Las Vegas Recap
Two words pretty much sum up the whole weekend -- In Excess.
Everything in Vegas is so big, flashy and overdone, to the point that it's all fake, and you like it that way.
We arrived in Vegas, only to stand in a 300 person
line to wait for taxis at the airport. Our cab had a
nice message to bring, and soon we were in our
rooms with tallboys getting
ready to go out.
Some of the group went clubbing, others went to strip clubs (they didn't tell me they were going, had I known ...), but I, I went gambling. Three hours later, at 4 in the morning, I stumbled back to the hotel room, a little short on change, only to find it empty. The boys finally came in at 6 am. Little did we know, it would be like this for the rest of the weekend.
The morning came and went. When we finally got out of bed, it was early afternoon, and we decided to go for a
little dip. We trudged through the
hotel lobby bare footed and
chilled in the pool.
Terry, whose mission was to be drunk the entire weekend fulfilled his promise by starting off the day with a rather large alcoholic drink.
After another afternoon of losing money, we lusted after a good seafood buffet.
We heard that the
Bellagio (the only 5 start hotel in town) also (interestingly) had the best seafood buffet. Cab. Zoom. Inside. Through the casino (in which the tables were showing $100, $250 and $500 minimum bets), we found the $40 buffet, along with a lineup that wrapped around two corners. Fearing that we would miss the 11 o'clock deadline, we proceeded to
Caesar's Palace, where we found a $20 buffet with unlimited champagne. This is where the fun begins.
After plates upon plates of
crab legs and glasses upon glasses of
champagne,
we chowed down some
strawberries and left with champagne glasses in hand (oh, and tipping our
waiter $50 since we loved that guy).
Did I mention that we
drank a lot of champagne?
The rest of the evening is a little hazy in my memory. We went to the club RA in
our hotel where we danced with some girls, I almost got into a fight with some guy because I got pushed into his girl, and I proceeded to get lipstick on my shirt. I did some drunken gambling in the casino, and went to bed, again, around the wee hours of morning.
More gambling.
Some people left Sunday night. I walked up and down the entire strip, watched the
fountain show, watched some
people watching the fountain show, and just
took a
bunch of
pictures.
More gambling.
It's weird to walk out of the casino, thinking it's late at night, and seeing sunlight outside. You lose total perception of time.
So you'd think here is where my Vegas story ends, after losing a lot of money, and having very little sleep. But like every good reality show, there's a twist at the end.
We are getting ready to leave the hotel for the airport, and were getting our luggage from the bell desk. I had one last dollar coin in my pocket, and I told the group that I'm going to put it in a slot machine, and that'll be the end of my trip.
I walk into the casino, coin in hand. All the slots near the outside are 5 and 25 cent machines. I had to walk in deep to find a dollar slot machine. Finally, I spot one, all alone, just calling my name. Slide in the coin, pull the lever. Double Double 7. There was a slight pause. I thought I had nothing (having had bad luck with slot machines in the past couple of days), and was getting up to leave. Then the numbers start rolling. Past 10, 50, 100, 200, and stops at
320. The machine kept on jamming as it spat out the coins, and
I, hands shaking, had to wait for a clerk to come and clear it out. But my last dollar netted me $320.
I was volunteered to pay for the cab ride to the airport.
(
all pictures)