Finally, Las Vegas!
My Las Vegas blog is finally complete, two months after my trip! I shall dole it out in well-portioned sections for you to savour. So without further ado, here is Day 1: Friday...
We flew out of Great Falls, Montana because it was significantly cheaper than flying out of Calgary; my round trip flight was $280. We had so much fun driving the three hours down there, because Montana is so easy to make fun of with its sad looking towns with boring first person names. Seriously, who names their towns things like "Kevin", "Conrad", "Brady", "Gordon", and "Oilmont"? Alberta may have its share of sad little towns, but you’ve got to admit that "Manyberries" is a way cooler name. Anyway, here’s a few of our quotable quotes:
Customs officer: Do you have any fruits or vegetables?
Tanya: We have a sala…
Customs officer: Do you have any firearms?
Tanya: N--
Customs officer: When are ya’ll coming back?
Sandra: What town is that? Whatever it is, it’s depressing.
Tanya: That’s Ashburn. Actually, all of Montana is like that.
Tanya: *sarcastic* Isn’t this a lovely town?
Sandra: It reminds me of my nightmares.
When we arrived, I saw the best store front ever: A. Hooker’s Gallery. lol! I couldn’t stop laughing for two blocks, while Tanya and her mom looked at me like I was crazy. I later found out that the artist’s name is Audrey, but no one is sure if she intends it as a joke or not.
We ate at Applebees, and then headed to the airport. I couldn’t believe it was an international airport… the boarding area was the size of my bedroom! I planned to study once on the plane, but I sat next to a nice lady from Great Falls who had been to Las Vegas many times (as her son lives there). I took advantage of the opportunity to pick her brain on the best things to do. She also told me about her daughter and three sons, who she dutifully pointed out were all single, haha. I’ve heard of couples meeting on planes, but not so much mom’s campaigning their sons on planes.
The lady was reading a newspaper and showed me this strange article:
The other oddity was that one of the only people Tanya, Carly, and I introduced ourselves to in Great Falls for New Years was sitting in front of me on the plane! He and his friends were coming to Vegas for the weekend for a bachelor party. After the time it took driving to Great Falls, waiting for the plane, flying, catching a tram to the luggage pick-up, and taking an awful fume-filled shuttle to the hotel in thick Friday night traffic, I’ve got to say, there’s no way I’d come out here just for a weekend! We left Lethbridge at noon and didn’t get into the hotel until midnight. It didn’t help that my backpack was the heaviest it had ever been with my textbook and ancient laptop in it, all the while hauling my suitcase lacking wheels (as my only suitcase with wheels was broken on the flight to Mexico). I have also finally succumbed to the realization that I need a larger suitcase… my parents keep telling me they backpacked across southeast Asia with well.. a backpack… but I just can’t do it!
View of the city as we landed… no photo of the Strip, unfortunately.
We originally thought we were going to go to the dueling pianos show that night, as it’s a show that goes late and the next morning would be our only one to sleep in, but we scrapped that when we got in later than we expected. Instead, we just went for a walk around the hotel to see what there was for food. I wasn’t really hungry, but after much deliberation (and I thought I was indecisive!), Tanya decided to have a bite to eat at the café, where she got this massive fruit platter.
We passed on the half-grapefruit for $4.
We retired to our quarters after this, which we were happy with other than the view, which was lackluster compared to some of the traveler photos I had seen on the net from other rooms. Oh well... with nearly 4,000 rooms, I guess they all can't have good views!
Coming up: Flogging Molly, girls direct to you in 20 minutes, free hugs, and New York New York! How's that for an eclectic day?
We flew out of Great Falls, Montana because it was significantly cheaper than flying out of Calgary; my round trip flight was $280. We had so much fun driving the three hours down there, because Montana is so easy to make fun of with its sad looking towns with boring first person names. Seriously, who names their towns things like "Kevin", "Conrad", "Brady", "Gordon", and "Oilmont"? Alberta may have its share of sad little towns, but you’ve got to admit that "Manyberries" is a way cooler name. Anyway, here’s a few of our quotable quotes:
Customs officer: Do you have any fruits or vegetables?
Tanya: We have a sala…
Customs officer: Do you have any firearms?
Tanya: N--
Customs officer: When are ya’ll coming back?
Sandra: What town is that? Whatever it is, it’s depressing.
Tanya: That’s Ashburn. Actually, all of Montana is like that.
Tanya: *sarcastic* Isn’t this a lovely town?
Sandra: It reminds me of my nightmares.
When we arrived, I saw the best store front ever: A. Hooker’s Gallery. lol! I couldn’t stop laughing for two blocks, while Tanya and her mom looked at me like I was crazy. I later found out that the artist’s name is Audrey, but no one is sure if she intends it as a joke or not.
We ate at Applebees, and then headed to the airport. I couldn’t believe it was an international airport… the boarding area was the size of my bedroom! I planned to study once on the plane, but I sat next to a nice lady from Great Falls who had been to Las Vegas many times (as her son lives there). I took advantage of the opportunity to pick her brain on the best things to do. She also told me about her daughter and three sons, who she dutifully pointed out were all single, haha. I’ve heard of couples meeting on planes, but not so much mom’s campaigning their sons on planes.
The lady was reading a newspaper and showed me this strange article:
The other oddity was that one of the only people Tanya, Carly, and I introduced ourselves to in Great Falls for New Years was sitting in front of me on the plane! He and his friends were coming to Vegas for the weekend for a bachelor party. After the time it took driving to Great Falls, waiting for the plane, flying, catching a tram to the luggage pick-up, and taking an awful fume-filled shuttle to the hotel in thick Friday night traffic, I’ve got to say, there’s no way I’d come out here just for a weekend! We left Lethbridge at noon and didn’t get into the hotel until midnight. It didn’t help that my backpack was the heaviest it had ever been with my textbook and ancient laptop in it, all the while hauling my suitcase lacking wheels (as my only suitcase with wheels was broken on the flight to Mexico). I have also finally succumbed to the realization that I need a larger suitcase… my parents keep telling me they backpacked across southeast Asia with well.. a backpack… but I just can’t do it!
View of the city as we landed… no photo of the Strip, unfortunately.
We originally thought we were going to go to the dueling pianos show that night, as it’s a show that goes late and the next morning would be our only one to sleep in, but we scrapped that when we got in later than we expected. Instead, we just went for a walk around the hotel to see what there was for food. I wasn’t really hungry, but after much deliberation (and I thought I was indecisive!), Tanya decided to have a bite to eat at the café, where she got this massive fruit platter.
We passed on the half-grapefruit for $4.
We retired to our quarters after this, which we were happy with other than the view, which was lackluster compared to some of the traveler photos I had seen on the net from other rooms. Oh well... with nearly 4,000 rooms, I guess they all can't have good views!
Coming up: Flogging Molly, girls direct to you in 20 minutes, free hugs, and New York New York! How's that for an eclectic day?