March 31 - 2018 San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio is one of the few places in the USA that Mary has already seen. She wanted to go there again, and also give me the chance to see it. That was a good choice. However, we did not know that this year’s NCAA Final Four in Basketball (Mesterkab for universitetshold) for men was taking place in San Antonio this week-end! Also called March Madness. There were lots of people and many streets were blocked off. We decided to try to beat the crowds and went in very early. That turned out really well.

 

 
 

The main attraction in San Antonio is the Alamo.

The Alamo was a Spanish Mission from 1724 to 1793.
Later on it was used as quarters (barakker) for Spanish Soldiers. Originally, Texas was a Spanish colony as was Mexico. When Mexico got its independence in 1821, Texas was part of Mexico with certain privileges of self-rule. The Mexicans wanted to make Texas more productive, and also increase the population in relation to opposing the native Comanche Indians. In order to do so, the Mexican government invited settlers from the USA to come to Texas. By 1830, there were 30.000 Americans and only 3000 Mexicans. By 1835, the American settlers wanted independence (uafhængighed) from Mexico.
At the end of that year the Texas rebels managed to take over the Alamo.
President of Mexico, General Santa Anna himself, led an army in order to crush (knuse) the rebellion.

 

On February 23rd, 1863 he started a siege (belejring) of the Alamo. 13 days later, on March 6th, he attacked and killed almost everybody (spared a few women, children and slaves) It was a massacre.
189 people were killed/slaughtered and afterwards burned. I would say that 80% of them were from the US. 1 from Denmark! One of them was one of my boyhood heroes: Davy Crocket.

General Sam Houston was the leader of the Texas revolution. After the Alamo, Santa Anna went after Houston’s army to finish off the rebellion. The two armies met on April 21st, 1863.
It was in that battle that the famous phrase was coined, as the soldiers yelled as they attacked: “Remember the Alamo”. Houston won the battle. Santa Anna was captured, and in order to spare his life, he had to acknowledge the independence of Texas. Sam Houston became the first president of the Republic of Texas. Texas joined the United States in 1845, as the 28th state.  

I could not help thinking, again, about immigration. If you allow massive immigration, you run a great risk of letting the immigrants take over your country and your culture. It has been seen many times before, like here, and it can happen again. If you believe your country and its values are worth keeping, you may want to let immigration happen at a speed where the immigrants will assimilate (tilpasse sig) to your culture, instead of taking it over. My political statement of the day! 😊

Too little - too late

 

Another attraction in San Antonio is the River Walk. Every city we have been to, that has had a river, has had a river walk.
Well after San Antonio I will not be impressed, not even close.
The San Antonio River Walk is something else. The project started almost a hundred years ago, and has been developed ever since.  It is 2½ miles (4 km) long. On both sides of the river there are shops, restaurants, flowerbeds, lots of trees, waterfalls etc. etc. Twenty some bridges cross the river. It is incredible.

 

 

 

 

Written by JJ

P.S.
We ran across this wedding party being photographed in front of the Alamo.