San Antonio was my first stop in Texas and it completely blew my mind. From the minute I stepped on to the River walk, I was transported right back to a cosy little European city. The River walk is exactly what it sounds. The river meanders through the city and there’s a public walk made right next to it. There are a lot of restaurants, bars, shops and historic buildings situated on the walk which provide plenty of good food and entertainment. Also, there’s the River centre mall, which is just like an ordinary mall expect for a river flowing through it! I’ve been to plenty of cities built around water bodies but none where a river adds so much personality to the city. I could easily spend a couple days doing nothing but hanging out at the river walk on a small boat with my feet up.
The best thing about traveling alone is the people you meet or the conversations you have unexpectedly. And it gets even better in San Antonio – the people are so warm, it’s like they’ve been waiting to have a conversation with you. I was tipped by a local to try La Mitierra – the oldest Tex-Mex restaurant in town. The maître-d caught me eating alone and joined me for dinner. We spoke of food and San Antonio. He advised me to visit the missions of the city and that’s exactly what I did. The missions are previous settlements of the Native Americans. Basically, the Spanish came here in the 1700’s and told the indigenous population – ‘O, we are better than you. We’ll teach you how to plant crops, breed animals and build homes. In exchange you become Catholics.’ OK – I might be simplifying things a little bit but the deal was accepted and that resulted in creations of the missions across various cities in southern US. San Antonio has 5 missions spread across 12-15 miles with a distance of about 3-4 miles between each. I had the bright idea to see all on a bike. The ride wasn’t very scenic, the Sun scorched my skin and after a massive tan (one my mother wouldn’t approve of), I made it to 3 of the missions – San Jose, La Concepcion and The Alamo. The US doesn’t have centuries of recorded history but what they do have, they preserve well. The missions give a good idea of how the Indigenous people lived and worked. Some of the architecture is akin to what one would find in Spain. It was a hard day’s work but I felt I had accomplished my MISSION.
Besides the Riverwalk and the Missions, San Antonio has a couple of quaint neighbourhoods like La villita and King William district where I would have liked to spend more time but I’ll keep that for another trip. SA manages to draw a good balance between the old and the new and this coupled with the laidback attitude of the people makes it my favourite city in the US so far!
7th March: Workshop # 2
It might seem that all I did was travel and while that’s true, we also delivered a very successful workshop (Frank and I gave each hi-five’s after.) This time around, we actually had 23 participants which brought the exercises to life. The women came from more diverse backgrounds and most had already been in the US for a couple of years – some even have families with children here. So they weren’t struggling with cultural issues like the Charlotte batch and that allowed us to focus on the issue of assertiveness rather than plain communication skills.
One of the really popular sessions of the day was “giving direct Feedback.” Basically, In AIESEC, I took this skill for granted but the corporate world is not AIESEC where most people are open to feedback. The women described situations where they had trouble stating their opinion especially with overly aggressive people or under-performing peers or unresponsive clients. We role-played those situations with them and coached them on how to give feedback in different situations using a simple model. I was amazed with how quickly they learnt and how talented they are. They’re managing jobs, bosses, clients, homes, husbands and children – that too without much help. Please make way for the Indian Superwoman – she is emerging and how!
