I’m finally getting around to writing up our last couple of days of vacation.
On Thursday, PL had made us reservations for a couple’s spa day at the MGM Grand. We showed up at the spa at the assigned time, got some really nice spa shoes and were given a tour and a locker. We got to change into incredibly soft bath robes and go hang out in the women’s spa area until they called us. They came pretty quickly and called me back, but didn’t call for PL at the same time, which was strange since it was a couple’s spa thing. When we got outside, the staff member walking with me said “they’re going to get your husband now.” Ha. Even though the receptionist knew we were two women, she didn’t communicate that very well to the staff it seems. The other staff member that was supposed to be picking up PL came out the men’s spa and was kind of confused about why she couldn’t find my husband. They all laughed about it though and she found PL and then we went onto our private spa room. PL had booked something with the bizarre name of The Dreaming Ritual (every kind of massage and spa package is called some kind of ritual).
We started with a nice herbal foot soak, and we each got to choose a scent we liked. Mine ended up being relaxation and PL’s was rejuvenation. They had some incense in our chosen smell and then an exfoliating foot scrub. Then we went to the massage room and got a full-body exfoliating scrub–which actually kind of stung. Then they put a mud body mask on us and wrapped us in plastic. It made the exfoliating stuff feel a lot better though, and now PL and can say we’ve been to a spa and been covered in mud and wrapped in plastic. While we were all cocooned up, they put some kind of really incredible smelling scalp treatment on us and rubbed it in. We both love having our heads rubbed, so this was lots of fun. We then got to wash all the mud off and then got massages after that. Oh happy day.
The whole thing was about 2 hours and we left feeling very relaxed and having very soft skin. It was lots of fun, and I wish I could have stolen one of their bathrobes.
Also in the MGM Grand hotel is CBS television city. They have a small store with CBS show shirts and mugs, but also several studios where you can preview pilot episodes of new shows and rate them. Since CBS has a bad habit of taking shows we like off the air (The Class?!), we thought it would be fun to spend an hour watching a new show–plus it was free. We went into the studio and were seated at a computer with a handheld rating device.
We were very excited since we had seen the devices during the debates. After some instructions on how to use the device, our show started. It’s a new show called Three Rivers, a medical drama set in Pittsburgh. It’s about a team of transplant surgeons and the different people who need organs and those who might become donors because of different tragic situations. Katherine Moening (Shane on the L word) was in it, and so was Julia Ormond. Other than that, the show wasn’t very good, and not original at all…and it happened in Pittsburgh. I can’t imagine what they’d do week after week, so I gave it pretty bad rating except for giving Kate Moening high ratings. I recently heard that CBS picked it up for a few episodes, so they didn’t listen to us and our bad reviews of the show.
They gave us an envelope of coupons for participating in the tv studio thing, and one of them was a buy one get one free at Haagen Das, located in the food court of the same hotel. We got milkshakes with one of our coupons and gave the other one to someone else standing on line.
A little while later once it got dark we finally went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower at our hotel. It was pretty crowded but you can stay as long as you like so the crowd got smaller after a while. We watched 2 of the Bellagio fountain shows from the Eiffel tower, and saw really great views of the strip. I actually shot a pretty cool video with my phone of the fountain show, but can’t seem to get it to inbed in the blog–I might need to put it to you tube and inbed that, but clearly since it’s taken me this long just to finish this blog, I don’t have time for that.
On Friday, our flight left in the afternoon so we didn’t have a ton of time. We did a repeat of our first breakfast in Vegas (chocolate bacon waffles and quiche Lorraine). We lost a little more money gambling and then caught our shuttle to the airport. The flight back to the east coast is about an hour shorter, and the movie this time was Last Chance Harvey. I had that on my dvd rental list, and I enjoyed it–certainly a better choice for an in-flight movie than Hotel for Dogs.
What a great trip!
Las Vegas–Days Four and Five June 4, 2009
Las Vegas-Day Three May 21, 2009
We slept until noon on our 3rd full day in Las Vegas, that’s 3pm Atlanta time if you are keeping count. It’s now becoming more clear to me now why I’ve been dragging in the mornings and having a hard time going to sleep at night now that I’m back on a regular schedule this week.
After that nice rest, our first adventure for the day was finding somewhere to eat. On our first trip to Vegas we didn’t eat at any of the hotel buffets, even though that’s sort of something the city is known for. Our hotel has one of the ones most often mentioned in tour guides, and the buffet is divided into the different regions of France with foods from that region. Overall, it was a pretty good meal and was cool to try some new things that we wouldn’t normally try if we would be stuck with a whole plate of it at a restaurant.
We then headed out to the pool for some reading and sun. It was really hot by the pool-that whole desert thing and all, so we swam a bit, and found the pool was freezing. Go figure. It was a really nice pool area with tons of chairs and a great view.
Even with our SPF 45 we were starting to burn really quickly, which is kind of sad and pathetic, but we know how pale we are so we went back inside.
Once inside, we both decided that we were thirsty and craving actual Coca Cola products. I’ve mostly talked about the things I like about Las Vegas, but I should mention something I hate about the city–almost every restaurant and hotel in the entire city has Pepsi and not Coke. This sad fact is right on the top of the list with the other things I hate about Vegas, too much cigarette smoke and people hired to stand on the street and hand out tons of cards trying to get you to get hookers and strippers.
Three days in a Pepsi-filled world might be even worse than solicitation of prostitution in my opinion, so luckily there is a giant Coca-Cola store on the Strip that even has a giant Coke Bottle shaped store front. We needed to make a pilgrimage since we were so far from home. They have a tasting menu of some of the drinks from around the world, like they do at the Coke museum here in Atlanta, and also on their menu is a tasting sampler of different ice cream floats. Luckily the floats are all made with Coke products like Fanta orange that you’d actually want to drink-unlike the tasting menu which does in fact have the school field trip favorite Beverly on it–for $7 or so (actually a great price in my opinion).
That night we had tickets to the 10:30 show of Jubilee–one of Las Vegas’ classic showgirl performances. We had a pre-show dinner at Samba, a Brazilian steakhouse. This was our first Brazilian steakhouse experience with rodizio, and it was a fun meal. The meal starts with salads (and a pitcher of Sangria for us too), and then you get several plates of side dishes for your table to share, including fried plantains which was pretty much the only side we ate since the main part of the meal is a wide variety of grilled meats. On the table is a little wooden salt-shaker like thing with a green end and a red end. If you flip it to green, the waiter continues to bring you different samples of the grilled meats. When you flip it to red they take a break until they see that you’ve flipped it back to green. There were 8 different meats on the menu and they bring them out in random order. We pretty much took one or two bites of each to try it, but even that was a ton of food.
On to the show… Bally’s Jubilee is probably what you think of when you think of Vegas showgirls. Topless, yes, but tasteful with those enormous headdresses and elaborate costumes with jewels and feathers. That part of the show is pretty much just the first 5 minutes and the last 5 minutes though, and it was very cool. The rest of the show though is much more like numbers from the Lawrence Welk show. There was a song and dance number about the Titanic (at one point I wanted to lean over to PL and say, “so does everyone’s top come off when the ship hits the iceberg but restrained myself).
In addition to showgirls, Jubilee also features a number of male singers and dancers (all clearly gay which was sort of funny since the girls are topless and they just could care less). They do a non-topless show once a week so families can go, but the topless parts were all much more about the costumes and not sexualized or trashy. There was a song/dance thing somewhere in the middle about the story of Samson and Delilah and it totally creeped us both out and was both bizarre and kind of dirty with S&M overtones. Some parts of the show are very out-dated, but parts of it like the fact that each enormously elaborate costume was different, were really cool. Our final verdict is that we were glad we went, but glad we didn’t pay full price for tickets and think the show’s days are numbered.
A Post Not About Vacation May 20, 2009
While I spend a large part of each day writing, it’s usually grants or things that aren’t really relavant to share on the blog (and also not something I care all that much about, which is a problem I’m aware of and working on). Recently though, I was asked to write up something about my experiences at the Georgia Tech Wesley Foundation (GTWF) that will supposedly be shared at the North and South Georgia United Methodist Church Annual Confernences by the Commision on Higher Education. Another GTWF friend and I both ended up at seminary after Georgia Tech (actually not as strange as it sounds, as many of you know, since the GTWF has averaged 1-2 seminary-bound students each year for the last 40 years). We were asked to share a little about our experience, and someone who will remain nameless dug up a couple of pictures of us as students and then they took one of us together a few weeks ago to include with our statements.
Just for fun, here’s a picture of me working for Habitat for Humanity in what they tell me was 2001:
Here’s what I wrote:
My local United Methodist Church sent me off to college as an 18-year old after nurturing me as I grew up and moved from the nursery, to Vacation Bible School, Sunday School, Confirmation Class and finally Youth Group. Despite this love and support that I felt in a local church, went I went to college, I decided I didn’t want to “do church” anymore. I had questions that were unanswered. Doubts that persisted. Plus, I was living on my own for the first time and could sleep as late as I wanted to on Sunday mornings. I suspect that most campus ministers know all of these things about college students—and this is precisely why they became campus ministers in the first place—but they can’t tell that to all of you in the local churches since they rely on you for financial support to keep the doors open to the young adults who used to go to your churches, but don’t want to anymore. This story of the wayward non-church going young adult ends well—I’m now once again active in a local United Methodist Church—and even went to seminary–so keep supporting Wesley Foundations.
During college orientation weekend, I was walking around my new home—the Georgia Tech campus—feeling lost, because I was lost, and also feeling a bit nervous and scared, because living away from home wasn’t quite as fun as I imagined it would be. As I walked, I saw the Wesley Foundation at Georgia Tech, and saw that the doors were open. Sometime before moving to campus that Fall, I had received a letter—as all United Methodist students entering Georgia Tech do—from the Wesley Foundation’s campus minister, inviting me to stop by sometime. I’m sure I didn’t keep the letter and bring it to school with me (wanting to go to church in college would look too uncool), and I’m sure I didn’t actually plan to go to the open house. But, as you might have guessed, I did go into the Wesley Foundation that day. And I kept going to the Wesley Foundation for the 4—ok 5—years it took to graduate from Georgia Tech.
If I had never walked in those red doors at the Wesley Foundation, I am almost certain that I wouldn’t be sharing with you today how at this most foundational and yes, scary, time in my life as a young adult, the Wesley Foundation gave to me the great gift of the development of an authentic, mature and lasting faith . It was the place where I could ask the questions I wanted and desperately needed to ask about my faith and explore my own beliefs and my own identity. Most importantly, it was the place where I learned about “vocation” and how to live out our calling in the world—whether that calling happens to be ministry, computer science or engineering. For me, and actually for several dozen other Wesley Foundation at Georgia Tech alums over the years, this journey to learn to authentically live out our calling led us from a world full of calculus and physics into seminary and ministry. I received a Masters of Theological Studies from Wesley Theological Seminary in 2006, and today, people often ask me if I regret going to Georgia Tech and suffering through all of those science and math classes just to get a degree in theology and ethics. And I tell them that no, I don’t regret it at all because I know that had I not ended up at Georgia Tech and had I not found a faith community at The Georgia Tech Wesley Foundation that nurtured and supported my calling and growth into adulthood, I probably would not have gone to seminary and quite possibly would not even still be going to church.
Las Vegas-Day Two May 19, 2009
After that insanely active day on Monday, we slept until 10:30am–Las Vegas time, so according to our bodies’ Atlanta clocks, that’s 1:30pm. Vacation is awesome.
The Cafe Ile St. Louis in our hotel had 24 hour a day breakfast, so we had some vanilla bean french toast along with eggs and sausage. If you hadn’t noticed, we’re big fans of breakfast.
Then we went in search of some $5 blackjack tables and ended up at Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall and Saloon. Awesome I know. I spent $40 and at one point had an extra $40 in winnings, before losing it all by continuing to bet even though I had doubled my money. PL spent $60 and walked away with $54, and that includes giving several $1 chips to the dealer and the waitresses who bring you free drinks while you play. I had 2 amaretto sours and PL had one or two of those plus maybe a margarita. They just bring you whatever you want while you play. Totally free. Except for the part where you lose all of your money gambling because you were tipsy and didn’t think that having $80 when you used to have $40 was good enough, and then you ended up with $0.
After that we went over to The Mirage to see their Secret Gardens and Dolphin Habitat. We didn’t know it at the time, but The Mirage was celebrating the 1st birthday of some tiger cubs and Siegfried and Roy were there for the day. The staff also gave the tigers presents, which were wrapped cardboard boxes with melons inside. It was hilarious to watch them toss them around and rip up the paper. In addition to tigers, they have a baby leopard and also some lions, plus a dolphin research area.
We took an afternoon break by visiting Serendipity 3, the Las Vegas branch of the original New York cafe. We shared their famous frozen hot chocolate, and also a flat bread pizza with honey dijon chicken on it.
By that time it was around 7, the first show time for the Treasure Island Sirens of TI. It was too windy again for it to run, something about fireworks and the desert and some hotel once catching on fire, blah blah blah, so we hopped in a cab to head to Freemont Street, which is in downtown Las Vegas. Freemont Street is home to some more quaint and historic attractions, and it was a very cool place to visit. It was much more laid back and we had a great time here. Many of the classic Las Vegas neon signs are on display, and a giant canopy has been created to display light shows each night. We saw Carson Daly there too filming something about the area. Here’s a picture if you are a teenage girl, or are still in love with Carson Daly after all these years:
We happened upon an Irish pub called Hennessy’s Tavern on 2 for 1 burger night, so we had a cheap dinner on their patio while a halfway decent cover band called Finnegan’s Wake (cute right?) played.
We also happened upon an ABC Store that had 40s of Smirnoff Ice (I didn’t even know such a wonderful thing existed), much classier than walking around with 40s of Schlitz. Well probably not really, but at least we did put our drinks in our Kahunaville cups from the night before and walk around with those.
There was also a beef jerky store, but sadly it was closed for the evening so we can’t report on why exactly the world needs a beef jerky store.
It turns out there is a double decker public bus you can ride for $3 so we took that back. When we sat down on the top level, we noticed that the ladies in front of us kept waving at the folks down below. Then we noticed those ladies were incredibly drunk as they got mad at anyone who didn’t wave back and kept saying, “Well those folks aren’t friendly. They must not be from Alabama.” The entire 30min plus bus ride, they played a game with rules involving putting your hands up in the air and yelled “whoo-hoo” anytime the bus went under a stoplight–red or green, it didn’t matter. The driver along with everyone else on the bus could hear them and also started to “whoo-hoo” which they found very exciting. Then they tried to start the wave on the bus. Their poor husbands were in for a rough night, but they kept us totally entertained. On this bus ride we also got to see the Graceland wedding chapel and lots of other icon Vegas locales.
Also, there was an “Adult Superstore” that needs to be told to move their parking lot, or at least get a new sign. This is a family blog, but everyone knows an adult superstore doesn’t need a sign that says “parking in the rear.” (PL made sure I wrote that down so I could blog about it. You’re welcome.)
Las Vegas-Day One May 18, 2009
Here’s what kept us busy our first full day of vacation. In general, on any vacation we decide while we are doing one thing what we are going to do next, but generally don’t make plans much more in advance than that except for something like a show that requires tickets. It works great for us, and we would have missed seeing a lot of stuff if we had a strict schedule.
After a nice 11 hour night of sleeping and waking up to no alarm clock, we had breakfast at Mon Ami Gabi, one of our hotel’s restaurants. We got to sit on the patio overlooking the Strip and engage in my all time favorite activity–people watching. We shared chocolate bacon waffles (so unbelievably good even if it sounds strange at first–waffles with bacon, a chocolate sauce, whipped cream and maple syrup) and a delicious quiche lorraine. PL also had a very good bellini to drink with her breakfast.
We spent most of Day One exploring the other hotels and their attractions a bit:
Bellagio:
The Bellagio was across the street from our hotel so we went there first. The Conservatory was undergoing its Spring to Summer overhaul so we saw some cranes and lot of busy people, but were sad to miss the actual display. There was also a Warhol/Lichtenstein exhibit in their art museum but we didn’t feel like paying $15 each to see it. I’ve seen a similar exhibit before, and PL doesn’t really like art museums much. So, we just wandered around a bit more and found some other nice flowers in the hotel:
Caesar’s Palace:
We ended up catching a bizarre animatronic show depicting Roman Gods and the fall of Atlantis. It was free and we walked by and saw people gathering so we knew something would be happening–which in general is a good Las Vegas travel tip. There was some fire and other special effects, but not something I would make a point to go see again.
We also walked around the shops a little but Gucci, Armani, Dolce and Gabbana, Faberge, Versace, Jimmy Choo and Fendi are not quite our scene. We had fun in FAO Schwarz though.
I should mention that it was quite hot in Las Vegas, but not humid so you weren’t sweaty like here in Atlanta after being outside. You do still feel some pretty intense heat, especially in the middle of the day, but by going in and out of different hotels while walking you cool off. On our first detour, we went into the Casino Royale, one of the casinos on the strip without a hotel, and enjoyed some tasty, yet not all that strong or large, $1 margaritas.
Venetian:
We crossed back over to the other side of the Strip for gondola rides at the Venetian hotel. We had about a 30 minute wait between buying our tickets and when we had to show up, so we filled the time with some real Italian gelatto. The Venetian is designed to look like Venice, although I’m sure it really doesn’t since New York New York is nothing like New York at all, but it’s actually pretty cool anyway with buildings and a ceiling that is painted and lit to make it look like you are outside.
We saw that Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall and Saloon, another Strip Casino also had cheap (99 cents this time) margaritas, so we decided to stop by and compare them and played some video blackjack while we enjoyed our margaritas. If I recall, I started with $5 in the machine and got up to $10, but then kept playing and lost all my money. Actually, I did this everywhere we gambled, which is why PL kept all the money.
We went back to the hotel to relax a bit and enjoy some air conditioning, and then went to dinner at Kahunaville, a bar and restaurant in the Treasure Island Hotel. I heard from an old friend who lives in Vegas that it was a cool place, and she was right. They have flair bartenders so they spin and toss the cups and bottles around while they make the drinks.
Treasure Island is also home to a show called the Sirens of TI which looks amazingly tacky yet also fun, but it was canceled due to wind that night–it was also canceled the other 2 times we ended up that way near a starting time, so we finally gave up.
We made our way back to the hotel via The Mirage for their volcano that explodes on the hour.
And then by the time we made it near the Bellagio it was time for one of their fountain shows so we saw that too:
It’s a pretty big lake and Vegas is pretty crowded, so by the time we walked past it going back to the hotel it was almost time for the next show, so we watched it again before going back to the hotel.
Las Vegas Report May 18, 2009
I decided to post a day-by-day update of our vacation to Las Vegas, so later today I’ll write up last Monday’s vacation activities and share some photos. We actually arrived on Sunday though and here’s what we did for the few hours after we got there and before we fell asleep.
We started our day early in Atlanta by getting up at 6am to get the dogs shipped off to camp for the week. We had an afternoon flight out of Atlanta so we decided to go to church and then head back home for lunch before needing to go to the airport. Our plane actually took off mostly on time out of Atlanta, but it was a really long flight though, like 5 hours I think, and made me want to reconsider any plans to be on planes longer than that in the future. The in-flight movie was Hotel for Dogs–seriously?!–so I read and listed to my ipod and got really bored. We took a shuttle to the hotel, Paris Las Vegas, and probably were settled in by 7pm Las Vegas time.
We unpacked a bit and in a perfect moment, PL was laying on the bed checking out the hotel guide, and I flopped down beside her. We had the following exchange:
Me: Are you going to change clothes for dinner?
PL: I don’t know. Are you going to change clothes for dinner?
Me: Do you have anything that goes with this?
And then I hold out my hand displaying this:
She did actually have something to wear that looks nice with diamonds.
We decided we wanted pizza, and where can you get the best pizza? New York of course, so we went to the New York New York hotel to find some good pizza. We enjoyed the city lights as we walked back to our hotel. Then we decided to play slot machines for a while and we had $5 in free slot play after joining the hotel’s free rewards club. PL promptly won $22.75 while I promptly lost that free $5 plus some more cash that PL doled out to me. (PL was our official money keeper and handed me money as we went, which was probably a good strategy)
After that we both wanted dessert but also felt sort of dehydrated and thirsty, and luckily we found that our hotel had a little bakery that had sorbet. I had a raspberry one in a waffle cone and PL had a mango one.
By this time we were very tired even though it was probably only around 10pm Las Vegas time, but that translates to 1am Atlanta time after waknig up at 6am.
Why I’m Always Tired on Mondays April 27, 2009
PL is in the middle of finals, so I’ve been trying to be as helpful as possible around the house so she can just study. It’s a nice feeling to be so useful, and I actually enjoy thinking of especially nice things to do to make PL’s life easier and happier (like buying PL and her classmate chocolate peanut butter cheesecake brownies from the Farmer’s Market or getting a pot of coffee ready to brew whenever she wants to turn it on). 1, 2, 3…Awwww.
Her law school study partner has been at the house almost all day everyday since last Monday except for sleeping–which they aren’t doing a ton of anyway. I realized that when someone is around for an extended period of time your normal routines become public–cooking, cleaning, exercising, eating ice cream at 11pm. Our closest friends have been around while we’re doing laundry or dishes, but even with them we usually just hang out with them and save other chores and cleaning for another time. Since PL and her friend were studying, I continued on with my usual activities, but felt a little self-conscious at times about putting our household operations on display. For example, I wanted to organize the pantry, but felt like that would make me look way too OCD and industrious. (fyi: I did eventually organize the pantry, but did it while our guest was gone.)
So, here’s what I did while they studied, and studied some more, followed by more studying.
Saturday:
I started by weeding flower beds in the yard and then sprayed lots of Roundup on more even more weeds since pulling them up wasn’t going very fast. I made a little more progress in our front yard garden bed, but it was really hot by noon so I went inside and took a shower. I organized the pantry-it did actually need it by the way-and went to Lowes (along with half of the population of Atlanta) to buy some plants.
With the plants unloaded from the car, but with the sun being too hot, I stayed inside and watched Superbad on DVD…I just love Michael Cera. The whole time I had laundry going too, lest you think I just sat around and did nothing for 2 hours.
As it was getting dark and cooler I planted Gerber daisies and Mexican heather by the mail box and spread some grass seed on our giant dirt patches in the backyard…probably an exercise in futility but one can dream of having grass one day. (I’ll post pictures soon…after I find the camera and remember to take them, and upload them)
Then I cooked a yummy dinner of apricot glazed chicken (I checked our recipe blog and I never posted that, so I’ll get on that soon too), sauteed yellow squash, and green beans for my law student. It’s not too hard of a recipe and really delicious, but it does involve the food processor.
Sunday:
I went to Sunday school and church and stopped at Chipotle for lunch. I enjoyed sitting under an umbrella on their deck by myself watching the cars and street traffic, but I didn’t stay too long since I had other errands to run. After lunch I went to the Farmer’s market–and got all our weekly groceries there. That’s right, all of them, which I don’t normally do but I’m reading yet another Michael Pollan book and felt like we needed organic milk this week.
When I got home I prepared 60 pounds of chicken leg quarters for the dogs to eat-I used every container we have for the dogs’ food plus a couple more that I found and they are now set for their meals for 20 days. I only cut myself once, and just in case you were wondering, it takes me 2 hours to get that much chicken ready. In case you are also wondering what in the world I’m talking about (I did say my normal private routines became public) our dogs eat a raw diet…and it makes them very healthy and happy. Luckily PL’s study partner already knew that our dogs ate this, so she was intrigued but not grossed out by the fact that we had 60 pounds of raw chicken in our kitchen. Damn dogs.
After filling our freezer with containers of chicken, I went back outside and planted pansies in the flower bed by the front door, planted our side yard flower bed (moss rose, more pansies, and some other flower that I thought was pretty but can’t remember its name). Daylight was still my friend so I planted herbs in the backyard herb garden-basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano, flat leaf parsley, mint, bee balm (no clue what this is good for but it makes pretty flowers), and sage. I had enough daylight and energy to put mulch around the newly planted things and hang up the bumblebee windsock that I bought.
After a shower since I was covered in dirt and mulch, I cooked organic tofu stir fry with garlic, carrots, broccoli, snow peas and green and orange peppers (peppers cooked in a separate pan since I can’t/don’t eat them) and brown rice for my law student plus her study pal. I am totally a keeper.
Then I did another peculiar chore that is not usually put on display–I made vegetable bags for me and PL. So, vegetable bags? This is a long story, but we learned a long time ago that we actually will eat more vegetables if we cut up fresh vegetables and put them in bags for at least a few days during the week. When we pack our lunches we can just throw a bag in our lunch box usually along with some fat-free ranch dip.
Vacation Planning April 23, 2009
Our vacation is getting closer and closer, and while I wait impatiently for it, I’ve been looking up things to do while we are there. PL and I did have a discussion that we might intentionally leave our computers behind and have a no email or facebook vacation–which actually sounds lovely. The only snag is that Emory parking registration takes place at 7am one day we’ll be there (which of course is like 4 or 5 am local time in Las Vegas and we aren’t sure the hotel has free wi-fi even though it’s super fancy). This important task might get assigned to my dad, since he did such as good job getting online and getting us Peachtree Road Race numbers when we couldn’t be at a computer that day.
Most people in my close group of friends haven’t been to Las Vegas, so I don’t think they know much about it other than the gambling parts. If gambling was all you could do there, PL and I probably wouldn’t be going back. We did do some gambling on our visit, but it doesn’t seem all that fun to me to pay $5 to play roulette and then lose that $5 in just a few seconds. The same goes for Blackjack–most tables have a $5 minimum bet, fancier places have a $10 minimum, and that’s just for a single hand. What we did last time is just have a certain amount of money we were willing to spend for the entertainment value–maybe $50 each–and then when it was gone that was it. We had fun playing the games (treating them more like arcade games where you pay just to enjoy them and don’t expect to come home richer), but then didn’t lose tons of money in an attempt to win back what we lost. We did play some of the slot machines and video black jack things (since most of those are 1 cent, 5 cents, 25 cents and a a dollar to play), and didn’t really win much but had fun with it. Our one big mistake is that we didn’t take the cocktail waitresses up on their offer of free drinks. That was stupid! They just walk around and give you alcohol for free, but I’m sure they don’t lose any money doing that since you get competitive and lack good judgement when you’re drinking.
As a side note before I mention some of the attractions we hope to see, I want to describe the overall vibe of Las Vegas a bit. It’s kind of a strange vibe, but I never felt out of place. There are older, retired people who hang out at slot machines and smoke–oh, I forgot that some casinos are smoky which is nasty, but most were ok. There are young, single guys who are just not as cool as they think they are. There are white, straight couples who wear American flag t-shirts. There are foreigners who seem to be spending lots of money. There are couples way too dressed up, even in the middle of the day. There’s a lot of families too, which even though there are plenty of family friendly things, most of the kids I saw were either pre or post-meltdown. I’m a world-class people watcher so it was fun for me. When I’m some place like New York I feel very un-cool and for some reason–even though no one notices me–I want to not look like a tourist. In Las Vegas, everyone is a tourist, and I’d never be so tacky as to be from the midwest and wear a fanny pack, so I’m quite hip.
But here are some of the fun, somewhat bizarre, truly amazing and otherwise really cool things we hope to see and do. Today I’ll list a few attractions we saw last time and hope to repeat. Later I’ll post some of the new things we hope to see and do.
Fountains at the Bellagio
Probably my favorite thing in Las Vegas. (Think those diet coke bottles with mentos times like a billion, and a lot more class). Every 30 minutes between 3 and 7 p.m., and every 15 minutes until midnight a huge body of water comes alive with a choreographed foundation show set to different kids of music (mostly classical but also some show tunes and popular hits). It takes up a giant city block, so there is plenty of space to find a good spot to watch it, but the best view might be across the street, on top of the …
Eiffel Tower at Paris
This is an exact 1/2 replica of the Eiffel tower, and for a small fee you can go up to the top. It’s a great view of the city lights as well as the surrounding landscape. Prior to going to Las Vegas, I had never seen the wide open desert before (I had been to El Paso/Juarez so it was similar but not as scenic), I got to experience a little landscape that’s different from the Southeast. So I really enjoyed the flight into the city and some of these high-up views of the surrounding mountains and desert. There’s also a restaurant up here, but I’m fairly sure it costs more than we’d ever pay for a meal.
Volcano at The Mirage
Every hour on the hour during the evening, a giant “volcano” erupts in front of The Mirage hotel. It’s not mind-blowing even with the water, fire and music, but it’s fun to watch (and free), so it’s worth trying to be in that part of town some point in the evening to see it.
Conservatory and Botanical Gardens at the Bellagio
There are free seasonal exhibits at the Bellagio, and like everything else in Vegas, it is done on a huge scale. When we went to Las Vegas the first time it was in December, and the Conservatory was decorated for Christmas and it was very pretty. It’s all plant based, so there are lots of very interesting plants, but also all props are done Rose Bowl Parade style with everything being plants, seeds and flowers. I’m not sure if we’ll be there for the Spring or Summer exhibit, but either way it will definitely be something we check out.
Time Wasting Website Review: This is Why You’re Fat April 22, 2009
Oh Americans…we can’t find a food that can’t be made a little better by adding cheese, bacon, or deep frying it. I present This is Why You’re Fat. It’s a fascinating blog of some truly amazing foods. I’m happy to say for the future of my cardiac health that most of the foods look disgusting to me. Additionally, since I don’t smoke pot, things like the snack food pizza (pizza topped with doritos and corn dogs) aren’t anything I crave on a regular basis.
I do have to confess that I think this might be the best omlet ever (chicken fried steak and gravy omlet with cheese and onions):
However, I’m afraid that meatloaf with a delicious macaroni and cheese center might sound gross, but it’s slightly intriguing. And a deep fried grilled cheese just looks amazing.
Baby Plant Update April 21, 2009
April 21st baby plant update:
1. Tomatoes and Peppers are growing strong and have real leaves.
2. The Basil just sprouted! We got these seeds as a favor from a baby shower, and planted them a few days ago. (and, I really like this picture)
3. The garden bed…looks pretty much the same, and still isn’t finished.
We’re having a lot of people over to the house for a party on May 2nd, so I hope that by then I’ll have the garden bed ready, or I’ll at least just move the tools to the shed.
