Viva Las Vegas – June 16th 2009

 

Viva Las Vegas – June 16th 2009
Well, it was fun waking up with the prospect of driving into the centre of Vegas on my birthday – you cannot really get more exciting than that! We had bacon muffins for breakfast, I opened a few cards which Mum had snuck out and slipped to Mark before leaving & had coffee in bed – all very relaxing. About 11am we drove into the centre of Las Vegas to the 5*Trump International Hotel, which I had booked as a little birthday present to myself. We could see it shimmering gold in the distance as we approached the strip – so ostentatious but perfect in the crazy setting that is Vegas. Mark and I were like two excitable children as we cruised down the strip, absorbing all the crazy structures & sheer cheesiness of the place – I am surprised that we did not crash the car.
The Trump is just as plush inside with the lobby harbouring outrageously large chandeliers & many shiny marble surfaces. We went up to our ‘suite’ – yes that is correct – on the 54th floor and wow, what fun walking into the room. I stayed in some pretty nice hotels when working for SCB, but the bath in this one was just fantastic – big enough for 4 people and with its own Jacuzzi – yippee! The room was huge, with the biggest bed I have ever seen – I could comfortably lie sideways as well as lengthways. There was also a 3 piece suite from which we had a fantastic view over the city. The first 5 minutes were spent racing up and down the room shouting “I do not need to use the gym because it’s big enough to run in here” and of course, the obligatory jumping up and down on the bed a few times.
Time to head out and see some sights – we were positioned right next to a luxurious shopping centre, so we walked through there and came out opposite the Venetian, which is of course famous for its recreation of Venice. It is quite hard to explain just how bizarre/hideous/wonderful the place is – they have recreated St. Mark’s Square exactly, including a blue sky inside the hotel and the canals, which have gondolas floating down them. There was opera in the piazza, Italian street entertainers on stilts and of course, all the Italian delis/shops, but all still inside the building. Many of the hotels connect to each other & nearly all of them have a large casino. In this way, it is possible to go to Venice for coffee, Paris for dinner, New York for brunch, etc – mad. Once back in the daylight, we decided to have a mojito and sat in the sun watching the world go by, which was fascinating in itself. Next, to ancient Rome through Ceasar’s Palace, and then to Paris, which naturally has the Eiffel Tower outside and is extremely Parisian on the inside with little French shops, people playing the accordion and your classic people walking around with strings of garlic/onions around their necks – realistic.
We asked one of the hotel doormen what he recommended to do in the evening and he proceeded to list off the many debaucherous things that were available in Vegas, to summarise, you can do anything you want. We decided to buy tickets to see Anthony Cools, who is the US equivalent of Paul McKenna, only a little dirtier. This was courtesy of Mum, who had given me some money to do something fun on my birthday, and the ticket also included a 3 course meal in Paris, so it was very memorable! More of that later…
Before leaving Paris we sat at the bar and shared a margarita out of a huge Eiffel Tower shaped glass and gambled on the machine which was inset in the bar – they make it very easy for you! Then off for a bit of shopping – Mark got some sunglasses & very sweetly bought me a bottle of champagne, which we took back to the hotel and drank in the bath – I felt like a movie star!
Back to Paris for dinner, then to the show – it was so funny. The audience had to volunteer to be hypnotized, and went onto the stage for 5 mins for this to happen. Then the fun began…one girl was told that she could not remember her name, so she would introduce herself in a job interview and get seriously frustrated when she could not remember what she was called. Another was told that her vagina was telling the audience all the naughty things that she had done over the last month, so she kept trying to muffle the noises by covering up, etc – it was hilarious. Another guy was told that every time certain music came on, the only way to get rid of his ‘ring of fire’ was to sit on the floor and drag his bum along…he looked like a dog with worms and had no idea what he was doing. Everyone who got hypnotized, including an older lady was convinced that a chair placed in the middle of the stage was the best looking man/woman ever and had to seduce it, going as far as they could…well that got some wolf whistles from the audience! I could go on, but I am sure you get the picture. It certainly kept Mark and I in hysterics for 90 minutes & I was very glad that Mark had stopped me from volunteering – he definitely knew something that I did not!
As we came out of Paris about 10pm, the fountain light show outside the Bellagio was just starting and was absolutely beautiful & really made everything feel very exciting. We got a taxi down to the Stratosphere, which is the tallest tower in Vegas and went up to the top for the best view of the city. There are also some petrifying rides at the top which literally hang you right over the edge of the tower…definitely not for the faint hearted!
Next, back onto the strip and randomly we bumped into some fun people from Oklahoma & Texas, who decided to join in the birthday fun, which continued in the Bellagio until about 3am. Wow – what an amazing birthday – a total whirlwind of fun, giggles, excitement and new experiences. Viva Las Vegas!

17th June

Ouch – sore head. Checked out of Trump – 4pm. Moved to Hooters, which was only 20 USD per night – bargain! Feeling a little delicate, we pottered around the hotels we had not visited – New York, The Luxor and The Excalibur, which is an outrageous “medieval” castle & looks like a funny fairytale from the outside. The Luxor is shaped like a pyramid and naturally has the Sphinx inside (it’s Vegas) and lifts which run diagonally up the building, which is quite cool. We had a fairly relaxed night, ready for our big drive the next day to San Diego.