well i’m back. I guess it’s time for the big write up. I forgot the order of some events so they might be off but here goes.
I got to Chicago on Sunday afternoon/night and went back to my aunt’s house in lincolnshire. Ran some errands, and then went out to dinner. We went into the city on Monday, didn’t do too much. We rented hedwig that night. Tuesday was off to Vegas. Eric (Carol’s husband) had booked us a limo to the airport so we didn’t have to drive and park LOL. It was like a 3 times stretch limo hahahaha. It was great. He tried to upgrade us to first class but they wouldn’t let him.
So we got to Vegas in the afternoon, checked into our hotel at the airport. The airport is wack, it’s got slot machines all over the place LOL. And it’s carpeted in some areas, which makes my crappy luggage totally un-roll-able. We caught a cab to Paris and found our room, got food etc. Our room looked down on the pool, and at the Eiffel Tower. So that was cool. From there we headed down the strip to check out the shows we were going to see. Next to Paris was Aladdin (which is apparently near bankruptcy). We made our way down to the MGM Grand, which is still the biggest hotel on the strip. We went inside there, because we wanted to see about George Carlin tickets. There is a lion habitat inside MGM Grand (and it’s free…the only free animal exhibit on the strip…Sigfried and Roy’s tigers cost money, so did Mandalay Bay’s sharks, and someone had dolphins). They actually have trainers that go inside the exhibit and throw things around and play with the lions, so they don’t just lay there and do nothing like at the zoo. So we watched them for a while, and walked around. The thing about all the casinos is that they take forever to get anywhere. They want you to walk through the casino and spend money and stuff, so nothing is straightforward. Signs don’t make sense, everything is spread out, and you just got lost. Some are worse than others. We found the box office and got our Carlin tickets for Wednesday night. Cuz of the jet lag stuff, we weren’t going to go to a show Tuesday night, I was super tired.
So from MGM grand we went across the street to the Tropicana where the Follys Bergere was. It’s like a classic Vegas showgirls kinda thing. Apparently it’s the longest running show in the US. So we were going to go to that Thursday, except that it didn’t play Thursdays. So we were going to skip it and do something else instead. Tropicana was fun, because it’s an older place. It smells like incense LOL. They have 1$ margaritas lol. They had this game called Lucky 20, you spend 20$ and get 50 credits in special slot machines. You can either win 50, 100, or 1000$ but if you don’t win cash, you get to pick a gift out of these showcases. And they weren’t totally lame gifts. So I did that, and got this 20 pound parrot glass that they sell at the bars with drinks in them (it’s huge, and soooo heavy) and a Tropicana T-shirt. We left Tropicana and out front was a free pull game to win a Mustang, and you can win other prizes. So I made my aunt do it, and turns out we won buy one get one free tickets to the Folly, so then we HAD to go hahah. Had to find our way back inside to find the promotions center to claim our prize. I don’t remember what we did after that, I think we went back to Paris, or got dinner or something.
So that night we went to the Follys show, which was cool. Singing and dancing and showgirls and stuff. We went to the 7pm one so that I wouldn’t fall asleep, so there was no nudity or anything hahah. The nudity shows were 10pm shows. They have a little intermission where this guy called Speedy Wally (or something, he has a website) came out and did this juggling show. He was hilarious, and really really worthy of the Speedy Wally name. After the show we went back to Paris and went in the Eiffel Tower to look out over the strip at night and take pictures and stuff.
Wednesday we went to Madame Tussauds at the Venetian. That rocked. I went to Rock Circus in London, and this is the same type of thing, but not all rockstars. This one had actors, musicians, and Vegas superstars (like Sinatra etc.). Took pictures with the statues and stuff. I molested Bono…haha. I think after that we stayed down on that end of the strip and went to Treasure Island, Caesar’s Palace, the Mirage and Bellagio. Treasure Island has a volcano that erupts all night, and they do a pirate fight or something. We didn’t see any of that cuz we went during the day. We didn’t really go into Caesar’s much. Wherever we were, there was this fountain with these crazy scary animated sculptures that came to life every half-hour or something. so frightening. hahah. The Mirage is where Sigfried and Roy perform. They had 1 of the white tigers (which wasn’t white…but it was the tiger you breed with to get the white tigers, or something) that you could see for free. But the dolphins (I just remembered, they had the dolphins) and Sigfried and Roy’s Secret Garden (rofl that’s just bad) you had to pay for, so we didn’t go. Bellagio was super nice. Not really a place for ppl my age, but my parents would like it. It was really really elegantly nice. They have this big lake in front of the hotel that has super fountains in it, that come on every hour or something, and do a performance to music. The fountains shoot water up super high, that’s why they’re super fountains LOL.
So um…Wednesday night was George Carlin back at MGM. There was an opening comedian too who was good, and then Carlin. Typical Carlin LOL. He was good. Filthy. My aunt seemed shocked, but um yeah… what the hell did you expect from him? She kept saying he’s normally more political…but he’s still always filthy so whatever. After Carlin I think we went to look up close at New York New York…In front there is a version of the Statue of Liberty, and 2 fire boats that shoot water out, and around the little pond thing is a railing. Well tons of people brought T-shirts from fire departments, and police stuff and other USA memorabilia and signs, and they are covering the entire railing around it, as a tribute to Sept 11th. It was actually really touching. Then we went to Excalibur, which is the whole King Arthur kind of deal. It’s a giant castle, really cool. And inside, is decorated like knights and stuff. They have a train to Luxor and Mandalay Bay (which we found out later after we walked all the way down to Luxor 😛 actually alot of the hotels that are grouped together by owner have trams and stuff…I think Paris had a monorail to someplace haha) Luxor was rad, of course. All Egyptian and stuff. It’s really nice inside. Carol got food at a Mexican restaurant inside, who’s bartender was from Rochester lol (but a Mexican restaurant in an Egyptian styled hotel?!?!). We caught the train thing back to Excalibur, and headed back to Paris for the night.
Thursday we went to New York New York, inside this time. Got these gigundous margaritas in statue of liberty glasses LOL. and I mean HUGE. I couldn’t finish it, it was like never ending. NYNY is really cool inside. It’s all modeled like Greenwich Village streets, and there’s a mini Times Square inside. You get to stay in the skyscrapers (some of them I guess). It’d be cool to stay there. Then we went to the Hard Rock Hotel, which is quite a ways off the strip, so we had to take a cab. It was cool. The casino isn’t that big, so you can walk around it and not get lost, while looking at the memorabilia. I guess the memorabilia are throughout the hotel part too, which we didn’t see, but it’s cool. I had a super bad headache, so we went back to Paris so I could take a nap, and my aunt went to read at the pool.
That night we went downtown to the old section of Vegas, which is what my vision of Vegas always was….tons of lights (not like the strip was lacking in lights tho hahah), the glowing cowboy thing, lots of neon etc. We went to the Golden Nugget for dinner, but didn’t end up eating there. I had an awful piece of pizza to tide me over til we found somewhere to eat, that wasn’t cooked…yeah, the dough was still raw. I think that’s what made me get food poisoning (more later). Ended up eating at Tony Roma’s in a different casino across the street. The main street, Fremont Street, has been sorta domed, and they do a light show every hour, to music and stuff. All the lights of the hotels turn off, so you can see the light show better. It was fun in a super cheesy kind of way LOL. So we went into the casinos down there, walked around. There was this fun place called the Bayou, which was modeled after the original in New Orleans. They gave out mardigras beads, and the inside was really cute. We went in the Golden Gate casino and Carol played single deck blackjack for like an hour, and only lost 30$…it was cool. If you want to make money, go to the old section, not the strip. After walking around more, we got a cab back to Paris. Our cab driver was this funny Korean man who proceeded to tell us why Koreans hate the Japanese, and how to make kimchi LOL.
Friday we didn’t do anything except eat breakfast, before we had to go to the airport. Got back to Chicago at 9pm, so didn’t do anything except get dinner LOL. Saturday went out with Carol and her friend to Lake Geneva, which is in Wisconsin. On the way there they stopped at a nursery to look at something, but ended up both buying this iron table set, table and 4 chairs (so 2 tables and 8 chairs)…which they had to get into her jeep Cherokee….they kept saying they’d fit, and the jeep isn’t THAT big. I sat in the car as they struggled with them. It was funny hahaha. Ended up having to tie one of the tables to the top of the jeep. Well by then I didn’t really feel good. We ate dinner up at the Lake, and I just had soup since I didn’t feel good – I figured it was my aunt’s driving lol. We walked around a bit, and I felt more sick. Left to go back home, felt more sick. Had to stop and puke on the side of the road LOL. I felt better, but by the time we got back to her house, felt sick again. But I had to laugh because…as if this wasn’t predictable if you know my aunt…we get to her house, open the garage door and continue to pull in the garage… until the CRUNCH of the table on the top of the car hitting the garage ROFLMAO. I laughed. It was so classic. Anyway…I was sick all night, puked like 4 times LOL. as if you needed to know that. Sunday brought Carol and her friend painting the chairs and trying to bend the table back into shape LOL. Then we went into Chicago drove around, got ice cream, and went to the airport for me to leave.
One of the days we went to Mandalay Bay…which was disappointing. I dunno, but to me, for a place in Vegas to be fun it needs some sort of gimmick, and they didn’t really have one. I’d rather stay in any of the other hotels than Manadalay Bay. But it’s supposed to be super popular among people my age…
random notes:
– it’s kinda funny how you can tell my tastes have changed since I went to Rock Circus in London… at Rock Circus tons of pics of MJ statue, posing with MJ…in Vegas…posing with Bono, didn’t even want to pose with their horrid MJ but I did LOL.
– you can’t cross the major streets in Vegas. You have to take escalators (outdoor escalators?!?!) to an overpass pedestrian bridge, and then back down escalators. it’s a good idea, but makes everything take forever.
– it was like 103-106 every day, but it wasn’t THAT bad. the heat radiates off of the pavement something fierce though.
– carolyn was right about the stepping over porn stuff. there are people up and down one stretch of sidewalk who hand out porn pamphlets to every male who walks by. and so then they are littered on the sidewalk. the first day i didn’t see any, but after that tons..guess they only clean the streets once a week or something lol. it’s only along one stretch of sidewalk on both sides of the street, because it’s against the law to do it in front of any of the resorts.
– and it’s against the law to sell spraypaint in the city of Chicago….lol
– i need to go pick up my last roll of film. not sure if the scanner works or not, so it might be a while before i have pictures up. if it works, i’ll try to scan them all tonight…all 4 rolls i took and 3 carol took….ok maybe it won’t get done tonight 🙂 – back from getting film. CVS screwed my pics up. not sure how much of what is wrong is due to the speed of film i used, while taking night pics, and how much is them. alot is them, because they completely cut pics off in the wrong places and shit…arg. so taking them back later after my dad looks at them, and try to get my money back. some definitely didn’t come out on the negative correctly, like my statue of liberty one so that’s ok that it looks like crap, but theres no reason most of my pics should look like crap just cuz i was on 400 speed, when my aunt used 400 speed and hers looked fine (and my camera is way better than hers)…arg.
– and i washed the hedwig shirt carolyn made for me, and all the glitter washed off in like…big clumps… it’s weird.
