) to stay in a hotel nearer to my friend (whose family had invited us to spend New Year’s Eve with them)’s house. Since she lives in northwest San Antonio, we booked a room at the Best Western Posada Ana Inn, located near the intersection of I-10 and Loop 410 at 9411 Wurzbach Road.

Because of the holiday season, rooms that normally cost $75 a night became over $100 a night. With the extra adults in the room, the total became $120 for the night, but this was still a steal compared to anything in the downtown area. Plus, we were within 5 minutes of my friend’s house, multiple restaurants, plenty of shopping (Target and HEB, to name a few), and Fiesta Texas.

The hotel was an indoor one, so our door was off of an indoor hallway, rather than an outdoor walkway, as many Best Westerns and Motel 6’s have. Our room was a typical mid-range hotel room. We had two double beds, a chair, table, TV, and enough room on the floor for my brother (who is six foot three) to be able to stretch out in two different directions. The beds were comfortable enough and gave us no surprises when we pulled back the sheets (meaning no dead insects or unsightly stains). We were on the first floor, facing towards the nearby freeway, yet there was very little noise.

Something that I noticed on this trip more than any other, since we stayed in two hotels in two nights, was the difference between midrange and high-end hotels. The Best Western offered us a free continental breakfast, which ended up not only including “continental” foods, but also sausages and eggs. We had free access to the parking lot outside, as at most hotels, and inside, we had free access to the wireless network. This is in stark contrast to the Marriott, which charged upwards of $12 for the same breakfast, $19 for the right to park in their garage for a day, and $9.99 for 24 hours of wireless network access. You would think that the less you pay, the more extras you would have to pay for, but instead, the more you pay, the more money they think you have and are willing to part with for extras.

The only problem we had at all with this hotel was the fact that they put us in a smoking room when we had specifically requested non-smoking. However, this was quickly remedied before we even walked in the door when my mother looked at a map and realized our room was starred as smoking. After a quick chat with the front desk, we were switched to a room across the hall that smelled odd, but didn’t have the strong odor of cigarettes.

I got a decent night's sleep here, and that's all I really ask for!

My family is the king of the cheap hotel; by the end of my junior tennis career, I knew the location of every Motel 6 in southern Texas. Therefore, staying in the Marriott Rivercenter, whose cheapest room on New Year’s Eve cost $200, was definitely a splurge for us. Fortunately, since we booked our room in early October, we got that $200 room.

When we arrived at the hotel, located at 101 Bowie St, right next to the Rivercenter, at just after 4pm, there was a line just to get into the parking garage. This was because hotel staff were outside, checking our names against a list of guests to make sure we were allowed to park in the garage. Then, after telling them we did not want valet parking, we found a spot on the third level (the second level was already full!) and headed for the lobby.

The lobby was pretty packed with would-be revelers, but we managed to find the shortest line and get checked in within five minutes. We were all issued room keys, since we had to show our room key just to get into the hotel that night (for security reasons). All of our drivers’ licenses were checked and details recorded in case any of us lost our key, so we could be reissued one, rather than being completely locked out of the hotel. I appreciated the fact that they were going to greater lengths to protect their guests’ security on a night where so many people would be in San Antonio.

Our room was much nicer than our room in the Best Western. First of all, our toilet wasn’t explosive, so it didn’t wake up everyone on the floor when we flushed it in the middle of the night. We had two extremely plush beds with soft, thick comforters and pillows that were nearly tempur-pedic, they were so squishy. Once I laid down on it to read, I nearly immediately fell asleep.

The only problem I could find, as I noted in my Best Western entry, was the cost of everything. Even though we were paying a lot more for the room, we still had to pay for services that Best Western gave us for free—wireless Internet was $9.95 per day, breakfast was around $12, and parking was $19 per day. I supposed they thought we were willing to pay more for a room, so we were willing to pay more for other services as well. This made my mom antsy when using the TV remote, because she thought she’d accidentally press a button and buy something. However, there was one thing they provided for free—a rollaway bed. This meant that my brother got to sleep on an actual mattress!

Other than those few things, I had absolutely no complaints about the Marriott Rivercenter. They were efficient and provided us with all we needed—beds and a place to stash our stuff.

Even though we had our own, decent room, the reason we stayed in the Marriott Rivercenter was because my friend Cristina’s family was staying there to celebrate the New Year. They normally stay in the Hilton, located a couple blocks away from the Marriott, but all of the good rooms there were booked there; that made this their first time in the Marriott. Even though the Marriott didn’t offer quite the same view as the Hilton, it did not disappoint.

Their room had, as Cristina told me on the phone, “a lot of space”. We realized this as soon as we walked up to the door, which had a doorbell next to it. When Cristina opened the door, we were greeted with what seemed to be a huge lounge room, although Cristina later told me that the wooden square on the wall was actually a bed. Even with the bed down, the room was easily twice as large as ours, with enough couches and seating room for everyone there.

The astounding part of the room was the balcony. It was nearly the size of the room itself and had a view of at least half of San Antonio on the horizon. To our left was the Tower of the Americas, where the fireworks went off at midnight. Since there were columns that ran above the balcony and down the sides, we didn’t have a perfect view like the people at the Hilton, who directly face the tower, did, but we could still see almost everything. We could also see the various crazies who swam in the hotel’s pool, located on the roof of the third floor, during the night. Since it was 38 degrees and windy, I think I am justified in calling them absolutely nuts.

By 6:30, many of us were ravenous, and wanted more than the table full of fruits, cheeses, and crackers. The hotel had at least three different restaurants listed on the hotel directory, but the one we went to was the Atrium. This, like the other restaurants, was located on the second floor right next to the elevators, although the hostess booth is oddly located directly opposite them, so you have to walk halfway around the restaurant to be seated.

We ate at the buffet, which had a choice of lasagna, fettuccine alfredo, chicken Parmesan, vegetables, and breadsticks. I felt like I was at the Olive Garden ordering my favorite meal—the Tour of Italy, which conveniently consists of the first three options, plus many many breadsticks. Cristina and her mother, being allergic to wheat, couldn’t eat much besides salad, but the waiters were extremely accommodating and got them grilled chicken breasts, free of charge. All of our meals came with free champagne. I didn’t catch how much it cost (probably a lot, being a hotel restaurant), but I still thought it was quite good and full of much-needed energy to keep us moving in the throngs of people that descended on San Antonio that night.

When my friend, Cristina, called us as we were walking around UT Austin and asked if we’d like to eat at Benihana that night, my mother replied with “Ooooh, that sounds delicious!” Pretty much everyone I know has the same reaction when this restaurant comes up in conversation; who wouldn’t enjoy such a great selection of Japanese food presented so theatrically?

The Benihana in San Antonio is located next to the inbound lanes of I-10 between Wurzbach Rd and Loop 410; this was literally a two minute ride down the feeder road from our hotel, the Best Western. We had made reservations, so we didn’t have to wait when we arrived, even though the restaurant was packed full. A word of warning about reservations, though: they only hold them for five minutes, so make sure you leave plenty of time for the drive there!

Since we were there during the holiday season and on the night of the city’s bowl game, there was a small set menu, rather than the much larger mix-n-match menu that they normally boast. This didn’t bother me, since my choice was still on the menu—the $27.50 “Splash ‘n’ Meadow” (shrimp & steak). For $5 more, I could have replaced the steak with filet mignon, but I chose not to; however, I did choose the $2.50 steamed rice replacement—fried rice. Also included in my meal was a wonderful miso soup, a shrimp appetizer, and vegetables.

After a literal triple-checking of orders (no one ever has to worry about getting the wrong meal here), the show began. First, the chef covered the hibachi grill in front of us (where all of our meals were to be cooked) in an oily substance and lit it, which created flames so large that they licked the (turned off) lamp above us. Then, he took each ring out of an onion and stacked them on top of each other, creating a little mountain, which he then poured more liquid on and lit. The onions literally turned into a tiny volcano, spouting flames from every crevasse. As we ooh-ed and ahh-ed, Cristina’s mother asked what he liquid he was lighting. With a perfectly straight face, the chef replied, “gasoline!”

He did other tricks, including tossing various pieces of food behind him and into a bowl and attempting to toss other pieces of food into his chef’s hat, as we dug into our meal. He prepared the fried rice first, followed by vegetables and meat, followed by the seafood. All of it was delicious and cooked to perfection, and everyone was absolutely stuffed by the end of the meal. My brother was particularly dismayed when they brought him a sundae (accompanied by the traditional Japanese song “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and in honor of his birthday, which wasn’t until the next week but apparently “counted anyway”) that he couldn’t find any room for. We all helped him out and then, thoroughly stuffed and content, left.

Since we had no plans until 4pm, which was when we had to check into our hotel room, New Year’s Eve morning was a perfect time to have a stroll around Trinity University, one of my brother’s top choices of school for next year. Fortunately, we left ourselves plenty of time to do so, since all of us were so lazy that we didn’t manage to check out of our hotel room until a little before noon. My brother, who had been asleep on the floor for most of the morning, proceeded to fall asleep as soon as he got in our van, so it was up to us to find Trinity for him.

Trinity is located just off of US281 North at the Hildebrand exit. As soon as we exited the freeway, we turned right, passed the University of the Incarnate Word, and immediately found Trinity to our left. After getting slightly lost a few times, we finally found some visitor parking on Trinity Place and a nice, large, labeled map of the entire university. This allowed us to actually pick out a few things we’d like to see, rather than wandering completely aimlessly.

The campus reminded me a lot of my school, Rice University, in that you can’t tell that it’s located in the middle of a large city. Yes, a freeway runs past some of the dorms, but the campus is so covered in trees and filled with new-looking red brick buildings that you feel, as my brother described, like you are “in a pretty rural area.” Even if you aren’t considering attending here, I think it’s a nice place to stop by and have a walk through the trees or have a lazy afternoon lying on the grass. Near the main administration building is a beautiful fountain, which has the brick bell tower towering above it. When we walked up to the tower, we found that it was blocked and the stairs looked like they had not been climbed in quite some time; this was unfortunate because we would have gotten a great look at the lay of the campus from the top.

Since it was New Year’s Eve, the campus was obviously deserted, with only the odd runner passing by. Because of this, we couldn’t actually get inside any of the buildings, but that was OK, since my brother had an actual campus tour booked for later in the school year and my mother had already fallen in love with the campus anyway.

Even though we spent a fair amount of time wandering Trinity, we still had plenty of time to burn before we could check into our hotel. My father suggested taking a short drive up to Canyon Lake, where my parents are considering buying a retirement home, and since none of us could come up with anything else, we settled on that.

It was at least a 50 mile drive into the Hill Country on US281 to Canyon Lake. We stopped on the way, at the exit for south Canyon Lake, for a quick bite at Sonic, before continuing to Spring Branch and the exit for Highway 306. This took us around to the north of Canyon Lake, which, when we finally saw it, was a sparkling, bright blue oasis in the parched hills. We didn’t find it until we drove into Mystic Shores, a new community from which my dad had received an advertisement in the mail. This community had plenty of houses that looked way too expensive, since they sat on hills overlooking the sprawling lake. I mainly looked around at scenery and at the lake I wished I could get closer to, while my parents stopped at every house and debated their pros and cons. My parents were clearly enjoying themselves, though, and it was nice to be out in the country and “away from it all.”

After looking at nearly every house in the neighborhood (except those that were gated), we got back on Highway 306, beside which the Guadalupe River snaked for some miles. It took us all the way around the lake to New Braunfels, where we got on I-35 South and headed into downtown San Antonio to prepare for our New Year celebrations.

After dinner, at around 8:30, we decided to check out the partying going on outside the hotel before it got too packed. The main center of the partying was not the Riverwalk, which still had a number of people on it, but rather, on South Alamo St. This entire street, which borders on Hemisfair Park, where the Tower of the Americas is located, was blocked off to make way for six stages (featuring six different kinds of music), food vendors of all types, carnival rides, and of course, the 250,000 people that would be enjoying them.

As we turned onto Alamo St, we were greeted with strains of jazz music and an already bustling street. We passed booths hawking all sorts of 2007 and New Year’s Eve wares, from blinking glasses to tiaras, and others offering an array of Mexican foods (although no sopapillas, which is what my mother really wanted). We kept getting stuck, since we had a group of at least 15 people that couldn’t manage to keep together. People kept seeing other people they knew, or something interesting, so we’d have to look around and stay in the same place until they came back.

We finally found our way to the Univision area, which, funnily enough, had a stage offering Latino music. Cristina’s family started dancing, and it was fun to watch for a while, but my family isn’t into dancing—I can’t remember a time when I’ve ever seen my dad even pretend to dance. He was feeling the cold the most of any of us, and since Cristina said her family tends to get stuck in the Univision area for quite a while, we moved on, trying to find things to keep Dad interested and warm.

After walking a few more blocks, I spotted my favorite food stand ever—the funnel cakes. The line was pretty long (although by the time we got ours, there was no line at all), and after much indecision, we decided to wait in it. 15 minutes and $5 later, we had the largest funnel cake I’ve ever seen. It was delicious, and between all of us, we soon finished it.

By this point, our group was down to my family, and Cristina’s aunt and cousin. Her cousin and my brother really wanted to go on a spinny ride, and made a beeline as soon as we turned the corner into the kid’s carnival area and they spotted the “Starship 3000.” The Starship one of those rides where it spins so quickly that the centripetal force pushes you against the outer walls. They attempted to drag me on with them, but I didn’t feel that it was worth $3 to see half a funnel cake decorating the walls around me. The lines weren’t long at all, so they got on immediately. Unfortunately, it was completely enclosed, unlike the ride next to them, which was the same, but open to the air—so we couldn’t see them screaming their lungs out and generally looking terrified. They soon exited, looking rather inebriated—my brother actually stumbled down the stairs!

All of us were now getting tired of the crowds and of being on our feet for so long. After I bought some blinking 2007 glasses, a ripoff at $10 but in honor of the fact that 2007 is the year in which I will graduate, we worked our way back to the Marriott. We had walked a lot further than we remembered, and it took quite a while to make it back—and in the process, both Cristina’s cousin and I got hit on. My mom found me getting hit on rather amusing; I did not.

The street festival was a lot of fun, and definitely worth going to, although I was very glad that I had a different vantage point to watch the New Year’s fireworks from that was less crowded and featured comfy sofas. Maybe this isn’t in the spirit of New Year’s partying to the fullest, but this way, my entire family enjoyed it, and we got to relax in the process!

In the hour and a half between when we left the street festival and midnight, we didn’t do anything particularly interesting. Mostly, we just sat and chatted, played with Cristina’s adorable dog, and watched New York’s New Year’s Eve celebrations on TV.

At 11:50, the champagne, blowers, tiaras, and hats came out, and people started going outside. For many, this didn’t last too long, because it was a chilly 38 degrees outside, complemented by a stiff wind. I had to remove my hat and glasses and leave them inside for fear of watching my $10 blow off the side of the Marriott and into the Rivercenter below.

What a sight there was from our balcony. Well before midnight, when we looked into the distance into the suburbs, we could see fireworks going off everywhere. Apparently everyone in the greater San Antonio area had acquired illegal mortar shells and were firing them off like there was no tomorrow. The entire horizon was lit up in white, blue, pink, and green explosions. It was absolutely spectacular, and was definitely the largest firework display that I have ever seen. After 10 minutes, by the time the New Year actually rolled around, the horizon was thick with haze.

We couldn’t quite have an official countdown to the New Year, since everyone had a different time on their watch, so we just waited until the crowd began to roar before we began shouting “Happy New Year”, blowing on our airhorns, and hugging and kissing everyone in sight. The moment that the crowd began to roar was the moment that the lit up elevator in the Tower of the Americas reached the top, turning the giant “2006” on the Tower into a “2007” and setting off the beginning of an amazing fireworks spectacle. For nearly 20 minutes, fireworks shot up from behind the Tower and out from the Tower itself while the people in San Antonio continued their pyromaniac tendencies and lit up the sky behind. The finale was awesome, with multiple mortar shells exploding over the Tower as it spewed yellow in every direction.

As soon as the Tower finished its display, most of my family and all of Cristina’s family rushed back inside, attempting to warm their chilled limbs. I stayed outside for a little longer, rapt. The fireworks on the horizon had slowed, but were still very obviously there, and I couldn’t get over the sheer number of them.

The only downer of the night was that I couldn’t get a hold of James before the New Year began, since my phone card couldn’t handle the volume of calls going through. However, I eventually got a hold of him and let him listen to the din, which had changed from airhorns and fireworks to the honking of car horns, as everyone in the traffic jam below showed everyone just how happy they were by deafening them.

All in all, it was the perfect way to bring in the New Year. I was surrounded by my loving family (minus one, who had celebrated the New Year 16 hours before me) and friends, with a glass of champagne in one hand and a camera in the other to capture the festivities, watching the best fireworks display I’ve ever seen. San Antonio does New Year’s right—much better than a dinky fireworks display over the bay—so it’s no wonder that 250,000 other people spent the evening in downtown. I think that, at least while I’m in America, this way of spending New Year’s Eve might have to become a tradition.