And so begins my account of my trip to Houston. Remember, this is totally a fan account. First day is mostly boring, but I hope you enjoy my journal of my trip!
February 25th - Thursday
A mostly uneventful day. I took Uber for the first time, which was relatively painless. I got up super early (0330) in order to get to my 0545 flight to Houston. The flight went well. We got to the hotel (Hilton. Yes, the same one the girls were staying at. Yes I ran into them. A lot. More on that later.) with no problems and settled for a few minutes before heading out for lunch. We decided to check out a local chain called Whataburger. I ended up trying the Buffalo Ranch Chicken Strip sandwich. The fries were almost as bad as McDonald's. The sandwich, on the other hand, was actually really good. I'd go back given the opportunity. After that we went to the convention center to pick up my Super Pass and then we met up with a friend I had met online. I ended up running into more people I've seen at various events. It’s always nice to see the fellow fans gathering at these events together. I then went to a place across from the hotel with a friend to grab some dessert. There was an item called the 'Rooftop Terrarium' which was essentially a dessert designed to look like a Terrarium. It looked really cool and was really tasty to boot. It had chocolate, vanilla coconut and raspberry sherbet. It was surrounded by brownie bits and pistachio bits in order to look like dirt and moss. There were a couple of flowers on the side for added effect. From there we saw some other fans who had a banner that we all signed which would be presented to the girls at Opening Ceremonies. I signed right over Haruna's head with a message to all the girls along with a brief thank you to Haruna. I also signed for a friend who was not able to make it to Houston. After that, a couple of friends went with Manuel and I to go to this place called The Republic. The waitress was extremely friendly. It was essentially a steakhouse. I ended up ordering a beef brisket plate that came with some really amazing mashed potatoes and green beans along with a jalapeno corn bread. It was really cool because everything had jalapeno in it and I loved it! The mashed potatoes did too! It was all so tasty. We then went back to the hotel and tried to go to sleep since it was really late. The next day would be the first day of the convention, and the excitement was building.