DAY 10 - Houston, Texas

I got up early enough to go to Shul. Before we got to town I started doing some research to find services of various congregations in the area where we were staying. Even though I found more than a couple Jewish communities in the Woodlands area, most of them didn't have Shabbat day services. I don't like resorting to Chabbad but they were the only ones that claimed they held morning service (and lunch afterwards of

course). I made my way to the address the Chabbad website said to go to and found the house. There was a Mezuzah on the door but no answer. It was still early enough to go to another synagogue in the neighborhood, so i decided to head towards it. Their website claimed they only hold morning service when there is a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, so I crossed my fingers and hoped there was one. And I was right.

The Temple was very unique. It wasn't the architecture of the building that astonished me, but the way the Bar Mitzvah service was led. The Beth Shalom Reform Jewish congregation had interesting rituals that I thought made the place special. It wasn't the Woman cantor or the mini wailing wall they had in their entrance that wowed me, but the way the Rabbi conducted the service with authority, but also included the audience too. I was hoping for a small brunch after service to be served but unfortunately there were buses waiting at the door and I assumed it was invite only, so I headed back to our room at the motel.

Houston is a huge city with very complicated roads and bridges. I am not sure it was the heat or the fact that we didn't know many people in town, but we started getting short with each other and ended up splitting up in town. I found out that there was a huge Gay Pride parade which held music stages and fun activities, so we went there. It definitely was the right place to be at. There were thousands of people there, and even though we didn't fit in with the crowd it sure was an interesting scene!

We spent the afternoon in the city roaming around the festivities, and chilled on the grass near our bikes. I am pretty sure many people there thought Uri and I were together which is funny, but I see no reason why a straight person can't go see the pride parade just for fun.

We drove back to our motel which took us a long time due to the huge amount of traffic leaving the area.

Texas is a HOT state! Too hot.