Day One - March 24, 2005 - Vegas Bound

Okay. I know it’s not like we were on the Amazing Race or anything like that, but I seriously thought that one back pack was more than enough. We were only going to be away four days and what’s a bad smell or two when you’re among best friends?

Aaron kept looking at me and Flo like we were nuts, hefting around our straining back packs.

He and Jen had been a little more sensible, opting for carry-on luggage and totes.

“It’s not like we’re going to be carrying the bags around with us,” Aaron pointed out. “We can leave them in the hotel, you know.”

In an attempt to avoid any potential Thursday morning rush hour jam, we found ourselves arriving at Terminal 3 insanely early --- so early that there wasn’t even anyone at the check-in booth for America West.

Passing through customs, a shrivelled-up old woman eyed Flo and I warily when we started to walk past her together.

“Are you two family?”

“Yes.”

She looked at us like we were lying.

“You two live in the same house?” (Said in an incredulous tone.)

“Yes.”

“You sure?” (Speaking slowly now like we’re recently landed immigrants, fresh off the boat, who don’t understand a word of English.)

“Yes.”

Flo and I looked at each other like, “What the hell? Don’t we look like we’re sisters?”

“Okay,” she said slowly, eyebrows all knit together and a suspicious look stitched on her face, still. She held up both hands like she was washing them clean and didn’t want to bear any responsibility if we ended up being detained.

The bored customs official simply told us not to get into too much trouble while in Vegas.

Flo was the only one who had her bag rifled through, which she was a little annoyed with.

“I guess you’re the only one of us looks like a terrorist,” I told her.

We got to the waiting area and Aaron pulled out his little walkie talkie set he’d bought the other day. He wanted us to try them out and I reluctantly agreed to take it with me when I went to the washroom.

“Let me here you tinkle,” he joked.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when the static hiss of the walkie talkie let out this really loud noise, accompanied by Aaron asking, “Can you hear me? Over.”

I covered it with the palm of my hand, but Aaron’s insistent voice cackled through, loud and clear.

“Would you quit it?” I hissed, forgetting to say “over”.

“Would you answer, then? Over,” Aaron replied.

“I’m at the washroom. Quit it.”

I’d driven Flo nuts, sounding like a broken record by debating whether or not they’d feed us on the 5 hour flight to Phoenix.

“It’d be, like, inhumane to trap us on a plane for that long and not feed us,” I told them.

Aaron shrugged. He’d brought Chinese buns because of Flo’s warnings about not expecting to be fed.

He kept trying to palm them off on us, but nobody was really in the mood for eating yet.

With too much time to kill, we started gazing around the waiting area. There was a guy sitting not too far away that Aaron and Flo both found cute. They handed Jen a camera and asked her to take a picture of them in the waiting area --- mostly to get the cute guy in the shot.

You’d think this was a pretty simple thing to do, but the guy was eating a salad and it was like every time Jen got ready to take a shot, he had his mouth hanging open. And trying to get a clear shot of him also meant that half the pictures were missing most of Aaron’s face.

“Maybe we should have waited until he was finished eating,” Aaron suggested afterwards.

While we were sitting there, waiting, Aaron realized that, though he’d brought a water bottle, he hadn’t bothered to fill it with any water. But hey, at least he remembered to bring a bottle. I’d forgotten mine at home.

Martin and his friends didn’t come until much later. We didn’t have any real plans to hang out with the boys, who’d signed up for a number of poker tournaments and who’d brought along $1,000 each to basically donate to the casinos.

Flo had wanted to sit with Martin on at least one of the flights because it seemed like the only time they’d be spending any sort of quality time together would be either on the plane or in the airport.

“Sure, you can sit with him on the second flight into Vegas,” Aaron offered generously.

It took Flo a minute to catch on that she and Martin would actually be on two separate flights at that point.

Waiting around at the airport gets dull real fast.

Aaron and I decided to take a little stroll.

Jen commented that Aaron was quite the “looker.”

Aaron looked confused. “Do you mean the noun or the verb?”

“The verb.”

What she meant was that Aaron was constantly scoping out the guys --- always looking around.

Jen said she might wind up a “looker”, too, after spending too much time with us.

A lot of the guys we looked at fell into Aaron’s “good from far, far from good” category.

When we got onto the plane, we found ourselves sitting right next to the emergency hatch --- which was really convenient in case I got stir crazy and decided I couldn’t take being cooped up anymore and needed to jump out of the plane.

Seriously, though, the best thing about sitting next to the emergency hatch (aside from being able to get off the damn plane if it should suddenly go down) is the extra leg room.

You know what’s amazing?

Jen’s ability to fall asleep under any condition. I mean, I thought I was pretty good at that considering a moving vehicle, in general, is the equivalent of being injected with some potent sedative, but I think she might have an actual talent that surpasses my own.

It turns out they do offer food on the flight --- only, it’s a ridiculously jacked-up prices. When Martin told us that he’d paid $5 for a measly sandwich, I could only shake my head in disbelief.

What the hell is this world coming to?

The flight was 4 hours and 21 minutes long, but it didn’t really feel all that long. I thought I’d be able to skip the ordeal of having to pee on the plane, but after awhile, it got to be too much. I felt like my bladder would explode if I didn’t haul ass and make my way to the back.

There was this really cute guy waiting in line, making idle chit chat with a young boy. Aaron gave me this look and gave me a subtle two thumbs up, which made me laugh.

We landed at Phoenix around 1:20 and got to stretch our legs out a bit while we waited for our connecting flight.

Jen and I really went all out, spending the big money, by getting bottles of water that cost $2.80 (!). I mean, that’s just fucking ridiculous. You’d think the water had magical properties or something.

Aaron was better prepared than the rest of us. He had a Ziploc bag full of chocolates and candies, which we were more than willing to help him finish. Flo and I had only brought crappy granola bars, which I wasn’t really in the mood to eat.

The guys were on another connecting flight and we wondered who’d be the first group to make it out of the airport and arrive there, even though they were technically supposed to leave at the same time. Jim joked it was a bit like the Amazing Race.

When they called our flight, I couldn’t help but smirk a little.

The second flight from Phoenix to Vegas was a little over an hour, but I still managed to go out like a light. What else was there to do? At one point, I was talking to Jen, but it was like, literally, within the span of a few seconds, she was conscious one moment and the next moment, she was passed out and there I was, talking to myself.

It was kind of exciting, being able to see the Strip as the plane landed. I could see the Luxor in the distance and I whacked Jen on the arm to wake her so she’d be able to see, too.

Do you want to know how crazy it is in Vegas? They actually have slots in the airport.

No.

I’m not joking.

We tried taking several dozen pictures, so dazzled by the novelty of having slots in the airport, but the key was to find some way of proving that we were in the airport. And finally, I came up with this idea for actual photographic proof:

As we made our way out towards the baggage claims area, there was a lot to take in. Everywhere you looked, there seemed to be a lot going on. But I guess that’s the whole nature of being in Vegas. There were widescreen monitors and gigantic ads and crowds of people clogging up all available space.

At the baggage claims area, there was this little old lady who checked every single damn bag that came out. Like, what the hell? Couldn’t she remember what her bag looked like? I could understand if it’s a black bag that looks pretty much like everyone else’s, but she checked every single bag.

Weird.

Freezing and Shaking In Las Vegas

When we left Toronto, there was still snow on the ground and it was pretty damn cold. We’d simply assumed it’d be warm enough to walk around in shorts and skimpy tank tops when we got to Vegas --- I mean, it’s in the desert, right?

Let me tell you: it was cold.

While we weaved our way out towards the shuttle bus area to wait for our ride onto the strip, we were huddled together, with our knees knocking together and our teeth gnashing from violent shivering.

It was just as bad as being in Toronto, despite the sunshine --- which was a relief, considering the weather forecast had called for rain.

Of course, the shuttle bus took forever to arrive. We stood there for at least 10 to 15 minutes, just standing there. And when a bus finally came, it picked up a whole bunch of people who hadn’t bothered to wait in line, which pissed the hell out of the old Australian couple standing in front of us.

We were staying at the Boardwalk. Never heard of it? Yeah, me neither. It’s this little rinky-dink building that’s between the Monte Carlo and the Bellagio. It’s the kind of cruddy building that you could blink and miss ‘cause it’s so tacky-looking from the outside.

I was a little embarrassed when the driver pulled up, knowing we’d be the only ones getting off --- but who cares? A hotel is a hotel. If it’s got a bed and it looks relatively clean, then what more could you ask for?

The concierge looked at me a little puzzled when he cleared his throat and said, “Just to confirm. It’s just one room with two beds.”

“Yes.”

“Just two single beds?”

“Yes.”

“Four people?” he asked, holding up four fingers, like I couldn’t count.

“Yes.”

“Two single beds?” he asked again.

I was starting to look at the others, a little confused.

“You know, you could upgrade to a queen-sized bed. It’d be more comfortable,” the concierge suggested. “It’s only $10 extra per day.”

“Okay. Okay,” I told the guy, thinking, “Just give me my damn key already.”

When we made our way up to the ninth floor, we pushed open the door to find a musty, but otherwise serviceable room. It was like any old Holiday Inn --- which, by the way, is the outfit that owns the Boardwalk.

Can you imagine what the single beds would have been like to sleep on?

There was a pretty nice view of the New York, New York hotel and the MGM Grand in the distance.

It was right about now that Aaron discovered he was missing his return tickets. He was lounging in bed when he picked up Jen’s ticket and noticed he didn’t have two tickets still in his book like she did.

Jen said she hadn’t even checked, but I was pretty meticulous about that thing, thumbing through, making sure I had everything.

Jen and I kept asking him if he was sure he didn’t have it stuffed somewhere else --- like maybe his bag? But he was insistent that he didn’t have it in there. He was convinced that the ticket agent either didn’t send him a return ticket when he got the name changed on it or that the woman at the check-in counter had forgotten to hand it back to him.

After quite a bit of time calling Expedia to find out what we should do, Aaron reached into his bag to find his return tickets right where I’d suggested he look in the first place.

It took us awhile to get our stuff together and actually leave the room.

It was too cold for Jen and I to even consider changing into the skirts we’d brought for the two shows we planned on seeing. Rather than change, we opted to go in what we were wearing.

But we doubled back to the room to first get Aaron’s camera and then to grab our skirts and stuff them into our bags just in case we were denied entrance.

I didn’t really think they’d do that, though. It’s not like we were paying a visit to the Vatican or anything like that.

When we finally made it out of the Boardwalk, it was still relatively light out. We headed up north with Jen and I taking long strides ahead of Flo and Aaron who were lagging behind, stopping often to take pictures and looking every bit like all the other tourists that were clogging the streets.

Our first pit stop was the Bellagio, which was actually where Aaron’s friend, Peter, would be staying. Aaron told him we’d be in the crummy hotel next door to it.

As we stepped onto the moving walkway in the public thoroughfare, it slowly sunk in that we were here. The strip was so alive --- which I know sounds weird, but I guess when you’re coming from the usual routine of everyday life in Toronto and you’re heading into work or coming home on the TTC staring at the same listless faces day in and day out while under the umbrella of what seems like a perpetual winter, it’s hard not to feel the difference between the two places.

When you walk into the hotel lobby, you look up and find the ceiling adorned with 2,000 hand-blown glass flowers.

The lobby leads directly into the botanical gardens, which has a different display for every season and major holiday. It was kind of obvious that the current theme would be spring. (Duh. What else would the theme be?)

The scent of the flowers were overwhelming --- but in a good way. Hey, I might not get flowers on a regular basis, but I know enough that most of the bouquets that you’ll get on your token holidays are relatively fragrance-free ---- until they start to rot, that is. Then, it’s a whole different story.

As we made our way out of the botanical garden, we came across this chocolate store, where there was a really cool display of chocolate rivers flowing through the case.

We paused for a moment to watch a woman making crepes and then wandered around to peer outside at the pool. I wanted to go outside, but checking out the time (or rather, asking Aaron for the millionth time what time it was because he was the only one who’d bothered to change it back three hours), we figured we’d better start thinking about getting a bite to eat.

Flo and I had drawn up an itinerary before we left, but of course, everything was now up in the air and we decided to just go with the flow.

Initially, we’d planned on grabbing a quick, cheap bite to eat at Caesar’s Palace before catching the Celine show.

You know what’s a time waster? All the pedestrian thoroughfares ---- elevators that lead you up to walkways that bridge over the main streets.

Ever think that the 401 back home is crazy? Well, it’s nuts here, too --- and we’re just talking the regular roads.

At Caesar’s Palace, they’ve got a lot of patios. Because of the weather, they actually had the heaters going and it would have been nice to just sit there for awhile and get all toasty and warm.

Walking through the maze of pathways, we saw a huge poster with Bobby Flay’s grinning face beaming at us. We figured we might as well go there.

If it wasn’t so damn cold outside, I think I would have liked to explore the outside of Caesar’s Palace a little bit more. But in the rapidly dimming twilight, it was feeling colder and colder.

You know what was weird? They had a Buddhist-type alter! Weird!

Unlike the Bellagio, there was a certain kitsch factor to Caesar’s Palace. Everything’s a little over-the-top with all the faux-marble, cookie-cutter replicas of famous statues.

But kitsch in Vegas can be good --- if not mandatory.

It takes awhile to catch on that every casino basically looks the same ‘cause if you’ve never been to Vegas before, it’s easy to take a look down the strip and see all these huge, different buildings and think there’s gotta be more to it inside. But when you get right down to it, even though you might be in a different building, it’s still just rows and rows of slot machines and blackjack dealers and poker tables.

Walking around the casino and hotel can take a lot longer than you’d expect. And it’s pretty easy to get lost in one, too.

As we walked around and around, looking for a place to eat, it seemed like we were walking in circles.

When we finally found the Bobby Flay bar and grill, we took one look at the menu and realized we were dead wrong about being able to find a reasonably priced place to eat at Caesar’s Palace. The entrees cost upwards of $30 each and there were already crowds of people lining up.

We were all hungry --- they didn’t feed us on the plane, remember? And all we’d had at the airport were some of Aaron’s candies --- and none of us were in the mood to wander around endlessly.

Flo remembered that the Fodor’s guidebook said the Imperial Palace had a reasonably priced buffet. It was right across the street, so we decided to make our way there.

We crossed the street to the Imperial Palace, which is supposed to be this Asian-themed casino and hotel, but it wasn’t really any better than the Boardwalk. The little “Asian” touches were almost laughable --- two brass lions sat near the casino entrance. I’d seen greasy Chinese restaurants run by white people in small town America look more Asian than this.

We made our way through a maze-like setting of casino tables, trying to find the Imperial buffet, which was on an upper floor.

It turns out that, in a lot of these places, you pay up front before you’re seated. Aaron took a look at the prices and asked if we really wanted to spend $15 on a buffet.

Jen was too hungry to care at this point.

The show didn’t start until 8:30 p.m., so we had some time to kill after dinner --- which was okay. I didn’t stuff myself senseless like I normally would at a buffet. To be honest, I was a little disappointed with myself. I figured I’d make a bigger dent at the buffet tables.

We decided to stroll up the strip before crossing the street and making our way back to Caesar’s Palace, which had this place called the Forum Shops --- where a serious lack of funds would make it impossible to do any sort of shopping there.

The key word we were on the lookout for was “free.” Right before the trip, I’d actually found this site called “Cheapo Vegas” where they listed all sorts of free things to do there. They had this link to a hilarious site which claims it’s actually possible to eat for free while in Vegas.

It said, “Whoever said corporations are greedy never heard about Mandalay Bay Resorts. At some point during the day, players get small, flavourless sandwiches. In the morning they give out free donuts to slot players, or people impersonating slot players, if you get our drift.”

Jen had looked at me sceptically when I told her this. She was probably envisioning us all being airlifted home from severe food poisoning.

Okay, so, we’d skip the free eats, but we’d definitely make it a point to check out as much as possible on our list of “Free Things to Do.”

At the Mirage, there was Siegfried and Roy’s white lion habitat, where we could check out lions just like the one that mauled Roy. (Or was it Siegfried? I don’t remember.)

It was actually kind of boring, ‘cause the lion was just lying there, sleeping.

That’s the problem with free things --- they’re really not that great.

Like the volcano show that runs every 15 minutes in front of the hotel? You hear a bit of rumbling as the “volcano” lights up and fire spews upwards of 100 feet.

It kind of looks like a huge pot that’s boiled over.

We didn’t stop with the specific purpose of watching the “show”. I think we were on our way out and headed back to Caesar’s Palace when the volcano erupted.

Seriously, the rumbling was so terrifying that people were ducking and running for cover. (If you couldn’t pick up on the sarcasm there, something’s wrong with you.)

Like a zit ready to explode, the water lights up and then --- KA-POW!

It was so cold outside that any excuse to stand near something warm --- even if it was a controlled fired --- was a good one. Hell, I would have leapt inside the volcano if I wasn’t feeling so drained.

Even though there was still a lot to see and do, we decided it was probably a good idea to head back to Caesar’s Palace.

The thing about the Vegas Strip is that, while everything looks really close together, it’s not.

The hotels are large. You might be able to see the hotel next door and you might even think it’s not that far, but when you start walking towards it, it kind of dawns on you that it really isn’t.

We ducked into the Forum Shops, where they trick you with the allure of a cool free attraction like the “moving statues”.

The statues? They don’t move. You take a spiralling escalator and because you’re moving, the statues are supposed to look like they’re moving, too.

Except that they don’t.

I have to admit that it was really nice in there, though. I’d never buy anything there, of course, but it was kind of nice to walk around in --- if only my feet weren’t ready to be amputated.

The stupid thing was that we went up that escalator and kept looking around, trying to find those “moving statues”, not clueing into until much, much later that there weren’t any moving statues --- that the signs were totally misleading. And you know what really sucked? The escalators that led back to the first floor weren’t working, so we had to walk all the way back down.

Las Vegas at night is so alive that it’s easy to think you could probably go 24 hours straight without any sleep. With all the bright lights and tourists still out, roaming the street with drinks in hand and gaudy beads around their necks, the last thing you want to do is head back to the hotel --- ‘cause you feel like you might wind up missing something.

The Fabulous Ms. Dion

Somewhere along the way, Celine Dion started to get a little cheesy. Maybe it was that gaudy, over-the-top second wedding to ol’ gramps. Or maybe it’s the all-too-frequent air play on Canadian FM or the chest thumping theatrics in every show.

Say what you will, but that woman knows how to put on a show.

From the minute she first appears on the stage, singing “A New Day”, it’s hard not to be blown away by it all --- everything from the stage, featuring the world’s largest indoor LED screen with shifting images of city skylines and brilliant starry skies to the 59 performers in choreographed routines reminiscent of some of the stuff you’d see in a Cirque du Soleil show.

In the 4,000-seat Coliseum, we were sitting pretty high up. It felt like every time we made our way up one flight, we were directed by the ushers to head up yet another floor.

But the strange thing is, no matter where you’re sitting, it’s still a great view. In some ways, it was even better to be sitting up high enough to take in everything. (Except for the small fact that when Celine walks out, she looks like a little GI Joe figure strutting across the stage.)

A couple of times, they had to zoom in on her and it was only then that you had a real sense of, “Wow. She’s actually there on that stage.”

You know how some artists sound really bad live? Or how they’ll start off strong, but then you can hear the cracks beginning to seep through as the night wears on?

Not so with Celine. She’s got an amazing set of pipes and it’s enough to send shivers down your spine when you first hear her singing something familiar like, “Power of Love”.

Okay, I admit it: there were a couple of moments where my head started to feel like an anvil supported by a toothpick and my eyelids were like Venetian blinds, ready to snap shut at any second.

Aaron and Jen, on the other hand, were sitting right on the edge of their seats, eagerly leaning forward and clapping enthusiastically.

There was this one woman in the back, who kept howling, “Ai ya ya ya ya!” like some Mexican bandito in a really bad western after every single damn song. It got to the point where I wanted to crawl over the seats and wring her neck.

Holy cripes.

Aaron actually bought water at the concert --- $5 water. Later, when I was waiting with him to pick out a souvenir, there was this guy selling more bottled water.

“Get your water here! Direct from Montreal! Drink it and you’ll sound just like Celine!”

As we made our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Bellagio again to see if we could wait things out and see the dancing fountain show. And after hanging around for a few minutes, we saw the first spout of water.

They call it a water ballet and I actually think it’s a pretty good way to describe the whole thing. It’s strange, but the one thing I kept thinking was how graceful everything looked.

At night, everything looks so pretty.

Don’t laugh, but I can actually see why people would want to get married here.

You want to know what the weird thing is? Even though we saw lots of couples in wedding garb at the various hotels, I didn’t see a single tacky chapel --- not like the ones you’d see in bad sitcoms.

I half-expected to see them on every street corner, sort of like the way we have Tim Horton’s on every corner back home --- that and Korean or Asian churches.

I think it was close to midnight by the time we made it back to the hotel --- so, it was about 3 a.m. Toronto time. And we still had to be up around 5:30 the next morning for Grand Canyon trip.