Vegas Vacation Day 3 Impressions 3/24/16

Day three of our vacation.  Doug wakes up and says “I had a strange dream.” Apparently, he dreamt he was on the show Beat Bobby Flay. When the time starts and the bell rings, he grabs a frying pan and goes over to Bobby Flay and starts beating him with it.  This sets the tone for the day.

We are going to take on the other side of the Las Vegas Strip today. We take off across the bridge to MGM in search of adventure and breakfast. Wolfgang Puck, Emeril, Joel Robuchon, and Tom Collicio…no one to beat there, so we end up in the food court (we’re not looking for much, we’re anticipating a buffet tonight). McDonalds it is…we opt out of the omelet from Nathan’s hot dogs.  There is no military discount for this….which reminds me: When we asked the lady at Zumanity if there was a military discount, she replied with “No, because this show has strobe lights.”  So, the running joke has been, no military discount, must have strobe lights.  We both laugh hysterically each time we repeat this--Guess you had to be there.

Anyway, we pick a table and have our breakfasts. Next to us, there are two young men with beards and skinny jeans. One of them is talking angrily and waving his hands in the air as he talks. He’s complaining about injustice and how he can’t get a break because he was just better than the losers who were getting breaks. He pounds on the other guy’s plate with his fork as he makes his point. The other guy says nothing, just sits with a rigidly straight back and listens to the rant. Or maybe he’s mourning the death of his Panda Express mystery meat stuffed waffle. We linger to listen to the rant which runs from women who have dumped him to colleges that refuse to give him a free education to people who won’t consider him for a job because he’s white.  He does not mention his beard. Doug and I are judging him for his beard, it’s hideous. If we had someone apply for a job with that beard, we would not hire them either.

 

We hit the M&M store. There’s a midget employee who is shouting things. I didn’t know she was an employee; I thought she was some kind of mental homeless person, in need of an intervention, speaking a language of her own making. Then, the Coca-Cola store with all its trinkets and throngs of foreign families trying different flavors. Oh, speaking of different flavors, M&M was trying out Chili nut and coffee nut flavored M&Ms this visit…we passed on those.

More walking, my feet still hurt from yesterday…clearly today is going to test our relationship. I anticipate whining later tonight when I start to get tired.

We walk, skipping over the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood because that’s the anticipated buffet (ranked number one on the internet polls). We check out the shops in Paris and I eye the Eiffel Tower. Neither of us have ever been up in the Vegas Eiffel Tower. We decide to check out the price. Military discount? Oh hell yes, the veteran gets in FREE…they don’t have strobe lights up there!!  Woohoo.  We wait in line and get all the way up there. Awesome pictures. Awesome views. High enough to make your knees a little weak. High enough that even Doug, who has absolutely no fear that I’ve ever seen, says that he feels that little twinge. Still, it’s cool.

After Paris, there’s Bally’s and these outdoor shops in a Bizarre-like atmosphere. Bizarre is a good word. There’s a place that takes photographs and stages fake weddings. There’s a brief temptation. There are t-shirts which light up to the sound of music. There are sunglasses and fake designer purses--Frendi, Guchi, Predia, Louis Vinton. And there’s a jerky shop. We’re stopping in the jerky shop. JoJo’s Jerky.  The man in the shop tells Doug: “We grow our own beef. Everything is handmade.” Doug and I exchange a look. We’ve reached that point in our relationship where we know the thought running through both of our brains at this moment is “How in the hell to you hand-make a cow? Isn’t that illegal?” Still, regardless of the suddenly suspect source of the meet, Doug buys jerky.  Doug cannot pass on jerky. For the record, the verdict on JoJo’s jerky wasn’t all that favorable. I had a friend who once said, “Pizza is like sex. You never get a bad slice.” This seems to mirror Doug’s theory on jerky--JoJos is apparently the equivalent of Tortino's frozen pizzas.

He eats this while we walk some more. More walking, yep. And finally, it’s starting to warm up a little. This almost makes me forget that I’m getting a blister.

Between the Flamingo and the Linq there’s a street (it’s new since that last time I was in Vegas years and years ago, or maybe it was there and I was just at the pool pissed off and drunk while all my money was being lost).  Anyway, we head down this street and the shops here.  Now, a friend told me to try the food at a place called the Yardbird.  I see a place called the Yardhouse, and I’m like, hey, we should stop to get something to drink and share a couple of appetizers for lunch….because really, I just want to stop the ever-growing blister that’s forming on my foot, right in the center between between the pad of my big toe and the other toes. The advice was to try the deviled eggs appetizer, so we do because, at that moment, I am not aware that I’m at the wrong place. We also order the fried cheese—in our endless quest for squeaky cheese like the kind we had once, fried at some fair or something.

After food and a feet reprieve, we head off to finish up the little street, which ends at a Ferris wheel called High Roller. The thing is MASSIVE.  I cannot express this enough. Nor can I express my lack of desire to ever be trapped in one of the huge pods with 20 sweaty strangers, unable to escape, glass-enclosed death trap that you have to get in to take a slow road up so high that I think airplanes from McCarran Airport are flying through the center of. Doug wants to get closer to it. He wants to see how it works. I take pictures. I don’t really even want to get close to it.  I mean, it might break off and go rolling down the strip, crushing small children and Asian families as they run down the streets, their screams travelling on a two second delay.

Next, it’s on to the shops at the Venetian. Lots of things we can’t afford. But, good browsing and people watching. Way too many aggressive salespeople. One woman tries to give me a free sample of perfume….but you know what, it’s not really free, because my time isn’t free and I don’t want to listen to their story about how their product will change my life. I tell one woman "No" and she says “Why the hell not, it’s free.” I almost turn around and confront her crappy sales attitude. I want to ask her if she makes a lot of sales being a bitch. She’s lucky that pivoting on a blister is not a good option. A guy tries to give Doug a sample of mousse for his hair. Another man wants to pawn off his free lotion--never accept free lotion from a metrosexual. When Doug says no, the salesperson mumbles under his breath “It was for her.” There are more 1 guy 2 girl groups everywhere. Is there some unwritten rule about needing a girlfriend to join you and your boyfriend on a trip to Vegas? Weird. 

In the Venetian, in the canals, there’s a married couple taking a trip in the white gondola. The woman is heavy set, wearing white and has a huge smile on her face. The man is wearing a kilt and looks like he’s hoping a sniper will take him out from one of the bridges over the canal. People are taking pictures. The gondolier is singing bad Italian. There are some claps, but I’m not sure if these are congratulations or thank-goodness-its-not-me claps. The woman grins. The man stares at the water. A camera man sits across from them filming. I think about an episode of Dateline I saw once.

The Venetian leads to the Wynn. My feet hurt. I’m in agony. I try to fake it and smile, but part of me knows that this is probably going to mark the end of my relationship. Goodbye happiness. Goodbye perfect match. I’m going to whine and ruin it all. And then, while I’m mourning the loss and sure I’m going to die alone, they’re going to amputate my feet and I’ll have to walk around on the calloused stumps that once were ankles. And God dammit, I am not coordinated enough to walk around with two feet, how am I ever going to manage walking around on two stumps? The man I love looks at me and says, “I’m farting in every hotel on the Strip.” He grins.  Okay, maybe there’s hope still.

I drink a lot of water. Smart Water. Fiji Water. Wynn Water. Propel Water---oh yes, the irony. I have to pee. The signs at Wynn for the restrooms have both a man and a woman on them. I head for the door. A security guard stops me. Apparently, I was headed for the mens/Jenner family/metrosexual room. I nearly walked in on things that I did not want to see and couldn’t run from without crying in pain.  I go in the women’s room.  Hey, this fancy people at the Wynn have nice restrooms. Marble floors and doors that actually close. Gold faucets and touchless hand dryers that remind me of those blowers at the end of a car wash—except for your hands.

Now it’s back. Back the way we came. It’s getting late and the street “performers” have come out. There’s short Darth Vader with his platform shoes and oversized head. There’s Spiderman who should have worn a cup or something; but, I can see why he wears a mask. I don’t have a penis and even I feel superior to Spiderman. There are two woman wearing only body paint advertising for a strip club. A woman hands them her baby and says: “Take a picture with my baby!”

Then, it’s the Miracle Mile of shops at Planet Hollywood. It’s going to be a miracle if I survive this night without an amputation. A mile of shops much like the rest. To be fair, these stores are more within my price range. If I wasn’t all whiny and tired and hurting, I might have taken more of an interest. We check it all out. With special attention to the electronics stores. While checking out a drone in Hammacher Schlemmer, Doug looks at me, farts loudly and says … “Planet Hollywood!”

Finally we’ve arrived at Spice Market. The Buffet.

Military discount or strobe lights? 

Military discount wins!!!  The people in front of us can’t decide where they want to sit. They take the hostess around the entire place pointing at different places and ruling them out. It takes them 20 minutes to pick a table. People with food piled high on two plates pass by in a hurry to their tables. I’d say something about them being able to go back for more instead of grabbing all the food at once, but I figure their feet might hurt and I think they’ve got a reasonable solution.

We get a table finally. Next to a table where a man has a plate filled with crab legs. The food is good. Or maybe it’s just the joy of being off my feet.

At another table, there are two woman in clothes one size too small. Leopard print leggings and lots of gold. Long lacquered nails. Bags by Louis Vinton and Predia or maybe Frendi and Guchi. Ankle boots with straps that cut into swollen feet and cankles bursting at the seams of the leggings. They talk with flourishes and hair whips. They scarf food trying to look elegant. Doug and I watch as they go back for several helpings. And then…at the end…..they start flossing their teeth at the table. One of them picks up the cloth napkin and blows her nose in it. Doug and I exchange looks of horror and shock.

The waitress yells at the busser for leaving too many unbussed tables. The busser yells at her in Spanish, mumbling under her breath behind her back as she rolls her eyes and throws up her arms.

We hobble back to the tram to Luxor. Full. The rest has done little to help my feet. 11.4 miles the days before. 11.9 miles today. 5.25 miles the first day.  It takes me three days to do a marathon. There’s a girl complaining about her feet on the tram. She shows her friends that they’ve taken 5000 steps. They ooh and ahh at how awesome they are. Doug looks at his phone. 24,639 steps. He’s hit a new record for the day. The tram also holds a family with a father who looks like he’s barely hit puberty. His wife/ mother of children/ nanny/ grandmother and he have 4 children. They are all wearing sandals. For some reason, I think they’re probably vegans. It must be the delirium setting in. Doug farts as we exit the tram and head back to the room, finishing our third day of vacation. 

Vegas Vacation Day 2 Impressions 3/23/16

3/23/16

Well, we want to try a buffet tonight in Vegas, so we don’t want to eat too much. Plus, we know we have to get back to our hotel in time for our Blue Man Group show. We elect the hotel café for a quick breakfast.  But oooh, they have hash!  And they have sourdough toast. We cannot pass these up. This is probably going to be a fulfilling day for food.

We decide to walk the Strip, our side, the one Luxor is on, so we can stay in the sun. It’s rather cold out and very windy. It’s nice not being in a hurry as we explore the huge hotels and the shops in them. Doug is good with checking out all the art gallery stores with me. The salespeople pounce on you when you enter and they follow you like you’re going to steal something. If only they knew that I don’t buy art for value or as an investment, I buy art when I like it---and that’s very few of the galleries I find. One that I really liked and so did Doug was a photographer named Rodney Lough Jr.; he’s got photos in the Smithsonian so you know we’re not the only ones who like him. The salesman actually talked to us like people rather than potential art thieves too. You should check out his website if you get a chance, his books and photographs were just stunning.  I’d love some of them in my house. The prices range from reasonable to never-gonna-happen.  Maybe one day I’ll get one.  We checked out Aria and The Cosmopolitan hotels, both new since either of us have been there, then we walked into the Bellagio because I’ve never seen the garden. The garden is filled with Japanese tourists using big tablets as cameras. By this time, we’re looking for restrooms, so why not hit the Bellagio restrooms.  They’re nice. They have heavy wooden doors on the stalls and real marble floors. This design makes for nice acoustics for the guy in the stall next to Doug’s who’s singing “Easy Lover.”

Further down the strip, the street performers appear. There’s a guy in Chuckie costume.  The costume has a fan in the head. There’s fat Elvis on a scooter.  There’s multiple Elvises (Elvi?) swapping money and one of them looks at the other and says in a heavy New York accent “I have a fucking headache today, Dude.” Darth Vader is short even with his huge platform shoes and his huge oversized head….seriously, the shoes add about 6 inches to him and he’s still shorter than Doug and I.

Finally, we reach the Fashion Show Mall.  All this time we’ve been dating and we’ve never been in a mall together (the Sandusky Mall apparently doesn’t count as a mall). We roam through the stores and wander into the “As Seen on TV” store.  While Doug looks, the clerk starts to talk. She tells me about living in Las Vegas and how the clubs are lame because she’s from New York and here in Las Vegas people just want to get drunk. Her allergies are bad today and all her friends in the mall tell her she sounds like Rosie Perez. When GaGa and Pitbull were in town at the same time, it was madness in Vegas. Even the shitty hotels way off the Strip were charping $500/night and the place was so full that police were trying to turn people away from the city at the airport. As we leave, Doug looks at me and says “What is it about you that people tell you everything?”  It’s a gift. We hit the Nike Store so I can buy a thin jacket because I’m cold.

After the weaving in and out of stores I am completely lost as far as direction. Usually I’m very good at it, but I think I’ve come to rely on Doug who is excellent at it. He has the sense of direction of a bloodhound. He leads us out of the Fashion Show Mall at the back and down a street. And Wah La…we are across the street from the Erotic Heritage Museum.

We cross the road and walk through the completely empty parking lot. There’s an open sign in the door though and we walk in. A tall girl with tats, dyed black hair, and horn-rimmed glasses greets us. I make sure Doug gets his military discount…haha! This discount thing is great. We explore dildoes and peep shoes and the dark circular room where about 8 screens are showing 8 different pornos at once. There’s Bill Clinton and Monica and the Star Wars porn parody. There’s art and historic erotic equipment that looks quite frightening.  Doug is checking out the peep show rooms and gives out a cry of surprise…he thought the dummy in one of the booths was a real person who was in there pleasuring himself. We giggle and laugh.  Too bad we won’t be around for the show “Puppetry of the Penis”….actually I don’t think Doug was upset about missing that show.

Back across the street to the mall again.  By this time, my feet are starting to hurt and I have a blister developing. We left the hotel at about 9 am…it’s now 2 pm, we haven’t stopped walking. And I’m kinda hungry. I only had toast afterall. We see Grimaldi’s pizza inside the mall. It was suggested. So we stop. We decide to get two personal pizzas and share.  Doug gets a white pizza with artichoke hearts, garlic, and ham. I get a regular red pizza with pepperoni, black olives, and garlic. The pizzas are huge…too big for us to eat. They’re coal fired brick oven and they’re awesome, but there’s so much left over. We decide to take some back to the room. We’re too full for a buffet now.

We walk back the same side, on the outside of the hotels this time. Doug gets stopped by a guy on the street who says “You guys smoke weed? I got some really good bud.”  I’m jealous, no one has ever offered me weed on the street. We take the shuttle from Excalibur to Mandalay Bay to Luxor.  A guy with two girls gets on.  The blonde girl is wearing 5 inch heels. The guy is telling her to sit down. He looks at us and says “Tell her to sit down.” I’m like “I’m not telling anyone to do anything.” Then I look at the girl and make a fist. “Girl power.” The blonde grins and nods in agreement.  “Yeah,” she says, “We have the strongest ankles of all the sexes.” Me: “Yes, all five of them.” We all laugh…good times. On the walk from the shuttle to our room, a fat 10-year-old points at Doug’s Star Wars shirt and says “cool shirt, Dude.”

We drop off the pizza, relax a little, and then head to Blue Man Group. As we’re going down in the elevator, a man in there with us tells us (well me) that his wife is claustrophobic and he’s going to the airport to pick her up right now. She’s not going to ride the elevator without him, he says. The elevators are too small. As we get off the elevator, Doug just looks at me and shakes his head. We stop at the sundry store and buy chapstick. The dry weather is bugging me. The clerk tells me about how awesome the show it and how we’ll enjoy it. She tells us that we can’t get discounts unless we gamble a lot, but it’s good that we don’t. Doug just shakes his head at me.

We get in line and watch people try to cut in line. We have good seats. I bought them months ago for Doug’s birthday. When we get in there, we find out just how good they are…we have a real danger of being picked to go on stage. We can practically reach out and touch the stage. We don’t get picked, thank goodness. Neither of us really want that. The show is awesome. As it ends, we all stand up. Some woman from the middle of the show, pushes past all of us, shoving us back as she gets out first; she leaves her husband behind as she tramples toes and knocks over old ladies.

After the show, we decide that we could eat a bite. We buy some souvenirs, then we head to the all night deli. There a man tells Doug that his shirt is awesome and starts to talk about the movie. The people in front of us can’t decide what they want and it takes them 15 minutes to order. Doug orders a four foot high pastrami and corned beef sandwich. I get onion rings and a hot dog. A guy is taste testing all the pop at the place where you fill your own cups. We get our food and head back up to the room. We want to sit in the big tub and much on dinner. Doug leaves the room to get pop at the pop machine. When he returns, he knocks on the wrong door.  The woman inside doesn’t open the door for him. 

We finish the day with dinner in the big soaking tub. It’s been a good second day.