Texas State

Although the tour did not stop in Louisiana Wayne Kramer, head coach at Texas State (and a former resident of Louisiana) introduced us to Cajun cuisine by taking us to an excellent seafood restaurant as soon as we arrived in San Marcos. Afterwards Mary and I ran a BP workshop for their debate team which aimed to get the students ready for the Oxford IV.

Perhaps one of the most impressive places that I’ve been to in a very long time was San Antonio. Firstly the town really did make me feel like I was in a South American old city a feeling that I have never experienced since I have never visited a country with a strong Spanish/Mexican influence. Secondly we were able to visit the Alamo – the site of a famous battle with Mexican Soldiers who greatly outnumbered the mostly American force of 186 men. The Alamo was something that I’ve constantly heard references in pop culture so actually visiting the site and knowing some of its history has made me feel like less of a pleb.

The students we were debating against were experienced veterans who had actually competed at Worlds before. Luis and Laura took the opposition side on the motion “thw incentivise environmentally sustainable choices. We argued that this policy would work because people’s decisions are based on economic grounds and why we had an obligation to protect the future generation. They ran that this would not work and would be regressive. It was a fun debate which we eventually won but in reality debating was the winner. Yes I actually wrote that.

We were shown a great time by the debaters at Texas State. Two back to back house parties were held in Laura’s house both of which were really good fun. All in all Texas state was a very cool stop