Vegas Baby - Part 1
The last weekend of May I went to Las Vegas with Kevin, Dan, Mike, Josh and Zoe. I hadn't been to Vegas since I was 18 and doing a summer program at Stanford and met my mom and grandma there for my birthday. That was a fun weekend, the highlight of which was seeing O, but getting to go again as an adult with some of my best friends was absolutely amazing.
Kevin and I flew out after work Thursday. On our flight we got to enjoy watching the woman sitting in the aisle seat of our row being hit on by a serious bro in the aisle across from her who was from Florida and talking about how great Florida is and making fun of Ohio when he discovered that's where she was from. Made me groan since I'm from Florida and Kevin's from Ohio. Also the woman was a beer promoter and was treated to such lines as, "You probably don't even drink beer." She wound up giving him her phone number, which I sincerely hope was fake.
After getting in, we caught a cab to The Golden Nugget where we had to wait for a solid 30 minutes to check into our room. While we were there Mike and Josh, who'd gotten in early, met us in line to say hi and then head to Fremont Street in search of ridiculous cocktails. We were exhausted from a full day of work plus long flight but were persuaded to walk the street after checking in because I'd never seen it and it's much more interesting at night. It's a truly bizarre place, some fusion of a boardwalk, mall and strip club. There are kiosks and shops selling random touristy crap but also women in underwear dancing on bartops which all sell frozen drinks that are maybe 2% alcohol with the rest being sugar water. There are also knockoff superheroes, Transformers and men of all shapes and sizes also in their underwear. Plus it's got a big awning overhead that lights up and people zipline down.
We crashed pretty soon after that and got up the next morning to hit a breakfast place that loopygirl recommended which was excellent. Then we went to the Golden Nugget's awesome pool, which surrounds a giant tank filled with various types of sharks and big fish like grouper and bass. We spent a lot of time just hanging in the water and watching the big toothy sharks swim towards us. Then we soaked in the hot tub while drinking Coronas for a bit and went to the gym to work out. After that we agreed we wanted lunch but hit some conflict since Josh, Dan and Mike wanted to go to the strip and just stay there until the house show we were seeing late that night, while I knew if I was going to be out that late I'd want a nap. So we wound up splitting the party with Kevin and I napping and then having some tacos at the hotel's Mexican restaurant while the other guys hit up a buffet. We later felt entirely justified in our decision when the DJ we wanted to see didn't come on stage until 1:30 a.m. and Josh was extremely cranky from lack of sleep. But I'll get back to that show later.
First we met up at the Forums at Caesar's Palace where we hung out for a while waiting for Mike to finish having Scotch and a cigar while Kevin and I opted for some really excellent sangria. Then we went to The Wynn to see Zedd, where we wandered around for a while trying to find tickets. We managed to hit the sweet spot where online sales were closed but in person sales hadn't started yet so we had to wait around a while before joining a big line to get tickets which were $20 cheaper for women than men - pretty standard in Vegas apparently. Also groups that were entirely young women didn't have to wait in the line. But the waiting and money was totally worth it as the experience was insane. More on it later!
Kevin and I flew out after work Thursday. On our flight we got to enjoy watching the woman sitting in the aisle seat of our row being hit on by a serious bro in the aisle across from her who was from Florida and talking about how great Florida is and making fun of Ohio when he discovered that's where she was from. Made me groan since I'm from Florida and Kevin's from Ohio. Also the woman was a beer promoter and was treated to such lines as, "You probably don't even drink beer." She wound up giving him her phone number, which I sincerely hope was fake.
After getting in, we caught a cab to The Golden Nugget where we had to wait for a solid 30 minutes to check into our room. While we were there Mike and Josh, who'd gotten in early, met us in line to say hi and then head to Fremont Street in search of ridiculous cocktails. We were exhausted from a full day of work plus long flight but were persuaded to walk the street after checking in because I'd never seen it and it's much more interesting at night. It's a truly bizarre place, some fusion of a boardwalk, mall and strip club. There are kiosks and shops selling random touristy crap but also women in underwear dancing on bartops which all sell frozen drinks that are maybe 2% alcohol with the rest being sugar water. There are also knockoff superheroes, Transformers and men of all shapes and sizes also in their underwear. Plus it's got a big awning overhead that lights up and people zipline down.
We crashed pretty soon after that and got up the next morning to hit a breakfast place that loopygirl recommended which was excellent. Then we went to the Golden Nugget's awesome pool, which surrounds a giant tank filled with various types of sharks and big fish like grouper and bass. We spent a lot of time just hanging in the water and watching the big toothy sharks swim towards us. Then we soaked in the hot tub while drinking Coronas for a bit and went to the gym to work out. After that we agreed we wanted lunch but hit some conflict since Josh, Dan and Mike wanted to go to the strip and just stay there until the house show we were seeing late that night, while I knew if I was going to be out that late I'd want a nap. So we wound up splitting the party with Kevin and I napping and then having some tacos at the hotel's Mexican restaurant while the other guys hit up a buffet. We later felt entirely justified in our decision when the DJ we wanted to see didn't come on stage until 1:30 a.m. and Josh was extremely cranky from lack of sleep. But I'll get back to that show later.
First we met up at the Forums at Caesar's Palace where we hung out for a while waiting for Mike to finish having Scotch and a cigar while Kevin and I opted for some really excellent sangria. Then we went to The Wynn to see Zedd, where we wandered around for a while trying to find tickets. We managed to hit the sweet spot where online sales were closed but in person sales hadn't started yet so we had to wait around a while before joining a big line to get tickets which were $20 cheaper for women than men - pretty standard in Vegas apparently. Also groups that were entirely young women didn't have to wait in the line. But the waiting and money was totally worth it as the experience was insane. More on it later!