Recent Pictures of San Antonio.

[940]

Originally Posted by Robert123

I was in Long Beach on Christmas Day, and it was buzzing.

You're also trying to compare a metro of 22 million to one of 2 million. Maybe they like to buzz around La La Land or Long Beach on Christmas Day but it's obvious most are probably with their family that day instead of hanging out in downtown San Antonio.

[LivingLikeAGradStudent]

Long Beach is 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles, and while it's considered part of the greater L.A. metro area, it's a self-contained place of about 500,000 that does buzz many days with people eating and hanging out downtown.

[940]

I know Long Beach and I know where it is. It's only about 20 miles south of downtown LA and it's still Los Angeles County even though Orange County is right at its edge. Self-contained or not, it's still part of a metro of 22 million which makes a lot of difference compared to a metro of 2 million.

[AKF]

210 thank you for the BEAUTIFUL pictures of your city. This will definitely help as these pics are up close and show a lot more of the downtown area/suburb area that you don't see in the convention bureau's site or any other sites for that matter. i am feeling pretty excited about our decision right now.
only one thing though, you took the pics on christmas day, i don't see the area "decorated" for x-mas? do they have lights etc in the downtown area? just curious cause i know we would love to have that "feeling" of x-mas even without the snow!

thanks

[jimbobvandy]

I can't believe no one has jumped on this yet! Downtown is elaborately decorated along the river with lights that hang from the cypress trees that line the banks. Every year the day after Thanksgiving they have a river parade with river floats and tons of folks downtown and they light the lights for the season. In Alamo Plaza, they have a gigantic Christmas tree (maybe 30-35 ft) that my wife and I went to see (and smell) this year. For me, Christmas is not complete without going downtown to see the lights. No snow, but who cares when it's 65 degrees having dinner on the riverwalk.

[210]

Yes, downtown and most of suburban SA is decorated for Christmas.

There are two highrise office buildings along 281 that put up lights from the ground to the top of the building and come to look like christmas trees. The buildings are a mile apart from each other.

Broadway from Hildebrand through south Alamo Heights is fantasticly lit up as well as UIW. It's beautiful.

[AKF]

thanks again both for the info. on x-mas deco in the city. we have enjoyed many x-mas lights while we were on the east coast but we moved to indiana and this x-mas was truly depressing...the downtown area where we live (if you want to call it that) had no x-mas decorations/lights! truly sad. we hope that we will never have to spend another x-mas like the one we just spent!

i know some of you mentioned that there is a mix of peoples from all over the country. we really like san antonio so far from what we have seen and read about it online...we are hoping to take a trip down there soon. one of my concerns is also that we won't have any friends/family down there...are people mostly friendly?

i had also asked a question about pollution in another one of my posts which no one replied to. does anyone know anything about the site called "score card"? how legit is it? according to scorecard, texas is rated as one of the most dangerous states to live in (in terms of pollution and hazardous materials etc.) I am just curious to know if any of you have any information on that?

thanks