Shadan’s Travelogue #2 | VegasBabyVegas

VegasBabyVegas – Dec. 22-26

All I can say is Las Vegas is the most over-the-top place I’d been to… Everything looks and feels fake, but it doesn’t pretend to be anything else – the extravagance and flamboyance all seems on purpose… In that sense, I wasn’t disappointed in my expectations of the place and just went with the flow to enjoy myself to the max… Vegas is the city of lights at nighttime (sorry, Paris!) and The Strip is an amazing sight (recommended view: on the balcony at the Mix Lounge on the top floor of THEhotel at Mandalay Bay)… We did the compulsory hotel-hopping and my favorites turned out to be “Paris” and “New York, New York”… Call me biased, but why they haven’t made a London themed hotel is beyond me 😉 … Another thing you do when in Vegas is go see a show… Our chosen one was an evening with the one and only magician David Copperfield… I was really hoping he’d pick me from the crowd to make me disappear, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. What did happen, though, and right in front of our eyes too, was the appearance on the stage of a full size car out of NOWHERE!

5AM Poker with John Malkovich!

What is a trip to Vegas without some good old gambling?! From slot machines to roulette tables, I tried them all – win some, lose some… The highlight of my activities was a late night stint at one of the poker tables at Luxor… The evening started off with a mixed group of people, some nice, some not, but all entertaining… Well, I outlived them all and ended up playing until the wee hours of the morning… By around 3am, the only girl in the entire area was yours truly, much to the amazement and admiration of all the big-shot guys there… My name went in the casino books when I declared a Carré and got claps all around, heh! I knew it was time to leave when the average age of the players around my table went to about 55 and a John Malkovich type of character decided to join us (for those of you who have seen the movie “Rounders”, this makes perfect sense!).

Just one last thing: out of all things I did during the first part of my trip, I’ve chosen only bits and pieces to include on my blog… As the saying goes, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas… 😉

S

Shadan’s Travelogue #1 | Nightmare at LAX

Nightmare at LAX – Dec. 21

After what seemed like the longest flight with the worst migraine, I finally arrived at LAX and, guess what? My suitcase wasn’t there!!! Yep, no bag, no nothing on the carousel after an hour-long wait. Turns out (get this) the airline decides to pull the bags off smaller planes to balance the weight during flight without telling the poor owners such as myself! Well, that was the first any of us had heard of this – pretty ridiculous, eh? Anyway… off to Pasadena I went and lasted 24 hours before going back to the airport to collect my suitcase which finally made it to LA from Toronto.

Whew! Now I can say: Vegas, here I come!

S