Sunday so let’s visit a church as in the Alamo – remember?
During our recent stay in San Antonio, Pam and I made the obligatory tourist trek to the Alamo. Because I had read a couple of articles discussing how the Alalmo is a somewhat underwhelming experience (click here) I wasn’t disappointed. (Another validation of the old theory that if you keep your expectations low or non existent, you are never disappointed.)
But having said that, I have to agree that as tourist sites go, a visit to the Alamo is definitely a little on the slack side of the ledger. Some of the problem may be that while you are expecting to see a fort, what you get is a church and a dingy, nondescript little church at that. (In defense of the Alamo folks, there is an ongoing push to renovate the surrounding areas to show more of the fort (click here.) For a good, 2 minute video on the actual overall battle of the Alamo click here.)
Musically, it seems that Phil Collins was a big Alamo fan (click here.) The following is from a 2018 article and I think the museum mentioned here is now complete.
Collins wrote Sussudio after having toured with Prince and hearing Prince perform “1999” at most shows. He liked the groove so much that he “appropriated” it here (click here for related story on the songs’ similarities.)
P.S. Also landed on this article (click here) discussing underlying reasons for the Alamo battle. Turns out that Mexico was very upset about so many American immigrants coming into Texas (then part of Mexico) that they felt like they had to secure their borders so to speak. The fact that the Americans were bringing in their slaves with them just exasperated the issue and Mexico felt like they had to do something about it. They were pissed off about us settling in their country. Times have sure changed haven’t they?
The city of San Antonio just grew up around the Alamo and history wasn’t thought of as important. There are 4 other missions in the San Antonio area Mission San Jose is the Queen of the Mission’s with the most to offer in historical context.