Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I don't know what's worse… being hung over when you wake up, or still being drunk when you wake up. Jordan and I had a few beers before supper here at the convention, and then Jose (the convention organizer) insisted that we drink as much Venezuelan rum as possible… After that, Emilio (who has been a really wonderful and generous host) took us out to a club where more and more buckets full of beer kept arriving. He then dropped us off to sleep, and as of when we left this morning at nine, he was still out partying.

Anyway, a few quick pictures, roughly in the order they were taken. First some views from the airplane. The left three photos are of Cuba and Haiti when we flew over, and then a couple of cloud shots. It was dark by the time we were landing and we were treated to am amazing view of stars above us, fields of clouds below, and a massive electrical storm in the clouds on the horizon.

Next is a picture of some of Caracas (it's an immense and highly chaotic city) as seen from the back terrace of Emilio's place from his house — he has some amazing views — as well as a very blurry picture from later in the night.

Finally, some pictures from the event itself (they're rather poor quality because I didn't bother with a flash or anything like that — they're just to help me remember). First is a picture of James Hughes talking (very nice guy on a personal level as well) — note the slide includes “the right to body modification”. Next is former minister Dan Barker from the Freedom From Religion Foundation giving his talk, and then a brilliant and perhaps to some surprisingly over-qualified scientist from the Association of Raelian scientists speaking on immortality, as well as hosting a meditation session.

Oh, and there are lots of very pretty Venezuelan science girls here. It's very funny to watch the German grad students picking up as many as a half-dozen of them at a time and disappearing up to their hotel rooms with big smiles on their faces…

I can't even being to describe how wiped out I am right now… Mostly I miss Rachel and am really looking forward to seeing her again in a few days. But I think they're serving lunch now so I'm off for a bit…