Vegas, baby!

Vegas was great! We flew out on Thursday evening- even during the day, flying over the strip is quite a sight to see. The hotels are just massive! Will and I arrived a couple hours ahead of his sister Cari and her boyfriend Curtis. We stayed at The MGM, and they have a reception area at the airport so he was able to check in while I waited for our bags...got to avoid the massive lines at the hotel. Bonus! Vegas is hot...like super hot. Like still 100 degrees out at 8:00 PM hot. I knew to expect that, but it's nothing like actually experiencing it.

As soon as we got to the hotel we dropped our bags and headed straight to the casino. We found a $25 (gulp) per hand PaiGow table...my first Vegas gambling! I had only played PaiGow online before. I'm way better at it online...lost $50 in about 20 minutes. Cari and Curtis got in around 10 and we all grabbed a quick bite to eat then set out for the strip. Seeing the strip at night is awesome. It's one of those views that everyone should see at least once in their life. We stopped in The Bellagio (where I won some of my money back on blackjack! Yay!) and Bills then headed back to the hotel. It doesn't seem like we went that many places, but by the time we got back near the MGM it was after 2 AM! Everything looks so close, but they are in fact miles from each other. I did not wear comfortable enough shoes. Lesson learned. On our walk back we did see a (wasted) guy get pushed- he fell face first onto the pavement, and didn't move after that. He probably needed a hospital...and was definitely going to have a terrible hangover in the morning! Will and I weren't quite ready to hit the sack for the night so we stayed in the casino...long enough to each lose another $45 on blackjack in about 5 minutes. Boo. We decided it was OK to go to bed after that.

Friday we spent the day at the pool. It was nice because it wasn't very crowded with the weekend crowd so there was a lot of room to spread out and enjoy the pools, including a lazy river that has a current in it so you just sort of float along. Very relaxing. We also enjoyed many, many buckets of beer. They were on special, we couldn't resist! We had a lot of fun just hanging out and met a fun couple from Boston to chat with...she was super Italian and tan; he was super Irish and pasty white; and both were definitely from Boston, evident by their thick accents.

Friday night was the big night! Will and I left Cari and Curtis sleeping in the room and headed out on the town. We had tickets to the 10:30 Love show- I finally got my birthday present! Right outside the Love Theater was a blackjack table with a $100 minimum. We watched in pure awe as a man played $10,000 hands. Yes, that is the correct number of 0's. When he doubled down, $20K on the table. Boom, just like that. He had enough money in front of him to buy a house. I can't imagine having money like that. The dealer was making $200 tips at a time. That's about how much money I brought with me to gamble with for the weekend! I had to practically pull Will away from the table so we didn't miss the show!

Love was SO FANTASTIC! I'm such a huge Beatles fan- I had chills throughout the whole show. Watching any Cirque de Soleil show is fascinating, but you add Beatles music to it, and WOW. That's all I can say. I was on cloud 9. I'm sure I looked like a big goof- my smile was HUGE through the whole show, and I was totally that girl who whooped and hollared the whole time. Our seats were perfect. High enough to see the whole stage, but low enough to really feel like we were right there. There were a ton of parallels in the show that directly reflected events that happened to The Beatles. I loved trying to pick them out, and I'm sure I bored Will talking about them later.

After Love we hit the casinos. I don't remember which casino we went to, but one of them had "Dealertainers"- dealers who were celebrity musician impersonators. They were great! They would deal some blackjack, then get onstage and lipsync. We saw Gwen Stefani sing "Spiderweb"- she looked remarkably like the real Gwen!

Friday night was a late night...we came home around 5:30, just as Cari was waking up from the night before. They ended up staying in all night. Unfortunately they had to leave town and head back to Nashville to be with Curtis' mom who was sick in the hospital. We were bummed that they had to leave, but very happy that Curtis was able to be with his mom.

Will and I spent Saturday afternoon casino hopping. I finally worked up the nerve to play craps at a $5 table in Harrahs...and proceded to lose $75 in about 5 minutes. Craps sucks. We walked through several hotel lobbies- they are incredible! I especially liked the Wynn and the Venetian. We also found a new game that we both liked- video blackjack. $7 to play 7 hands...cheaper than the table! Since it was just the 2 of us that night we decided to go see another show. This time we went to Zumanity. It was another Cirque show, also very cool, and very sensual. Lots of nekked people, and a drag queen host(ess?). The show was very entertaining. Lots of audience participation, which is always fun to watch! We got home relatively early Saturday night- around 3 AM, after a few rounds of video blackjack to end the night.

Our flight on Sunday didn't leave until 5:30 so we checked our bags with the bellmen and spent the rest of our time at the pool. It wasn't quite as nice as Friday. We were both red on our chests from our pool time on Friday (I swear no fewer than 5 people made a point to say "Someone got some sun today" to me on Saturday night...I was getting so annoyed!) so we were trying to stay out of the sun. The pools were much more crowded so shade was hard to come by. We did our best, though. Had lunch at the Cabana Grill poolside and then headed to the airport.

It was a great first time in Vegas, and I'm even more excited about my 2nd time. We leave in less than 4 months for another crazy weekend- this time seeing Jimmy Buffett! Sin City full of crazy Parrotheads. I can't wait!