Since it was almost 12PM when we finally reached Houston, we decided to have a lunch first before spending a good 3-4 hours in the museum. The choices were: eating in at MoNS's McD or stopping by at a nearby sandwich place -- the green shirt lady said that it's a very nice place to eat in. Fortunately, all were in favor of the sandwich place.

It's called, The Hobbit Cafe, opened for business 31 years ago. Yeah, Hobbit as in the Lord of the Rings' Hobbits. The cafe is housed in a Tudor styled house surrounded by big Oaks trees and is kind of secluded from the busy Richmond Ave. In the spring time, it must be nice to sit out in the patio and deck seatings. As for the inside, the low ceilings, the branch door handle, the driftwood chair with fur seat, the terra cotta painted walls, and the illustrated pictures of the Hobbits, all bring out the whimsical feeling of Tolkien's universe.

The selection of food caters both vegetarian and non-vegetarian alike. Where else could you find a thick sandwich with tabouli, avocado, alfalfa sprout and a buffalo burger served at the same place? This place is definitely on my next Houston dine-out list.

We arrived at the museum, stood in the very long line for the ticket, and hurried inside. The museum will be closed in less than 4 hours. We had to set aside some time in the end of the visit, since we also bought the ticket for the 30 minutes presentation at the planetarium.

The recent discovery of St. Peter's tomb was the first to greet us to the exhibit. It was then followed by the historical artifacts of both famous and infamous Popes along the 2000 years span. The most interesting art in the exhibit was the thanka, a Dalai Lama personally handcrafted gift to John Paul II. Among other interesting stuff that I learnt were the insults Napoleon made to Pius VII by presenting him a one size too small inauguration tiara. Adding to the insult, the tiara was embelished with looted gems from the Vatican. And also, Michaelangelo's replied to Julius II's "When will it be finished?", "When I can."

Anyway, the church documents displayed were way beyond my self-taught first year Latin ;). It was still fun, though, to guess what they meant before peeking at the translation. :D

We arrived back at CS before the sun retired from the clear summer sky. By that good-bye moment, everyone was becoming more like each other's close friend.

And now, I'm trying to focus myself once again to that writing. Wish me luck, guys.