It's not certain whose call woke up whom, but lili and I
groggily decided that we should each get thy butt out of
thy bed and prepare for thy doom with protein and alcohol.

We were greeted like long-lost children at the lounge, where
breakfast was quiet, exclusive feeling, and tasty - there
were an egg station, copious pastries and fresh fruits,
decent sparkling Riesling to make mimosas with, excellent
solicitous waitstaff. I believe anat0l was the only FTer we
saw, which sort of surprised me (the dearth of FTers, that
is - usually we're all over free booze and food like gate
lice or something). Too bad we had to hurry to the airport.

LH 440 FRA IAH 1040 1530 744 35G/35E, 35D

And again, back to reality.

I'd been preassigned the middle section aisle seat opposite
lili's, and one of the things we did during our lengthy
session with the checkin kiosk was adjust seats. It took a
long time, but it worked.

Two meal services on this flight: a fairly tasty goulasch,
followed by I believe a sandwich, to which I paid scant
if any attention, red wine and my seatmate taking up most
of my attention. Oh, yes, also snoozing.

Passing immigration and customs in Houston was pretty easy.
This time lili beat me handily to the bag claim, but as we
both had bags, her advantage evaporated.

We took the regular shuttle bus to the Sheraton North
Houston at George Bush Intercontinental (what a mouthful),
where the scene in the lobby was festive and how shall I
put it, controlled chaotic. Perhaps it was the champagne
punch being served (3 kinds: musty and flat from a fountain,
or fresh from a dispenser, or fresh and nonalcoholic from a
dispenser); perhaps it was being in the company of a couple
hundred of our nearest and dearest; or who knows, but a
good time was being had by all.

My room was peculiar-shaped, with extra space but owing to
the odd shape no way of enjoying it. I think this was a room
upgrade but have no way of being sure. I had a manager and
banquet staff to talk to, so not much spare time, and I
didn't get to see lili's. Nor to fuss about my room, which
was outdated, slightly dingy, and with plumbing from the
1980s - it clanked percussionally and hooted and buzzed
woodwindly and in essence kept me up half the night.

Hernan the banquet guy promised to make sure the piano
would be tuned and that I would have a music stand for my
little recital next day.

Afterward, I went off socializing for a while and then
rendezvoused with lili for supper. The onsite restaurant
wasn't bad ... not great, but what do you do in the middle
of nowhere, Texas. We didn't feel up for the bbq expedition
that a lot of folks went on but just looked to eat at the
bar; we discovered that ExpressJet was having a function
there, so if we weren't going to crash it (we considered
this) we had to go a notch upscale.

Here it means Basil's Kitchen as opposed to Basil's Tavern.
This is a not unpleasant but very dated space with a kind
of lonely feel to it, the kind of place where I'd start
thinking about not having a proper job and not having a
proper home and not having a proper girlfriend, only with
lili with me I didn't think of these things but rather
what exciting place we were going to visit next together.

Despite the unlikelihood of finding her burger grail here,
she ordered one anyway. You'd think that even a hotel
cook would be able to make a burger in Texas. Not really;
I reckon management and more specifically accounting have
had a say in the recipe, and what she got had too much
filler and (by way of camouflage) too much seasoning,
making something more akin to a meatloaf. It wasn't bad,
just not a proper burger.

My steak, however, ordered blue rare, was quite good.

We had a coupon for free wine with our meal. It was bad.

Food: respectable
Service: okay but a little slow; too many managers hanging
around not doing much
Atmosphere: you're on the road, what do you expect

We made an early evening of it and toddled off sleepily
just as the bbq explorers started to trickle back and the
rains came in that impressive Texan way.