The Petroleum Club of Houston

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Holy 43rd story view, Batman.

I took a quick tour of The Petroleum Club of Houston on Wednesday before class.  I was pleasantly surprised by this venue.  At first, I thought country club in a skyscraper.  A and I aren't country club people, so that already had me thinking - meh.  Then Petroleum Club - though very 'Houston' - sounded funny to me.  Like I am a Texas Tycoon, eating some steak in a country club in the sky across from a man with a big mustache wearing a suit with boots and a cowboy hat.  Much like this gentleman:

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But part of me thought that it might be sort of kitschy or something, I dunno.  The only reason I was giving it a chance was that it fit the location criteria and holds 200+ people.  I almost canceled my appointment because I don't like feeling rushed and I had already gotten out of work later than I had planned and I needed to get to school to finish a quiz that was only partially done.  Plus it is downtown, so I thought the traffic would be a nightmare at 4:30pm and if I had to park in one of those underground tunnels that would be a total deal breaker because they scare the tar out of me.  It is about 4pm when I am talking myself out of this tour, but I decided to not be a jerk to the event manager and just go.  So I pull up to the ExxonMobil building downtown and find convenient street parking right in front of the place and head to the 43rd floor.  As I enter, I think - wow, this place is nicer than I thought it would be.  I'm not even sure how to describe the feel of the place.  It isn't trendy, but it isn't untrendy.  It is very nice without seeming overly fancy.  The carpet is like an eye-pleasing take on ugly hotel carpet.  The space is the perfect size and the setup is good too - no dance floors shoved in a corner or anything.  And while all of those things are swell, holy cow that view is incredible!  I can see Russia from my house up there.  AND (yes, there is more!!!) it is very reasonably priced compared to what we have been looking at.  Only downside is that our date is already booked, so we'd have to move to the 28th.  And 2 other brides want the 28th also, so I need to decide yay or nay kind of quickly.  So I don't know what to do.  I feel very weird that I even like this venue at all, because that is not what I mentally prepared for.  I need to figure out what other places I need to look at and crunch some numbers for this place and see where we are at.  But PCOH is looking really good...