Large outdoor chess set near Yagas. Garrett and Tristan thinking hard.
My brother, two friends, and I booked a trip on the Carnival Ecstasy out of Galveston, Texas. We were going on a five day cruise to Mexico and back. I live in Beaumont which is about a hour and a half drive from Galveston so we headed over early. Galveston is actually pretty close to where I live, but you have to take a ferry across Galveston Bay to get there so we usually don't make it over to Galveston that often. I've actually only been there a handful of times in my life.
This was true for all four of us so we decided to do some exploring while we waiting for boarding time. We were excited about the cruise and eager to talk about it with the shop owners and others we met while going from shop to shop on the Strand.
I guess Tristan won.
We quickly discovered that the ship we were going on was the "small" one out of the Galveston fleet. It looked huge to us so we were not discouraged at all. It was a sunny spring day, but a little chilly which made us all the more ready to get on board and head south to Mexico. We decided to grab a quick meal while we waited and ended up chosing a place called Yagas which was right there on the Strand. It seemed to be a pretty popular place which translates into a long wait since it's a smaller restaurant. We ended up opting to sit outside so we could get seated faster. It was pretty chilly, but a couple of mixed drinks warmed us up. Well, all of us except for my brother Garrett who is only 20 years old.
Cheesy picture with a huge trumpet
The food actually turned out to be simple, yet delicious. I went there one night several years ago and it gets pretty packed at night. I think they have live music and good drink specials.
Galveston is a pretty interesting place. I am sure that it gets busy on the summer weekends and holidays. There were all the usual tshirt and souviner shops, but not alot of people. I'd imagine that early March is their low season. We still managed to have fun going from store to store. There was one store that was ecspecially interesting. It had alot of maritime decorations and ship models which you could purchase at a high price. If I had a bachelor pad that I was looking to decorate I would have been tempted to buy one of the models of an old warship.
Laidback Jamaican-style restaurant on the Strand
Yaga's was a nice little restaurant right in the middle of the Strand, Galveston's main street for shops and restuarants. As quoted on their website "From sandwiches to hot-from-the-oven pizzas to weekend live entertainment to our jammin' new outdoor patio, Yaga's Cafe and Bar is place to go when you're ready for Jamaican-style good times!"
