Las Vegas - The City of Lights
Christian September 24th, 2009
Finally on the road again! Even if it is only for 11 days, it should feel great to get out and see some amazing things. This time we decided to see some of our own country. We decided that the Southwest had a lot to offer within a small area, so we started our trip with a flight from Philadelphia to Las Vegas, the city of lights. Getting to the airport was an adventure. On the way to the cheap parking, we got stuck waiting for the longest train in the world to pass. After 10 minutes, we got to the cheap parking only to find it was full. We then decided to shell out the extra money and park at the airport economy lot. You would think that after all of the long haul flights that we took throughout our year of travel, that a five hour flight would be nothing. We must be out of practice, the flight seemed to last forever. Landing at night was pretty cool. We could see the lights from all of the hotels. After arriving at the airport we were greeted by the normal group of drivers waiting to pick up their passengers. One that caught our eye was a driver holding a sign that “Swedish Meatballs”. It was too funny, if only I had packed some swedish meatballs to hand to the guy. It was easy to get to the central car rental lot via shuttle. We had arranged to rent a car for our entire trip, and got a great deal with Thrifty. The saying goes “You get what you pay for”. This would prove to be true.
At the check-in, we will call him “helpful Herman” assisted us with our checkin. He tried to sell all kinds of upgrades, which would have totaled 4xs the original price of the rental. He scanned my credit card and drivers license and we went upstairs to pick up the car. I had declined the extra insurance for $200 dollars, since my car insurance would pick up any damage minus my deductible. When we were upstairs we started talking about how we should have bought the extra insurance, since we were driving over 1000 miles in the desert and a couple had told us that they charge you $80 a day while the car is being fixed that your insurance does not cover. I decided to go downstairs and add the insurance. The lady that was helping me asked for the paperwork, credit card, and license. To my surprise, my licsence was not in my wallet. I called Casey on her cell phone to look for it upstairs in the sweet PT cruiser that we picked out. She looked to no avail. Even the attendent upstairs was crawling around when I went upstairs to help look for it. I looked everywhere, even asked “helpful Herman” if he had it, which he said no. I went back to the lady who was adding the insurance, she marched over to helpful Herman and pulled the lisence out of the scanner, and was super pissed at Helpful Herman for not being so Helpful. She was super mad at him. After almost a half our of searching for my lisence and finally getting it off of Helpful Herman, we were on our way. Thank god we decided to buy the extra insurance, otherwise we would have made it to our Hotel and not have been able to checkin or buy drinks in town. Maybe he was going to sell it. We were so excited to be on our way, that is until we hit traffic on the strip.
Due to construction, it took us over an hour to drive a mile. At least we could sit and check out the hotels. The twenty minutes on each block gave us plenty of time to make sketches of them, life size. Getting to Harrah’s Hotel and Casino was a relief. When we got to the lobby, we were greeted by a line that snaked around the lobby at 10PM. Casey sat with the bags while I ran into the lobby store to get us some adult beverages and pringles. We were tired and hungry, since we were traveling for almost 12 hours at that point. We were greeted by a drunk kid who managed to slur out the words “Welcome to Vegas” as he stumbled off. We quickly found the closest place for a quick snack; Mcdonald’s (not a normal choice, but close and convienent). After eating our cold double cheesburgers, we regained enough energy to explore the strip. We started off walking down the strip and passed throngs of tourists carrying drinks that were half as tall as they were. Some of these monster sized drinks even had a neck strap, leaving you with two free hands. Everyone was just walking around having a good time and snapping pictures of anything and everything. We got ourselves some $1 drinks at the Casino Royale and continued walking towards the Bellagio. It was a little wierd to be able to walk down the street with drinks in hand. The pavement was littered with what looked to be nudie playing cards. It was not long until we found the source of these. Every block has tons of Mexicans wearing floresent shirts that say “Girls, Girls, Girls” or “Girls Direct to you in minutes”. There signature sound to attempt to grap your attention is snapping the cards trying to hand them out to any and everyone. I am not sure what these girls are for since prostitution is technically illegal in Las Vegas. It looked like some of them offered specials at $35. It was after midnight so we had missed the fountain shows for the night at the Bellagio, but by then we were pretty tired having already checked out several casinos and headed to bed sometime around 2am. (that would be 5am back home).
The next day we started out around 10am determined to get a picture with the famous “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign. We grabbed the monorail to the MGM and then walked a few blocks to the sign…and then a few more. We had underestimated how far away the sign was and did I mention it was 104 degrees out! We felt like we were the witch in the Wizard of Oz and were melting. We stopped at Mandalay Bay to ask for directions and to enjoy their air conditioning. It was super fancy and put many of the resorts we had stayed at in Mexico to shame. Everything in the place was larger than life, with intricate details throughout. We continued on another 3 scorching blocks to the sign were we waited our turn among tourists to get our picture taken. Luckily we did make it there before the tour bus stopped by and the line was super long. By then we were so hot, all we wanted was a cold drink and some food, since we hadn’t eaten yet. Luckily, for us a nice couple that was flying out had given us their bus passes for the local bus named the “Deuce” that were good for half the day still. The Deuce dropped us off at MGM and we grabbed two cold waters which instantly made us feel better, luckily there was a Subway right there to ease the hunger pains. When we were planning Vegas, we thought we would rent a cool car or motorcycle for the day from a place called Dream Car Rentals. We saw the shop and checked it out. Unfortuneatly inside the same shop were also touts trying to get you to buy timeshares and go to thier presentations. We dismissed the idea of renting a car from a place that seems to lure you into the shop to inquire about the cars and be trapped in a 20 minute long pitch on why you should see the hotel presentation on timeshares. Evacuating that place, We wandered down the strip for awhile just checking everything out.
We found ourselves back at the Casino Royale (which i should mention is nothing fancy, just a very small casino) for a $1 margarita. Walking across the street to the Mirage and we saw a sign for”BLT Burger” which a friend had reccommeneded. We quickly decided on a milkshake and some sandwiches. The food was a bit overpriced, but delicious. We decided to head back to our hotel and get off our hot and tired feet. After 5 hours in the Vegas sun we were pretty tired. We took a much needed nap and woke up late to get ready to see Cirque Du Soleil at the Bellagio. We rushed over about 20 minutes late to pick up our tickets in a long line at the box office and had a quick drink before heading in to the show. The show was as incredible as everyone had promised. Its a mix of dancing, gymnastics, swimming, trapeze, and anything else you could possibly hope to see in a show. There were a couple of very wierd parts of the show that I just did not get at all. There was a guy in a business suit that was randomly on fire walking around the stage, also there was this wierd guy in pleather dacing around the stage with his arm held behind his head. After the show we quickly headed to a bar inside the Bellagio called “La Fontana” which overlooks the Fountains. We were very lucky to get a table for two right on the front of the terrace to watch the beautiful fountain shows which go off about every 15 minutes. The views were incredible of the fountains, and the mini eiffel tower across the strip. We really enjoyed out time there. It was much quieter than watching the fountain shows from the street, which were jammed packed with people vying for a spot to catch a glimpse. We walked around for a little on the strip but headed to bed around midnight, we were beat from the heat and the time difference was catching up with us.
After seeing a sign for this huge doughnut at a place called “Serendipity”, we made it our goal to wake up and get to the cafe before breakfast ended at 10:30. The doughnut did not let us down. This fried piece deliciousness was massive. It would probably equate to 4 normal bigger doughnuts. It was the best breakfast. Then we headed into Casear’s Palace to walk around and play some slots. Caesar’s palace is definitly amazing. There is a lot of detail and you almost feel as if you are in Italy when you are walking around the complex. The Forum Shops blew me away, with it’s inside crafted as a Italian Street. The ceiling is painted like the sky, there piazzas with fountains and often you forget that you are actually inside. We continued walking down to the Venetian which is built to resemble Venice complete with canals and gandola rides. It is a beautiful hotel with once again some awesome shopping inside. As luck has it we ran into Whoppie Goldberg and Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson. We struck up some conversation and then they asked if they could have their picture with us. Being the celebrities that we are, I hought about charging, but let them have the photo for free. After the Venitian we continued down the stip to the Wynn. We were greeted by incredible waterfalls and a luxurious interior. We stopped to play some slots in our favorite place Casino Royal and Casey won a whopping $17 playing the penny slots and I lost about $10 at Roulette. By now it was time to grab a piece of pizza for a quick lunch. We waited in a long line for about ten minutes just for a slice of pizza, and to find that there were no more seats in the place to sit down and eat. There is no better place than the room we figured, so we headed up to our hotel with the piza and once again relaxed in our hotel room (It is Vacation). For dinner, we decided to check out the Buffet at Harrah’s. It ended up being pretty good with a great selection of food. It was wierd to have Prime Rib, Shrimp, Chinese Food, Mexican Food, Italian, and desert all in one huge meal. After dinner, we relaxed for a bit before heading out on the strip. We had to give our stomachs time to digest the couple pounds of food we had just ate.
When we had booked our hotel, we had recieved a coupon book which included free admission to the Eiffel tower at the Paris Hotel. On the way to the eiffel tower, we stopped at the Bellagio to watch the amazing fountain show again. Crossing the street to Paris was an adventure. There were people with megaphones shouting about Jesus and how everyone was sinners. One guy actually got up in one of the megaphone people’s face because he did not share the same beliefs. To go up the Eiffel Tower, you have to go into the Paris Casino. It is really amazing in there. The designed it to look like a Parisian street. The legs of the eiffel tower actually come through the roof and are visible in the casino. It was a short wait and we were on our way up to the top. It was not nearly as tall as the real one, but it did have quite a view of the strip and Bellagio fountains. We waited until a good spot opened so that we could claim it for the next fountain show. Casey decided she would explore while we waited and check out the other views. Unfortunately, she was stuck behind this Italian couple who were making out hardcore when the fountain show went off and did not get a great view. After the fountain show went off, tons of people starting coming up to the viewing platform and making it very tight. We had enough and went down to the paris casino to use one of our coupons to get a huge drink that came in a collectible glass shaped like an eiffel tower. We drank the humungo drink as we walked towards our hotel, checking out some funny sights as we walked. The Flamingo Casino has these two poles with dancers above their tables, there is no nudity, but scantly dressed girls shaking thier booties. There was this creepy guy there by himself in the middle of the casino floor watching them dance. The funny part was that he had one shoe halfway off, drink in one hand, cigarettes in the other and was just staring at the girls while dancing (more like humping the air). Everyone that was around would just laugh at him. It was comical.
We dumped off our huge empty eiffel tower cup at our room and headed over to the Mirage. We were just in time to watch their volcano erupt. It was pretty neat and you could actually feel the heat coming off the flames. The Mirage is a pretty cool hotel inside, we checked it out for a bit and stopped to sit outside. It was pretty, and gave us a chance to rest our feet. We both started to feel like crap, guessing it was all of the syrup in the three foot high strawberry daquri that we just guzzeled down we went to the hotel to go to bed. The next morning, we got up and were out the door by 9ish. After checking out and loading the car we walked down to Walgreens to pick up some snacks and drinks for the ride. On the way we passed these two girls who clearly have not been to bed yet and were still dressed for the night before. Their makeup was smeared, hair was a mess, and the one girls dress was up so high you could see her underwear. I think that she realized it after Casey and I kinda looked at her and looked at each other and started laughing. What a walk of shame that is, passing all of the families that are up early to explore the strip before it gets crazy. Gotta love Vegas, but now it is off to the Grand Canyon.
- Southwest USA
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