(posted by Ange. Take note, it's a long one and I'm too tired to edit for spelling and grammar...so here it is...the summary - yes summary - of our excellent adventure in Las Vegas!)
Date: September 4 – 7, 2007.
Place: Las Vegas.
The players: Ange and Dave.
The games: It’s Vegas, what do you think?
Leaving Vancouver
Already feeling ahead of the game after buying our American dollars (which, by the way, should really be colour coded – particularly for those of us who take up the offer of free drinks from cocktail waitresses who appear at alarmingly short intervals!) and not losing half our money at the bank, we head off to the airport bursting with excitement. “We’re going to Vegas, baby!” is the line of the day. Through security, I’m feeling a sign of luck as I have my second full security screen and pat down in a row (remember Edmonton?)!!! Our flight is delayed by half an hour, but no worries, our pilot halls ass and lands us in Vegas only 10 minutes late. Nice!
Arriving in Vegas
As we are all standing, heading to the front of the plane, waiting for the doors to open, we are told to return to our seats for a security something or other. Much sighs and grumbles. Back to our seats. And on come two Homeland Security officers (or whatever the hell they call themselves), hauling someone off the plane for arrest or detainment or whatever. So a little excitement and we haven’t even left the plane! I’m, of course, left speculating like mad about what this guy is being held for, while also giving my own commentary on the whole Homeland Security and detainment paranoia-making issue, while Dave humours my overactive imagination (in hindsight, I believe this guy’s pacing up and down the aisles was somewhat suspicious!!!). Anyways…we’re in Vegas and the vacation has begun…
It’s a Hot One Out There
Walking out of the airport, we’re hit with a wall of heat. It’s a bit windy and so it felt like someone had a blow dryer turned on high pointed at your face. Dry heat. I was in heaven. Zero humidity, just hot, hot air. I think the temperatures ranged from about 36 at night to about 40 in the day. Or maybe higher. I don’t really know because I didn’t ever see a temperature reading until we went back to the airport on Friday night, at which time it was 37. Lying by the pool was great in this heat, but only for short periods of time and getting wet was a must. Thank God we had a gorgeous pool to lay around at the Paris Hotel! Walking around during the day must have been tough, but Dave and I didn’t make it out of the hotel to really walk anywhere until early evening. And it was hot then.
Damn it’s Cold in Here!
To make up for the heat, the casinos are fully air conditioned, aiming for a room temperature of, oh I’d say about 10. Well, maybe not that cold, but damn, bring a sweater because it’s bloody cold in there. Between the cold air and the oxygen, you have no problem staying wide awake, despite the copious amount of alcohol you are consuming. I’m sure some scientist was comped a nice room for the perfect formula of cold air and oxygen to keep people awake. So, what’s my point? It’s a real bitch to have to have to carry a sweater around and take same sweater on and off every time you go in and out.
“Mr. Priban, you are registered at Bally’s”
Surely you have read my previous blog entry regarding our accommodations. So, did someone just make a typing error or were we really supposed to be staying at Paris? You guessed it, typing error! As we’re checking in at Paris, Dave is speaking to the woman and I’m digging for the voucher that says “These people are supposed to be at Paris”. Dave is told we’re registered for Bally’s just as I find said slip of paper and we say “No, we should be staying at Paris”. As the woman goes to check things out Dave and I agree that there will be no mention of Bally’s and we will just insist that this is where we are staying. But, no need. The woman returns, all apologies for the error, “We’re so sorry Mr. Priban, they entered it into the computer wrong, sorry, sorry, sorry”. Off to our room we go, laughing all the way. Ha ha ha!
“You can do anything in Vegas, just don’t murder someone”
That is the response we got when we confirmed with a casino staff person that it was, in fact, still okay to take our drinks with us, even in glass glasses. All right then. Enough said on that front.
What Time Is It?
I think we probably all know this, but Las Vegas has no clocks. Whoever decided not to let people see the time is damn genius from the casino’s point of view. With all those flashing advertising signs on the strip, they don’t even show you the time when you’re just walking around. Actually, I’m surprised they don’t make you check your watch at the casino door. So, what’s my point? In Vegas, there is no sense of time. A concept I actually quite like. If you don’t know what time it is, there is no guilt for doing whatever it is you are doing when you should be doing something else because you don’t even know it’s time to be doing something else. Except when you see the morning people…which I will get to later.
Plans Out the Window
So what did we do? What did we see? Did we go here? Did we go there? Our pre-trip plans were pretty much tossed on the first night, as we crawled into bed at 4:00 a.m. In summary, Dave and I were the sleep by day, gamble by night type of Vegas goer. I did start writing a paragraph here about what we did and saw, but who am I kidding? Our exposure to sunlight was limited and our exposure to neon lights and air conditioned casinos was maximum.
Trips Are For Kids
Whoever decided that Texas Hold ‘Em should be a casino table game where each player is just playing the dealer is brilliant and highly responsible for much of our fun in Vegas. Creating a small area called the Party Pit, where loud music blasts as dealers wearing Hawaiian shirts dance, deal out cards and hand out mardi gras beads (who doesn’t want to be wearing beads???) is even more brilliant. Dave dived in first, and after walking away over $675, it was clear that this was the game to play. I waited, not sure. After watching enough I decided I could do it. Don’t know what the hell I was worried about. If I can’t figure out my hand, Dave can tell me what to do, or the dealer will, and how much fun is it to have your cards tossed recklessly to you, be able to pick them up and look at them as much as you want, be able to share them with everyone at the table, all the while grabbing drinks from that aforementioned cocktail waitress that clearly does not want your glass to be empty. Yep, after a few hands, I was sold. My new favourite Vegas game is Texas Hold ‘Em. And my new favourite poker hand is trips (that’s three of a kind in case you don’t know or couldn’t guess), of which I got many, many, many. I can probably count on one hand how often I’ve had trips playing at home. In Vegas, I was the queen of trips. (Not to mention 4 of a kind twice in less than 5 minutes!!!). Hence, my new favourite saying: “Trips are for kids”. Kinda like “Trix are for kids”, developed under the influence of alcohol after having a string of trips in a short period of time. But the way I say it is much more entertaining. Really. Ask Dave. Or Joe and John from Florida. They actually thought I should copyright it. But that’s a whole other story.
Zumanity
It wasn’t all drinking and gambling. Dave and I did act like mature adults and attend a Vegas Show – Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity. This is an adult only show, part burlesque, part cabaret style show. It was utterly amazing. With sex as the theme, it was a cornucopia of entertainment, with audience interaction, a live band, live singers, acrobatics, ballet, comedy, contortion, girls in a champagne glass, guys in a cage, and everything you can imagine that might fall in between. I don’t know how to even begin to really describe this show, other than to say that if you thought of sex and sexuality along a big line, Zumanity touched on points all across this line, from naughty to nice, in an extremely entertaining and awe striking way. Very well done.
The Fremont Experience
We checked out “Old Vegas”, which has embraced the “new” concept with their Fremont Street Experience – some thousands and thousands of lights on a huge screen that covers the street over a few blocks with a sound system that all combine to put on a show every hour. All the casinos go dark during this show, which is quite cool and I’d be interested in the minutes of the meetings that were held as the Fremont Experience people worked at convincing the casinos to do this. Then again, the casinos probably are the Fremont Experience people. Aside from the show, you gotta love the old casinos…The Golden Nugget, Binion’s, Sam’s, The 4 Queens. Contrary to what many think, these places are fun, friendly and safe. They’ve obviously been renovated and the crowd is clearly tourists. Bring on the poker fun!
The Five Dollar Shake
John Travolta might have been a little shocked at the price of his shake, but a SIX DOLLAR iced tea???? Damn. It’s just tea over ice. I had to squeeze my own lemon into it and add my own sugar! But it did totally hit the spot while I was lounging by the pool, and the fact that the waitress gave me back too much change took away that ripped off feeling. Speaking of which….
Winning Money at Fatburger
I guess the Americans have just as much trouble figuring out their money as everyone else. At Fatburger (yes, I had to have a hamburger, now!) I actually came up ahead, being given change for a twenty instead of the ten I had given. And my burger! Now there’s a deal!
So What About Those Morning People?
You know you’ve been sitting at a table too long when you start to see morning people walking around. Morning people have experienced the day before, gone to bed, and have now started a new day. Unlike you, who is still experiencing the day before (which has actually turned into a new day, you just haven’t realized it or are ignoring the fact). With your whole sense of time out the window, this can sneak up on you quite quickly. You know it’s getting late. There is a point where you are pretty sure that if you went outdoors it would now be light, but this is unconfirmed because you’re not going outdoors to see the light, you’re staying at the table, making a bet and ordering another drink. And then you see the odd person walking around with a coffee. Maybe they’re having a coffee to sober up before going to bed? Then again, they look pretty fresh and now there are more and more of them and yes, you are now one of the few people in the casino who has not showered since yesterday. Hmmm…this cannot be good. Especially if you have to check out today. What time is it????? You can only continue so long before you either run out of money or the guilt of seeing the morning people gets to you and you have to leave the table. Or maybe both. So I finally left the table at 9:15 a.m.
Leaving Las Vegas
There’s nothing exciting to say about leaving Las Vegas. We didn’t want to go home. After snoozing for a couple of hours, I had my bag packed, was showered and ready to go in an hour. Quite impressive and managed by simply gathering up all my belongings and dumping them into my suitcase in no order, not rolled or folded, shirts mixed with shoes mixed with toiletries, mixed with whatever…just gathered and dumped as quickly as possible. Dave is still impressed that I actually did this. We brunched and then decided that since we were both a little tired, it was best to stay out of the heat and lay low in the casino until our flight later that night. So that was what we did. We came home winners, neither of us spending even half of our money. And mostly, we came home having had the most fun 3 nights we could have asked for. Ange and Dave love Vegas and can’t wait to go back!