Fiesta San Antonio

When people hear San Antonio, Texas they probably think of two things: The Riverwalk & the Alamo. Yeah these things are important but what you should really think of when you hear my hometown is Fiesta.

Fiesta is this huge celebration that takes place every year to honor and remember the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto. In 1891 when the whole hoopla first officially began, it was nothing more than a parade called the Battle of Flowers. But since then, it's grown exponentially. It's now 10 days of beer-drinking, food-tasting, flower crowns, cascarones, and very pretty papel picado.

papel picado: literally means pierced paper: traditional way of decorating for celebrations and used as art.

cascarones: egg shells filled with confetti meant to be broken on people's heads.

fiesta flower crowns: made from tissue paper and totally awesome. Via: Events That Sparkle

As the main event, the Battle of Flowers is still the largest parade within Fiesta. It is the only parade in the nation that is planned and directed entirely by women volunteers. This parade has become such a huge part of our lives that schools and most businesses close, treating the day as a holiday.

Over the years they've added two other parades to the lineup: The Texas Cavaliers River Parade, which you guessed it - takes place on the Riverwalk.

Via: Stone Creek Homes

And The Flambeau Parade which is the nation's largest illuminated night parade. My dad and my brother have walked the route the last three years with the Boy Scouts.

Via: San Antonio Magazine

Along with these parades there are over 100 official Fiesta events and even more unofficial events that take place within the city. It's estimated that three million people take part in the various festivities and that the city rakes in about 280 million dollars.

It has also become a tradition to collect various Fiesta medals and pins. These medals are updated every year and sold to people who want to wear or collect them.

If you're interested in seeing what this Fiesta thing is all about you can watch from home! Just go to KSAT.com to watch the parades live!


The Battle of Flowers will take place on Friday around 12:30pm CST.

The Flambeau Parade will take place on Saturday around 6:30pm CST.

Poteet Strawberry Festival

On Saturday, John and I went to the Poteet Strawberry Festival. This festival has been around since 1948 and though I've been plenty of times when I was younger it's been a while since I've been as an adult. And John's never been at all. So we decided that we'd go and check it out, eat some strawberries, and hope it didn't rain on us.

I was pretty hungry when we got there so we bought a smorgasbord of festival food including: frito pie, steak on a stick, and a gordita.

After we stuffed our faces we walked around the grounds and ended up at The Ford Experience. It was basically a section so that you can check out of their Ford cars, trucks, and SUVs. Like most festival events they had a place for you to sign up to win a car but what was different about this whole Ford Experience was they also had different little stations for you to go to also. They give you a card and you go to each station and they have you perform some sort of activity. Then they punch your card. When you've finished you back to the beginning and you can get some free stuff. We did all of the stations and each station had their own little gift too. We ended up with a mini hand santizer, a T-shirt, a key chain, and a phone charger for the car...each! At the end we both ended up getting little insulated lunch boxes. It was actually a lot of fun!

We did the rides after and since we had so much stuff only John was able to get on the Cliff Hanger.

Also, I don't trust carnival rides.

We walked through all the vendor booths, saw some bulls and sheep, and contemplated buying an actual strawberry plant. After doing a loop we decided to head home. Since we still had tickets though we ended up buying a bottle of strawberry wine, a turkey leg, and a funnel cake to take home with us. The funnel cake had strawberries on it and was the only strawberry thing we ate at the festival. The wine wasn't even for us, my dad had asked for it.

So even though we didn't eat strawberry everything we had a fun time out there. Next up? Fiesta perhaps?

Enchanted Springs Ranch

This Sunday I had a day off of work so we (Mum, Da, Brother, John, and me) went to Boerne to check out Enchanted Springs Ranch.

Enchanted Springs Ranch is located about about 15 minutes outside of San Antonio in Boerne.

You've probably heard of this place on Oprah or on The History Channel. It's a cute little old western theme park. They shoot commercials, movies, and other shoots because of its old-timey feel and buildings.

We arrived at about 11:30 and got there just in time to see the puppet show.

The puppet show is probably meant mostly for kids but it was very interesting and very informative. They discuss how Enchanted Springs came about and what a day in the life of a cowboy looked like. The show was very punny with more of the adults laughing than the kids. We were one of the few families without any children in our group but we loved it none the less.

Twice a day they bring Woodrow, a longhorn, out for the kiddies to take a picture on and the families can gather around. He was a sweetie and up close you can see just how long those horns really are.

After we wandered around a bit, it was time for another show: Pistol Packin' Paula. Paula shows you all her pistol twirling, throwing, twisting, and overall badass-ing. Then when you think she can't get anymore awesome she brings out her bullwhips. She's pretty much my hero because she's won a few Gun Twirling competitions and she talks about how people didn't take her seriously at first.

After some more wandering we sat down for Professor Schmidlap's show.

After the show, we took a tractor ride around the ranch, getting to see some animals they have.

Lastly we got up close to some buffalo they had on the property and took some pictures.

It was a pretty good time. They have a gift shop with some snacks, Sarsaparilla root beer, some local craft beer, and souvenirs.


If you haven't been, it's definitely worth a look. They have more events during the summer and Christmas time and they also have a Chuck Wagon dinner and a Wild West Show offered on Wednesdays. Be sure to check out their website for more information!

I Love San Antonio

Now that I've explained why I hate Austinites I thought I could even it out by telling you what I like about San Antonio.

Firstly, San Antonio has both Sea World and Six Flags in the same city! I don't know how many other cities can make that claim.

I am a sucker for a good ride (even though I'm terrified of heights). I love the fast ones and the slow ones, the upside down ones, and the backwards ones. The only ones I don't particularly like are those that leave you at the top to enjoy the view. I hate the view. I hate the ascent to the top of the drop. I hate being aware of how high I am but I digress. Six Flags Fiesta Texas isn't that big but it does have some pretty great rides and the water park is inside the theme park and is included with your ticket.

I went to Sea World for the first time in forever last year. It's fun to check out some of the shows and see the sharks and feed the seals. I think of Sea World more for children though as they only have two rides and most of their attractions come from animals and the shows. I mean, how many times can you see a dolphin flip before it gets old? But they do change up their shows depending on the seasons. I went during Christmas time so I didn't get to check out their newly updated water park but it's supposed to be awesome.

Via

SA also has a great Zoo, Botanical and Japanese Tea Gardens.

Hippo at the zoo. 

We're also big into the arts with our SA ARTS program. We have galleries, film contests, plays, jazz in the park, outdoor film series, museums, etc. We have a lot of tourist places to visit that goes beyond our Riverwalk.

Via

Another thing I like about SA is the cultural mixture we have here. I don't know if the world is getting more racist or if they're just writing about it more but I appreciate the fact that I grew up in a very diverse cultural city. I don't know what race comes to mind when you think of San Antonio but we have more than just white and Hispanic. We do have a high Hispanic population what with being so close to Mexico and all but we are also a very big military city. Many people end up staying here after they're done with their military careers.

Via

The best way to experience all the cultures we have here is by going to the yearly Texas Folklife Festival. The festival takes place in the summer on the Institute of Texan Cultures grounds downtown. It celebrates all the different kinds of people who came to settle Texas. You can try native food from places such as: Scotland, England, Pakistan, Vietnam, Mexico, Lebanon, Japan and many others. While you're eating you can grab a patch of grass and watch the various cultural entertainment.

Via

Via

Another thing I like is that San Antonio is big enough to not run into an ex on every other corner but the sense of community is nonetheless pretty strong. Nicole Goodman wrote a great article about what a non-native thinks about our community love.

San Antonio is great. Even when I'm with friends and we're trying to find something to do because it may not be awake at all hours of the night, like New York, but hey - at least it smells better.

Farmers Markets & Zoos & Rollercoasters...Oh my.

This past weekend John, my dad, my mom, my brother and I went on a vacation to Dallas/Fort Worth. My family and I go every year to visit Six Flags Over Texas. This year John came with us.

The first day we went to the Dallas Farmer's Market.

We went to Six Flags but I didn't take any pictures since I was too busy riding rollercoasters!

On Day 2 we went to the Fort Worth Zoo. It's supposed to be the number five zoo in the nation. It was really awesome. So much better than our zoo.

The happiest turtle I've ever seen. 

Blue parrot. 

Roadrunner sunbathing.

John caught a fish! 

He wrestles alligators.

And keeps kangaroos in his pouch.

The second day we went to Six Flags again but because there was lightning in the area all of the adult rides were closed so we got on all the little kiddie ones. It was actually a lot of fun. We hardly ever get on those because...hello bigger, better rides but spinning in the tea cups and feeling our stomachs dip on El Sombrero was fun.

Via

We also made a pit stop in Waco and the Dr. Pepper museum.

All in all, it was a very fun three-day weekend.

Howdy Ya'll: Misconceptions about Living in Texas

I've traveled a bit around the US and Mexico. My family and I would go on vacation various places around the United States. It was fun to get to see all the sights and the way other people lived, even if we weren't that far away.

I've lived in Texas, practically my entire life. I lived in Salt Lake City, Utah one year as a freshman in college. It was my first experience to how much other people didn't travel and just what exactly that meant when it came to common misconceptions about Texas.

When people heard I was from Texas, eyes would widen and they'd ask, what to me, were really ridiculous questions. "Do you own a horse?" "How big is your ranch?" "Do you own cows?"

In the beginning I laughed thinking they were kidding but the more people asked, the more I realized they were serious. A lot of these people thought I owned a ten-gallon hat, always wore cowboy boots and rode a horse to school.

Eventually I came up with, what I thought was a pretty clever response. When they asked me something about my horse I'd ask how many moms they had.

Some got the joke and laughed with me while others took it personally, angrily yelling at me that "not everyone lived that way." I'd calmly tell them that it was same case in Texas. Yes, we have people who own ranches (a lot of people but only because Texas itself is so huge) but that I lived in a city, didn't own a pair of cowboy boots and hated horses.

But we do have a lot of these. 

Texas is a huge state. There is a lot of open area which means that a lot of people do in fact own ranches, wear hats (it's damn hot out here), and ride horses for whatever reason. But there is a lot of Texas that doesn't.

We have Austin: the so-called music capital of the world. It holds our capital in the center of town and it has 6th Street where all livers go to die.

We have Dallas/Fort Worth; so densely populated that two different cities are now hyphenated.

There's Houston with its humidity. Galveston, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Lubbock, the list goes on and on.

Via

I know that there are stereotypes for each and every state around. If you live somewhere other than Texas what is yours mostly stereotyped for?