touching down in vegas, i felt quite a rush of excitement, much like i felt when i was 13 and went to the `nsync concert. the only thing preventing me from jumping up and down was airline safety and the fact that i had to wear a seat belt. given that i live in seattle and it's impossible to even see one downtown building from another one because of hills, i was shocked to see the strip from the aiport. guess that's the desert for ya. flat as a pancake. swedish, not bisquick even. there it was, that pyramid that we were staying in and my first vegas landmark right from my plane window. woot! thankfully, my friend and i are great at packing so we both carried on to avoid unnecessary wait times at the carousel. time that could be instead spent exploring and/or drinking. i was impressed by the taxi service from the airport, it was like disneyland, only it was more of a 20 minute ride after instead of a 2 minute ride. and our ride included a stop at the liquor store where we picked up provisions that got lots of head turns as we entered the lobby of our hotel. yes, kind stranger, we are ready to party. thank you for noticing. the luxor was a whole bunch of vegas rolled into one. i got even more excited when i saw the sphinx outside. for some reason i didn't connect the fact that the pyramid and the sphinx would probably be at the same place.
after check-in, preparations for the evening began. while my friend cleaned up, i spent some quality reflection time with a bottle of bacardi raz and sprite. "bus" as we called it back in the college days. of course that was also intertwined with with bud lights. the perfect pre-funk. my friend then joined in. even though it was 12:15am, we still sat and enjoyed the room and the drinks before exploring other areas. a couple hours were spent revisiting past events such as what was happening in school and discussing my latest heartbreak (which surprisingly i was over a week later thanks to someone else, but more on that later). at 2:16am, we decided it was finally time to hit the town. we both decided to tough it out with the heels, which unfortunately didn't really get us farther than a couple blocks, but we made it count. exploring our end of the strip consisted of happy photos in front of new york, new york, riding moving walkways in excalibur and losing my first $5 bill in a slot machine. there were several comments on a specific advertisement with a fat guy that had "taco" written on his chest, and we couldn't figure out how to get away from it. funny thing we discovered at around 5:00am is that we couldn't actually find this "taco" place or any eatery for that reason. apparently they shut down early, so we went to bed hungry.
the rest of the day was spent perusing various casinos and gambling away our hard-earned (hah!) money on video poker and black jack while waiting for the rest of our group to arrive on the 6:30pm flight. after an encounter with a rude bartender at paris who could apparently only give out one free beer instead of two, we decided to take ourselves elsewhere. or six elsewheres. i'm not really sure. while returning back to the hotel, we of course were bombarded by men in suits telling us to come to the club tonight. we figured, hey, that sounds good. we'll put that on the docket for this evening. the other girls will be on board. but first, tequila! tacos & tequila to be exact. once the other ladies arrived, we decided upon a mexican feast as our first group dinner. the margaritas were as delicious as the hot bartender serving them. and they gave us great liquid confidence to put on our sluttiest for the club later. when in vegas...
nothing like a tight, low-cut dress to spice up an evening. although we had our wristbands and were told we'd get into the club quickly, apparently an hour is quick in vegas. we divided ourselves between the "women only" and "everyone" line just to see which one would be faster. it was about the same. about one bud light in fastness. okay, maybe two. the club was actually kind of fun, since being out of college has left me dance-partyless for awhile. it was nice to revisit the frat days, but with matured age and the ability to buy beer and not have to set it down if the cops walked in. sometimes it's just fun to dance to loud music with friends. new and old. one new one who joined our group apparently had connections to the vip section which three of us managed to finagle our way into and joined her. bottle service ain't bad. especially when you have a fantastic waitress who wont let your drink go empty. plus, there are couches. and when you've spent the last 24 hours walking around in uncomfortable shoes, couches are good friends.
surprisingly, us vips stayed until the club closed. of course we left starving. but low and behold, holla! there is a mcdonalds upstairs. no freaking way, get me some fries. and good news, it was still open. we wobbled up there, some with heels in hand, and got us some late night delight which we choked down while holding our heads up in our hands and trying to stay awake while recounting the evening. a magical evening for sure.
saturday: getting up was slightly harder this day. the club was an exhausting feat, but we were proud to have conquered it. however it left some of us feeling slightly less than perfect for our day. oh well, suck it up. we're in vegas and there is stuff to be seen. this time i made the conscious decision to wear flip flops on our outing so as not to want to chop my feet off half way through the day. our whole group managed to make it all the way down the strip, popping in and out of casinos and surveying which giant slushee drink we were going to purchase on our way back down. although many were enticing, my heart was set on trekking all the way down to treasure island because i was convinced they had some sort of pirate themed glass that could hold a giant amount. i was correct. luckily i wasn't alone in wanting a giant beverage and was joined by one of the girls in a cheers. or should i say cheerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs. (to be read like a pirate in case that didn't come across.) the most popular venue that most people wanted to see was the venetian, probably to see a waterway inside of a building and a ceiling that looked like clouds. not only that, but we witnessed an actual marriage take place on a gondola and were there to welcome the newlyweds into the world. caesar's palace was also a highlight and i enjoyed taking a photo in front of the famous painting where zach galifinakis asked if it was the real caesar's palace. no? i didn't think so
we liked the palace so much, we decided to dine there for a classy, fancy pants dinner later that evening. one of the fine ladies suggested spago, an italian place she had been to before. we were sold at the mention of a bread plate that the waiter brought around where we were able to choose from various types of bread. one of each, please. wait, no, not the one with olives. but the rest of them, yes. there were several dishes to pick from, but as a big pasta fan, i had to pick the dish that consisted of noodles, mushrooms, peas and some cheese. orgasm in my mouth. enough said. i think that was the general consensus from the table. another general consensus was we needed to catch the bellagio fountain show after dinner. i was hoping for an upbeat show to the tune of the top gun theme or ride of the valkyries, but instead we caught a classical performance. it was still quite impressive and enjoyed.
we quickly went from classy to trashy and headed off to bill's casino for some gambling. we thought maybe we would find some cheaper tables to throw down at black jack. we found a good table with a nice dealer named robbie that i thought might be good luck. i've got some good robbies in my life. he was very helpful to the newcomers who weren't totally sure in their black jack skills, and i think we all won a little money. of course it goes quickly when you're excited. i quickly began to think i was unstoppable. i tended to win more and more as other table occupants dropped off and me and robbie were one on one. but after awhile, i decided to try my luck at another table. pretty much the same, up and down. but still fun. however, to prevent losing copious amounts of money, most of us called it an early night.
sunday: after a rather calm saturday for vegas, we were ready to step it up again for nfl sunday. my friend and i certainly did. we made sure to get to the sports bar in new york, new york in time for the colt's kickoff. unfortunately we had to have everything packed and checked out of our hotel before we went, and were left with about nine unfinished bud lights leftover from our first trip on the way in. we couldn't possibly let them go to waste, right? oh, we didn't. we were able to get hold of a garbage bag to tote them around with us all day. the classiest move we had made yet. we saved those for later though and wet our whistles with colder brews from the bar. not to mention delicious philly cheesesteak sandwiches and chicken strips. aaaaaaand more pitchers. surprisingly enough, by the end of the seahawks game awhile later, we had consumed a reasonable amount and even made friends with a couple seahawks fans we saw across the bar and i high-fived every time i had to use the ladies room to make room for more beers. while this guy and his dad were fun company, especially when they offered us their wounded soldier that they couldn't finish, there happened to be two more guys at the bar that, unbeknownst to us as the time, were going to be even better company.
don't even know how it happened or how we started talking, but pretty soon we were offering them warm beer out of our garbage bag and they were hooked on us. okay, maybe they were hooked on the beer, but when hot ladies are handing it out, you gotta think they like that too. after the hawks game ended, we decided to wander around with our garbage bag of treats and lose more money. why not? it was our last day. gambling is fun and all, but what we enjoyed more was the free jello shot coupons being handed out by some random at excalibur. two of us got two so we got four total (i'm good at math), but that left the the option for the other two to go back and get four more. the trashy bartender with her too-tight and too-high ponytail didn't appreciate that very much, but hello, they're free. the best part of the bar where we got these shots was the giant white hats they waiters made for the customers out of butcher paper. they were very ambiguous hats and we couldn't decide if they more resembled giant condoms or kkk hoods. the waiters also tried to be witty by writing interesting comments on the hats, but for some reason they all had to do with sperm or being a whore. c'mon now guys, can't we come up with something more creative than that? i guess when you serve jello for a living, your creativity might not be that exceptional.
after we decided two jellos was enough, we felt it was time to get back to our hotel, pick up our things and head to the airport. little did we know what lay ahead in mccarran. here we though we were being responsible and trying to get to the airport with plenty of time to make our plane, but as we arrived at the airport, the ladies at alaska airlines seemed to be flustered and wanted to get us to the counter quickly, frantically asking if we were going to seattle. we said yes, but our flight wasn't until 9:30pm so we had lots of time. they stared at us and said that 8:45pm was the last flight they had going out and we only had 45 minutes to get to the gate... only they weren't going to let us go to the gate. apparently 45 minutes isn't enough time to pass through security in an airport where no one was and where the gates are about five paces away from each other. the bitches gave up our seats is what we thought. we just looked at each other in shock thinking, "okay what the hell do we do now!?" the counter ladies wouldn't even offer us any help or even a spot on standby the next day. they just shoved a piece of paper in our hands and said we could call the number on the paper if we needed anything. as if we didn't. we miss a flight and we just decide to stay there forever, right? that's how things happen. we called the number, only to be treated like big piles of poop and were told it would cost us $250 each to purchase a new flight. after the way we were treated, there was no way we would purchase a new flight from them. after some hysterical crying and feelings of helplessness and need to call our parents to help us find flights (we both purchased smart phones after this incident to not have this problem again), we discovered we couldn't get out of vegas until the next morning on a 6:30am flight to sacramento and then to seattle on southwest. at that point we said fine and booked it. while we were receiving witty texts from our jello friends asking us to come back, we were too livid at that point and needed to just sit and/or lay down on the brightly blue carpet with pretty shapes. of course security tried to tell us we couldn't pass that far ahead of our flight time and we respectfully disagreed and said we needed to get through on account of low blood sugar and hunger. the next nine hours passed quite slowly. the ground of the airport is not exactly like a matress at a five star hotel. and for some reason there were birds inside. the company of the texts from the boys were fun, but at one point we were both so delirious that we just needed to get on that plane and leave vegas behind...
despite the awful airport adventure (not vegas's fault), i'm already anxious to return. but probably not with alaska.
