Shameless Tourist Day

In making my big plans for the week before my internship starts, I quickly realized one thing I needed to do was to just spend a day wandering around visiting all of the touristy spots that I haven't seen in so long. So, I had my Shameless Tourist Day:

I moseyed into downtown San Antonio, parked in a garage, and spent the rest of the day meandering around all over the place. I had intended to head straight to the Alamo, but detoured to the Riverwalk first (because it happened to be across the street from my garage, it's the Riverwalk, and it's one of my favorite places in the world). It was also very convenient to be able to find my way around downtown and see all of the sites I wanted to see, while gaping at the pure gorgeousness of the landscape.

My second stop was La Villita, one of the first neighborhoods of San Antonio which has been refurbished in the last couple of decades into a genteel village of art galleries, cafes, a chapel, and shops. And, I discovered, a neighborhood history gallery:

The cozy history gallery was pretty neat; each of those columns are multi-sided and include text, graphics, and artifacts showing the many different parts of the neighborhood's history.

However, I did make it to the Alamo eventually:

To cap off Shameless Tourist Day, I dropped by the River Center Mall's "Texas Treasures" store to get my fix of Texas-themed gear and postcards, then last (but most definitely not least) enjoyed a marvelous (late) lunch at Casa Rio and walked back along the Riverwalk one more time before heading back to my car with sore feet but a happy heart.