Welcome to Dallas Texas, the most dull city in the whole of Texas...that is without a car. That is our only mistake! (Texans feel free to criticise my previous statement, but I was deeply UNDERWHELMED with Dallas town centre)
OUr Hostel is in Irving a 15 mins trip on the TRE (but as we arrived on the Sunday, we had to get a cab!), its situated approximately half way between Dallas and its counter city Fortworth. The comparison between the two cities is immense....

Our first day exploring the city took us to the JFK memorial museum and Dealey Plaza where conspiritors are supposed to flock the streets discussing theories behind the shooting of John F. X marks the spot literally on the road on ELM street going away from the city centre. THe museum itself is an impressive selection of photographs, starting from his reputation as President, and his first 100 days in office and his successes. Colum had followed all the conspiracy theories, where as sadly to say I was non the wiser! lol. But you will be pleased to hear that I learnt a lot about American attitudes toward the assination and about the theories and evidence. As a museum this is a pretty impressive array of culture differences and attitudes plus an amazing set of photographs...! This took up 2 hrs of the afternoon, and Colum and I pottered around the town through the "west end" which consists of about 4 restaurants, an old market, a few sweet shops and cowboy clothes *cough tourist trap* and some other random tourist places.
We took main street up through the centre to try and find some architecture and the art district. To be honest, there wasnt that much to see...
We found the trolley up to the West village to be bowled over by the West village shopping centre. We arrived there to find most of it closed and surrounded by restaurants and bars. At this point we took ourselves back down town for some mexican...our waitress was shrill and rude and basically whipped our plates from under our noeses and shooed us out. great.

Fortworth in a day...this was a glorious day! We arrived in the city centre (after a little mix up with the time of the trains and a small wait, sorry Colum, in the airport). We went passed the impressed Bass Hall (supposedly the best rated music venue in the U.S! SUndance square was a nice collection of shops and restaurants again, with an open air cafes. The city hall was impressive too, but our aim was to get to the Stockyards before 4pm. We started by taking the trinity Trail under the Main street bridge and the river side walk alongside the minor league Baseball stadium. The map was deceptive in that the distance between the Stockyards and City hall was only an inch on the map, but we joined the road at the 8th street, but it was on the 24th! after another mile, a cabbie pulled over and kindly gave us a free ride...we must have looked poor. lol.
The Stockyards is a hidden gem... arriving greated by ye olde south shacks (again more bars/restaurants) a Texan shoe shiner and the rodeo halls. We took a peak in, but things only run there fri-sat for $20 a pop...it looks onto the Texan cowboy hall of fame. We were being cheap skates, and went around the stetson shops and got some recommedations from the Visitors center.