Cultural Report Three: Travel Post

For my third and final cultural report I decided to take place in the zombie apocalypse. Weren't expecting that were you? By way of zombie apocalypse I mean that I took part in an event that recreated moments from the popular TV show the Walking Dead. The event was call the Walking Dead Escape Tour and it took part at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. The event only comes to a state once before it moves on to another so I knew this would be a one in a lifetime experience, and it was!

            So my report today is going to be over the destination and the experience more so than the actual journey. Since the location I went to is a rather common attraction destination, I feel it is not pertinent to this report to detail the forty-five minute drive up I-10 to Reliant Stadium. For those who have never been to Reliant Stadium it is situated in downtown Houston right next to the Astrodome, the former stadium of Houston. The building itself is over 1.9 million sq. feet consisting of several floors.

            For the event, I brought my girlfriend, Shannon, with me so that we could both share in this experience. We had purchase tickets to take part as a “Walker” or zombie for the duration of the event which lasted several hours. As a “Walker” we received a zombie makeover from the professional makeup artists from the TV show. Once we were all made over we were given a safety speech in which it was stated that it would be frowned upon that we actually bite someone however they informed us that if we scare someone so badly that they actually throw up then we are doing a good job. Once the event started the roughly 300 people who registered to be a walker were split up into groups and spread throughout an immense obstacle course that covered much of reliant stadiums interior. The course from end to end was 1.2 miles of walking distance, so there was a lot of walking involved. Once the event started our objective was to infect by touch the survivors or non-zombies as they attempt to make it through the course. While there were only around 300 walkers in the first way there was well over 2000+ survivors as anyone could buy a ticket for a survivor at the front gate of the stadium. That being said there was a lot of people running through this course and it was interesting to see how dedicated people were to this event. You had people who were dressed up in full army gear/military gear as they ran through the course. Many people had head cameras to film the entire event as they ran through the course as well.

            Overall the event was an amazing experience and if it ever comes back to Texas I would highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of zombies. The event was for all age groups so anyone could participate.

Cultural Report Two: Cemetery

For my second cultural report, I chose to visit the Forest Park East Cemetery in Webster, Tx. I chose this cemetery for a couple reasons, the first and foremost being that I have several family members buried at this cemetery. I visited the cemetery and March 26th with my girlfriend. Unfortunately when we got there it started raining, however we were still able to get some very interesting pictures and details of the cemetery.

When I first arrived at the cemetery my first initial reaction to the area was it was loud. Being right next to a major highway with a lot of traffic, the cemetery is not entirely an ideal location for peace and quiet. We started out just walking around and looking at the different graves. Other than the noise level, the cemetery is extremely beautiful and is very well kept up. The cemetery is very large as well. Throughout the cemetery are roads you can actually drive through to help you get through the cemetery faster, as well as several covered seating areas. The cemetery itself is divided in half by a rather dirty looking river, really no more than a large ditch. This kind of took away from the appeal of the cemetery and made it harder to navigate as there was only one crossing which required an extensive amount of walking.

Now the primary reason I chose this cemetery was because of family, however this was not the only reason I chose it. When researching the cemetery before I visited I discovered that this was the burial place for the Yates children, the children who were murdered by their mother back in 2001. I remember hearing about this tragic story from my parents. The reason it moved me the way it did was because my father had actually gone to school with the mother that committed the murder. So all in all, I really wanted to find this grave. It was pretty easy to find as it was a very large headstone with a picture of each of the 5 children engraved onto it. Three of the kids are buried in front of the headstone, while two more are behind the headstone. It is sad to see the grave markers and realize that the oldest child was only seven years old and the youngest was only six months old.

After visiting the Yates' grave, we carried on with exploring the rest of the cemetery. Some of the interesting things we noticed were that there was a lot of graves that were only partially filled out, with spots reserved for future family members. I thought this was a neat aspect that all family members would eventually be buried all right next to each other, and at the same time I felt sad for the one person already buried there knowing they are alone until someone ultimately joins them.

I found several headstones that had images relating to what that person liked or what they were interested in, and one even of what that person did for a living. We found quite a few foreign graves, many of which were in different languages. Some of the graves were really because some of them have the epitaph in their native language as was as translated in english next to them. Not all of the foreign graves that we saw did this though.

In conclusion I found the Forest Park East Cemetery to be culturally enlightening. I discovered that even though these people are dead, we can still learn a great deal from them. We learn their stories, such as the Yates kids. We learn who they were and what they did. We learn if they were a war veteran or a war casualty. We can learn a lot about our history from the graves of our dead. In addition to what we can learn, the simple fact about how we treat our dead is a statement of its own. While some third world countries would simply throw you in the ground, our society has grown to not just burring our dead, but instead we are honoring our fallen and lost.

Father and Mother grave with deer and doe imagery.

This grave was interesting to me because of the amount of detail that was put into the fish statue.

This one I actually found a little humorous. I'm guessing that the person buried here was a crane operator.

This Husband, Father and Grandfather must really have loved his dogs.

Cultural Report One: La Madeleine

For my ethnic cuisine report I chose to go with a French restaurant. I chose French food because I am already accustomed to many of their cultures and foods from taking French when I was in High School, however I had never gotten the opportunity to try an authentic French meal. After looking around on the internet, and a few recommendations from friends and family I ended up going to La Madeleines, a French cafe in Webster off of Bay Area Blvd. close to where Baybrook Mall is. I chose to turn the trip into a date and went with my girlfriend so we could try something new together. This was also beneficial because we could each order different meals and get a larger sample.

When we arrived at La Madeleine's it was situated in a large shopping strip and from the outside looked nothing special. They had outside seating which is true for a lot of authentic French cafe's. When we entered the cafe we were immediately hit with the smell of fresh baked bread. There was a glass counter that had many different breads as well as deserts for sale. Ordering food here was different from what I expected, instead of being seated and given time to look over the menu, you were instead expected to look at the menu briefly as soon as you walked in an order your food immediately. Although I was not expecting this I was still prepared as we had already reviewed the menu online and knew what we wanted to order. For our main course I ordered the Beef Bourguignon which is tender sirloin beef medallions and vegetables sautéed in a red wine demi-glaze nestled in a bed of parmesan mashed potatoes. My girlfriend ordered the Pesto Pasta, which is bow tie pasta tossed in pesto cream sauce with balsamic chicken and tomatoes. After placing our order we were given a wooden spoon with a number on it to indicate our order and we then walked down a buffet style counter that had extra appetizers and such to add to your order. For an appetizer I ordered the Cream of Potato soup, which was a bowl of potato soup topped with shredded cheese and bacon. After paying for our order we got our drinks as well as some complementary, fresh baked bread and butter and found a seat. It was a nice day outside so we decided to find a seat outside near the windows. While we waited for our order to come out I went to work on the potato soup. First off it was extremely hot, but tasted delicious. It had an excellent flavor to it and was even more enjoyable when you dipped bread in it and combined the two. After about a 10 minute wait our meal was brought to us, each plate was carried by a separate chef making it seem like our food was very precious to them.

The food was elegantly placed on the plates/bowls. My meal was in a bowl with a layer of mashed potatoes lining the bottom of the bowl with beef chunks and mixed vegetables on top. The first thing I noticed with my order was the smell. There was a very strong smell of the parmesan mashed potatoes and they smelt great. The aroma of the cheese mixed with the beef made my mouth water. I took my first bite of the meal and it was delicious, the mashed potatoes were some of the best I've ever had. As for the beef it was excellent but it wasn't anything spectacular. The sauce the beef was covered in on the other hand was very good and tied all the different elements of the meal together very nicely. The vegetables that were mixed in where not all that great however. There was carrots, peas, mushrooms and various others. The carrots were the one thing that threw me off. I generally like carrots but mixed with this particular meal I found myself pushing them to the side. But my meal wasn't done just yet, I still had yet to taste the pasta my girlfriend has ordered which looked equally as good as mine. It was a creamy bow tie pasta with chicken and various herbs mixed into it. After taking my first bite I wasn't completely satisfied with the taste. It wasn't bad by any means but I just feel it could have been better. I think this my possibly be due to me having a high expectation for it considering the beef meal I ordered was top notch.

To wrap the meal up we each had a chocolate chip croissant, which was actually not that appealing. It looked good when we ordered it but when you actually bit into it was like chocolate flavored bread and was not very appetizing at all.

Overall my experience with La Madeleine was superb. The cafe creates an excellent atmosphere for anyone who just wants to go to relax and have a meal, but also caters to your dinner appetite as well. I am definitely happy with my choice in restaurants and would definitely recommend La Madeleine to anyone who has never eaten there.