I am home, finally! Here is a recap of the past two days in Vegas. Photos will come tomorrow probably.

Day 2 began with Nica and I waking up. I woke up early, like at 6:30 Vegas time which is 9:30 my time. I tried my best to go back to sleep, but by 7:30 I was on the PC trying to do soap page stuff I said I wasn’t going to do (Nica was asleep and I was not wandering off on my own).

Eventually we headed to Hamburger Mary’s for lunch/breakfast/whatever. We had one of these in Philly, but it closed. I love their burgers so we went their, Nica was impressed too. Afterwards we looked down the street and realized the hotel didn’t look too far away and it only took a minute in the cab. We thought we could walk it. As we do we finally realize we had been saying “Oh that doesn’t” look too far a lot the previous day. Everything is really far in Vegas even though it doesn’t look it.

This is about the time my brand new Pumas are hurting me, I mean hurting. Blister city has begun. I now figured out why everyone was wearing flip flops. (It doesn’t occur to me until the next day to actually GET flip flops!)

That day we walked around and looked at other Casinos. Walked up to the MGM Grand. Aside from being green like the Emerald City, I was surprised it wasn’t more ozish inside. Madonna is advertised on the big screen every 2 minutes there and on ever TV inside the hotel cause she’s playing there in May.

Went to the World of M&Ms, wasn’t all that impressed but whatever.

Went to over to New York New York. Saw the rollercoaster, decided my stomach did not want to be on that. I had been feeling fine until after I had the giant cheeseburger. Uhg . . . .
Went over to Excalibur, which is where we were originally going to stay. Glad we didn’t, way too many small children! Plus we sat down at a bar like area in the middle of the floor and I ordered a ginger ale and had to show my ID, why I don’t know. The first time he asked I thought he said it by mistake, but no. He wouldn’t give me a soda without my ID. Okay dude.

At this point we are thinking a nap could be good. We go back to the Aladdin and decide if we take a nap we won’t get back up. We bummed around till my friend from the cruise joined us. We decided to go out for dinner. I am not putting on my tennis shoes as they are killing my feet. I figure my dress shoes are a lot looser, so I’ll wear those. Shoe mistake number two. My dress shoes are cheap thirty dollar Payless shoes. They look nice, they don’t feel nice. I bought cheap because I wear them once a year for formal dinner on the cruises, which usually lasts all of two hours. Walking for hours in Vegas in them, bigger mistake than the brand new tennis shoes. Before my next trip I will NOT be cheap and buy good dress shoes.

For dinner we tried PF Changs in the hotel, but they had an hour and a half wait. We walk down to Ceaser’s Palace cause they have a Cheesecake Factory, an hours wait. We are starving at this point and end up at Wolfgang Puck’s Chinoise Fusion, only a ten minute wait (though they told us thirty). It was good, I enjoyed it. Much better than my Hollywood Spago’s experience years earlier.

We take a cab back to the hotel, change, then head up to the MGM Grand for Studio 54. Get there around 10:20, wait in a long ass line. I mean a LONG ASS line. At this point we begin to realize Vegas is about waiting, or at least making sure there is a line so some place looks REALLY REALLY GOOD. Because if your in a line, people walking by will ask you what your in line for. After being asked for the umpteenth time I wanted to say I don’t know, I saw a line and just decided to get in it.

We get into Studio 54 after about 30 minutes in line, it’s pretty much empty inside! This confirms our opinion, they just wanted a line outside. The music is pretty good, 70s and 80s music, so we get some drinks, walk around, look at the photos, watch the dancers. Eventually we dance to a few songs, something we don’t know comes out so we sit it out. Oops! Mistake! We get another drink and the music begins to change to more of a modern hip-hop flavor. It never went back. It did get very crowded, and everyone kept standing around on the dance floor. If you like that music I’m sure you’ll love Studio 54, I wasn’t that into it. I liked the music earlier on though.

I’ll give them props for the dancers, for trying to remake all the original fun little effects like the lowering moon with a girl on it, the disco ball that lowers to right above the floor, the girls on the trapeze and stuff like that. However God forbid anyone who actually went to the original Studio 54 ever showed up there, they would probably wonder what happened. I do hope Steve Ruebell got a hell of a lot of money for selling his trademark and rights away to the name and feel of the club.

At Studio 54 we also learn that VIP probably stands for “Very Idiotic People.” Why would you pay all that money for VIP treatment? Oooooo you skip the line, Ooooooo you sit on a cushy sofa in the club 10 feet away from the other non VIP peoples. What is that? You still have to pay for the 1000 dollar bottle of Crystal? Sorry folks, unless you’re actually famous, your not really a VIP or getting the VIP treatment. Save your money, don’t pay to be a VIP at the clubs. I can’t see how it is worth it at all. That is unless you want to be able to look across a velvet rope and say “Look I’m over here and you’re not.”

At this point Nica and I are thinking . . . . the night is young, let’s go back to Krave. My friend from the cruise was like “Sure I’ll go.” We end up at Krave and have big fun. It was fetish night so the strippers all have leather bondage gear on and stuff written all over them, dirty stuffs. Gave out some dollars and watched another stage show. This time the show was some guy was hanging from those silk ropes from the ceiling and doing all the spinning stuff they do, I don’t know if the actual act has a name or not. It’s very “Cirque de Soliel” though. Eventually we head back to our hotels.

Nica and I get in at 2am, she says we are weak because we made it till 3 last night. We go down the casino, and this is when I decide to be a big spender and put 20 dollars into a dollar slot machine. Vrooooooom! Just like the movie it was gone in sixty seconds. Learned my lesson there. We bum around till 3am then head to bed. Originally I wanted food, but guess what, at 3am there was a damn line at the 24 hour Zanzibar restaurant in the hotel. Forget that, and I didn’t feel like waiting in a virtual 1 hour line for room service.

Sunday I actually got to really sleep in, which unfortunately I think became my undoing that day. If I sleep past 10am, I am tired all day and get a headache usually. I was tired all day, fortunately no head ache!

That morning I went out to find us show tickets for that night for something new to do. I thought I was getting tickets to “La Cage Aux Folles” the Broadway production, but no this was “La Cage” the female impersonation show. I figured oh well, it should be fun anyways. I’ve heard most Broadway shows in Vegas are shorted to 90 minutes anyways cause 2 and a 1/2 hours is too much time away from gambling or something like that. I guess in Vegas people get really short attention spans. For about 10 seconds at the ticket booth I actually considered getting Celine tickets, just to say I saw her in Veags (even though I hate her.) I decided she wasn’t worth it. On the way back I finally pick up flip flops for my feet.

Nica is now up, so we head out to get lunch. This time we ended up at Cheeseburger Las Vegas. Gosh guess what happens, the cheeseburger doesn’t sit well with me. I’m deciding at this point it will be a long long time before I eat a cheeseburger again, and in fact this trip may be enough to make me go vegetarian again.

We bummed around the Aladdin most of the day until getting into a cab to go down to the Riviera to pick up the show tickets. We bum around that area, go into Circus Circus and the Adventure Dome. Still don’t feel like doing any coasters, oh well, maybe the next trip.

Circus Circus and the Riviera were unfortunately pretty dumpy compared to the hotels at the other end of the strip. I’m guessing this is were people stay in Vegas after their third or forth time, cause they lost too much money the first few trips! Oh yeah we also went into “Slots of Fun” for the hell of it. That’s were we saw some guy walk in with a FADED pastel polyester suit and a black eye. Oh dear! Somebody couldn’t pay their debt somewhere.

We go see “La Cage,” which was quiet humorous and funny. The guy who did Cher and Celine Dion was great! As our host Joan Rivers put it, “Here is the fabulous Celine Dion for what you should have paid to see the bitch, you better thank me cause I just saved you three hundred dollars.” They guy who played them really had them down, I mean it was hilarious. The guys who did Britney Spears and J-Lo were scary good looking woman, better than the actually real female back-up dancers! J-lo was in the process of becoming woman though, I saw her walking through the lobby earlier (not in her J-lo costume) and knew she wasn’t born a woman. She was swinging her hips far too much, something that has been pointed out to me by real women as “overcompensating.”

After the show we hop into a cab. Our driver was “Chip.” Chip had this odd thing hanging on his rear view mirror, it looked like a camera and a microphone. Chip kept asking us questions. “So what did you do? Where are we going? What did you do last night? What didn’t you like about Studio 54? Where are you from?” Nica didn’t pick up on it, I thought we had found a Taxi Cab Confessional! However we weren’t drunk, therefore we weren’t exciting. He didn’t ask us to sign any waver at the end of the ride, so maybe either we didn’t cut it or he wasn’t one. Hell, maybe it was a camera and he was playing Amatuer Taxi Cab Confessional hoping to film something good.

I would have loved to gone out dancing again that night, but I knew it was NOT a good idea. Too tired, stomach not feeling well, had to fly home the morning. We ended up just hanging out at the Aladdin that night playing slots. That’s where I became a big winner on “The Price Is Right!” My next cruise is going to be problematic, I will be looking for that machine on the ships casino!

After three to four days in Las Vegas, I was so ready to leave the place. While fun, I am over it for now.

Things I didn’t do that I said I would . . . .

1) Ride a coaster
2) See a “Showgirls” like show (I decided it would probably just be like the boring shows on the cruises, but with boobies)
3) Get a lap dance

There is always next time! Two local friends are still planning on going later this summer, and I’m invited. However Nica and Fran from the chat are going to New Orleans in July, and I want to go with them too. I don’t know, too many vacation options in one summer! I will have to see how far I’ve gotten with school work before both trips. If I want to finish by fall, I can’t have too many vacation distractions (though I can always rationalize them by saying they are just extended weekends lol). I also know once I’m finally done with school, I won’t have chances like these to go away anymore so often.

Oh yeah . . . as we were leaving the hotel guess who we saw? David Fucking Hasslehoff! He was walking some old man across the street in the valet area and helped him into a taxi. I don’t know if he knew the guy or he was just pulling a “Baywatch.” I had to turn and say “Was that David Hasslefhoff?” Nica was like where? The woman behind me said it was. Later Nica saw him as he walked up to the hotel. David Hasslehoff is Jolly Green Giant HUGE! He also looked TERRIBLE! He looked old as dirt, he had on the worst beige suit I had seen and either he had way too much foundation and rouge on or he needs to stop the fake bake tanning. Still, that was my one “Star Sighting” in Vegas.

Dustin