busy busy day...

its about 10pm and i am back from my post work activities. immediately following work i headed down to the mall of america, against my coworkers advice. they thought i should wait till traffic calmed down at 7pm to go. by my estimation (and mapquests) it should have taken me 17 minutes. a guy in the office predicted it would take 45-1 hour with traffic. i decided to brave the traffic. i arrived in 24 minutes. :) word to the wise. people always overestimate traffic.

i really am not a shopper (although the car rental guy seemed to think i shopped too much when 3 of my credit cards were declined) so i figured i would go and look for the hello kitty store EH recommended, and see if they had any of my favorite hard to find stores. of course they did, and then some. i also gazed at the indoor amusement park. insane and unnecessary, that mall is stupid big...


roller coaster


log ride


spider ride


stupid big

i never did find the hello kitty store of which em spoke, but i did find this one for HEK. i also got a whole set of pennies for dan-o. i hope he doesn't already have the mall of america set.





after a little bit of shopping i left and went across the street to the IKEA. i know i've written about how much i love IKEA before, but i really feel like i want to move to the IKEA store and just live there. talk about cool, mr fischer.. IKEA is the epitome of cool. i only had an hour so i buzzed through the store. but i ended up having the perfect amt of time to check out everything.. i was glad to see that the ice cream cones are still only 1 dollar. god i love those sweed, they are geniuses..

by the way, the mall of america and IKEA are 2 of the very best places i can recommend you go if your credit cards are maxed out and your checking account is in the red. :) definitely no temptations there for me...

i am in the lobby/bar of my hotel right now. when i checked in i was given 3 continental breakfast vouchers, and 3 drink vouchers. i missed my opportunity to use my drink voucher last night, but i am taking full advantage tonight. i am enjoying two large glasses of chardonnay, very dry and tasty! i say there are about 15 people here in the makeshift bar. this makeshift bar is the same place that the continental breakfast is. only its not entirely continental breakfast. some of it is eggs and bacon. but they lay it out right next to the cereal and fruit making you think its continental, then they charge you when you have the voucher.. so sneaky...there are a bunch of people from the UK here for some reason. maybe holiday.. but they are all in separate rooms, so i think maybe they are on business. i was behind 4 of them checking in yesterday, they seemed to be from england, then this morning i overheard some scots speaking...

alright, its about 11, time to start thinking about bed. oh, speaking of bed. the king sized bed here is like no other. i found myself comfortably sleeping the wrong way on the bed (width-wise). so damn nice... when my roommates are gone i might have to sleep in their bed. :) oh, also.. the cleaning lady is on to me. i only got a refill of the shampoo, conditioner and lotion. :(