The next morning, hung over yet again from an evening with the now finally departed Farrants (they had to fly out of Texas this day from Houston), we chose to walk the seawall for a few hours and find out what this town looked like in the daylight. Quite a laid back mishmash, evidently. Biker bars sit comfortably next to gay bars while families congregate on the sands just across the Seawall Road. Our hotel is just a step back from the road right next to a cool beach bar called Float. Someone took a small pool and built a bar around it advertising happy hours and bikini contests. Great place. Here's a photo:
And here's another one of our hotel. Nice, isn't it?
You'll see from the picture's vanishing point that Galveston isn't Blackpool, although there is a single pier behind me with roller coasters on it. In fact, I think we just happened to pick the one seawall hotel with the biggest concentration of eateries around it. We walked up the 20-odd blocks the width of the town (it's long, though; around 100 blocks long) to what the guide books describe as the "centre of activity on the island". It is, in a way, but a lot of places were shut (OK, it was a Sunday) and the downtown streets were very quiet. Perhaps the main reason for this was the town's vulnerability to hurricanes. This weekend one passed south of us to hit Eastern Mexico, not far from Laredo. Five years ago, Hurricane Ike swept across the whole island killing 100 people. A hundred years ago a 120 mph hurricane buried everything under 20 feet of water. Not conducive to long term property development, methinks.
