hey kids, flew into houston after a very excellent 5 days in vegas. little bit down in the $$ department but overall i think it was value for money. some amazing stories/adventures/pictures

caught up with jessalyn (a texan friend of mine i met in france) yesterday, we went to have lunch at a place called the cheesecake factory, it was very good; i was expecting something crappy, the logo is even the same as the place back home but its actually a really nice restaurant, one of the healthiest meals i have had in a long time: santa fe salad. delicious! she then took me around for about an hour: another restaurant called the aquarium which is more like an aquarium that serves food, we just had a look around there, there is a big cyllinder almost 3 storeys tall with fish in it, i also saw this strange thing that looked like a cross between a swordfish, a shark, a platypus and a stingray. very strange. then i came home for a nap (my flight was delayed and i hadn't really slept at all) then we went to a bar at the other end of town, very very texas. it was pretty dead so we had a few drinks and moved on. went to jessalyn and matt (her boyfriend)'s friend's place where they were playing poker. you would think after a week in vegas i would get away from gambling but no such luck there. i didnt bet much and lost horribly. poker is not my game.

after a quick stop at Whataburger(where the kitchen staff insisted i was someone famous) got back here pretty late (about 5am) and slept until three. i just got in from a stroll down to the imax museum where i saw a couple of exhibitions, one on inuits, one on acient iraq/mesopotamia and then one called bodyworks. that last one was mindblowing. it was an exhibition of a process called plastination: its where they take corpses etc and preserve them so that they are freestanding, they look like plastic models but they are actually the real thing. you werent allow to take photos but i snuck in a few anyway. the most impressive was of a guy riding the biggest horse i have ever seen. i got a snap of it but it wasnt so good because it was on the sly. ill show you anyway. it doesn't capture the size of this thing, standing next to it was quite.. whats the word? belittling? something like that.

the place im staying at is very cheap but kinda dingy. i think i might have to fork out the extra cash and move, besides turns out im not at the best end of town, cost me $40 for a cab out last night. ouch. its the only hostel in town so i might have to switch over to a hotel. im not exactly meeting fantastic people at this place so the main advantage of hostelling isnt really there. everyone is very sombre/shy/quiet. friendly but boring is the best i can do.

tonight im just going to take it easy and read/relax. its so hard to eat well here, there are take out places everywhere and markets etc are all a long way away. ie. need a car. i get my licence back in a few days but i dont think i can afford to be hiring a car, maybe just one day but otherwise ill just have to stick with crap food. the museum i was in had a macdonalds inside. dont see that back home...

tomorrow im headed out to a waterpark called schilterbaan. apparently it is very excellent and worth the 2 hour drive. jessalyn's plan is to stay there from open till close and then head out for friday night. i think that plan is insane but i've never been one to turn down a good dose of insanity.

running out of ideas here so keep in touch ya'll, fire some questions my way im feeling very incongruant here.

check out the photos/videos from a most excellent vegas party i was at. watch the whole video: me and rico are in there a couple of times:

http://vegas.napkinnights.com/mov/view_movie.php?id=6