If you like GT driving...Texas is Fun! I would frequently (sometimes still do) go driving through Texas in an area inside a radius of 200 miles from Houston on the rural "B" roads, usually in the hours from 10 pm to dawn...usually in excess of 85 miles per hour...With Wagner/Beethoven/Mozart/Bach on the sound system...With very little interference from law enforcement.
With this in mind, Houston is unlike the rest of Texas...There is not a lot of "Cowboy Culture" in Houston...Houston is and has been a city with much international influence.
Many immigrants, my mother's family was from Austria...many Middle Easterners, Middle and Eastern Europeans, many Latinos.
The restaurants are good, but not as good as Los Angelean restaurants. There is food from every place on the globe...But mostly Mexican food, followed by Asian, Barbeque, American Comfort, on down to every style on the planet. The best Mexican restaurant I know of is the original Ninfa's on Navigation Blvd.
Houston has a nightlife...but it is definitely not a 24 hour town. The Last Concert Cafe is a popular after hours place. The best bar is called Marfreless and they have a policy of not having any signs or external advertising...you simply have to know that it is at 2006 Peden St.
The Houston Symphony is excellent. I heard Beethoven's 2nd, 3rd, and 5th piano concertos in October. Lang Lang was the soloist.
I am looking forward to Don Giovanni in January at the Houston Grand Opera.
There is the Houston Museum of Fine Art, the Menil Collection (a museum), the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and numerous smaller galleries. The Houston Museum of Natural Science is great.
The premier close-in neighborhood is the "Heights"...so named because at 40 feet above mean sea level it is the highest geographical place in the city. It originally was a neighborhood of small 1920's bungalows, like many older Los Angelean neighborhoods. Unfortunately people are destroying the comfortable bungalows and building two, three and four story monstrosities on lots that are much too small.
Dallas is like what Bakersfield would be if it was a big city.
Austin is Texas's Berkeley.
The women can be fun...when I had access to horses the women I...entertained (gasp)...Lets just say there is a reason females who ride have their reputation.
