Vegas Baby!
I'll just summarize my not writing lately to this: I don't really know why I haven't been writing, and I apologize. Too much has happened to put in one post, but that's good news for you: I'll be putting those online bit by bit over the coming two weeks. For now, I'll just tell you about my past weekend, in Vegas with Dad.
The thing is, Dad works in Houston every once in a while, and even before I went to L.A., he proposed 'hopping over' sometime. Not really realizing that he would have to hop 1400 miles (+/- 2200 km). He did finally do it this weekend, and vegas was our destination. We drove, of course, in an SUV, a white jeep, because as he says, in America, you have to do as the americans do (plus, he kinda likes big cars).
It took us about two hours to get away from L.A., friday traffic being friday standing still, but after that the ride was pretty smooth, and arrived on the strip we immediately located our hotel, the "Tropicana" (the big neon letters on the facade were a give-away). We also immediately saw a big black pyramid with a shaft of light coming out of the top, many weird towers, and the statue of liberty. Yes, we were in Las Vegas. And our room offered us a view of the MGM, the Excalibur (the place with all the strangely colored towers) and the NYNY.
That night we explored our hotel (not very interesting, lots of slot machines and tables), the NYNY (nice on the outside, pretty much the same on the inside, or at least what we saw of it that night was), the MGM (big lion outside, biggest bronze statue in the world apparently, invisible lions inside, not much else), and walked a bit along the strip. Dad was of course very jetlagged, and I was quite tired too, so we went to bed early.
On Saturday morning, we woke up early, around 8, and started walking. In the sunlight, everything looked very different. The Excalibur looked even tackier, but the statue of liberty looked quite nice.
Warning: not really New York. You'll see those pictures in about three weeks
We walked over the Brooklyn Bridge (according to my handy little travel guide, many more people walk over this one each year than traverse the real one) and after some steady walking ended up near the Eiffel tower. Wonderful, isn't it, being able to walk from NY to Paris? It was quite nicely recreated too, the opera was there too, and inside they recreated the feel of paris pretty well, although they had paid surprisingly little attention to langue ("Eiffel tour" it said, for example, on a street sign). We had a very nice breakfast with french coffee, pains au raisin and little baguettes there and on we went, walking more, to see other casinos. We took a picture on the steps of the Bellagio, bought souvenirs and ended up at the Venetian. It was convenient to have the san Marco tower and the Rialto bridge next to one another, and the gondolers were very good. The canals ran into the casino also, where there was -as in the Paris- a beautifully painted fake indoor sky, a recreation of the san marco square, opera singing costumed people, a living statue of Dante, and real venice masks. We had lunch there, looking out onto the square, and afterwards slowly made our way back to the hotel.
We wanted to see something besides neon and slot machines also, so we drove to Red Rock Canyon and did the scenic drive there. Red rock canyon is pretty much, as the name implies, red rock, but it is beautiful and we made many great pictures (see above).
At night we had tickets for a comedy show, but unfortunately it turned out the comedy was in a bar, meaning I couldn't go in. We considered going to "Zumanity", a cirque du soleil show, but I wasn't allowed in there either because it featured "sexual content" (yes, at twenty, I can't possible handle anything of a sexual nature. And while flyers for "hot one-on-one action" are handed out in the street, I can't see an erotic acrobatic show). We ended up having a very nice dinner at the Irish pub, with live irish music, and even jog dancing, by a girl who, admirably, kept her smile firmly fixed on her face while dancing like crazy.
We went home early this morning, because dad had to catch his flight. We did make one stop at the ghost town of calico, a miner's town that's been entirely commercialised, but is still fun to see ( a cowboy tipped his hat at me). There was a saloon, a photo shop and everything, it was a perfect stop along the way.
Back in L.A., we had lunch at Chili's with James and we went back to the rental place with dad (I've become a pretty good navigator apparently).
That was it for Vegas. Updates about San Franciso, surfing, parties, films, James, underpants and more will soon follow (I hope).
Sorry to have kept you waiting so long!
Hedwig
The thing is, Dad works in Houston every once in a while, and even before I went to L.A., he proposed 'hopping over' sometime. Not really realizing that he would have to hop 1400 miles (+/- 2200 km). He did finally do it this weekend, and vegas was our destination. We drove, of course, in an SUV, a white jeep, because as he says, in America, you have to do as the americans do (plus, he kinda likes big cars).
It took us about two hours to get away from L.A., friday traffic being friday standing still, but after that the ride was pretty smooth, and arrived on the strip we immediately located our hotel, the "Tropicana" (the big neon letters on the facade were a give-away). We also immediately saw a big black pyramid with a shaft of light coming out of the top, many weird towers, and the statue of liberty. Yes, we were in Las Vegas. And our room offered us a view of the MGM, the Excalibur (the place with all the strangely colored towers) and the NYNY.
That night we explored our hotel (not very interesting, lots of slot machines and tables), the NYNY (nice on the outside, pretty much the same on the inside, or at least what we saw of it that night was), the MGM (big lion outside, biggest bronze statue in the world apparently, invisible lions inside, not much else), and walked a bit along the strip. Dad was of course very jetlagged, and I was quite tired too, so we went to bed early.
On Saturday morning, we woke up early, around 8, and started walking. In the sunlight, everything looked very different. The Excalibur looked even tackier, but the statue of liberty looked quite nice.
Warning: not really New York. You'll see those pictures in about three weeks
We walked over the Brooklyn Bridge (according to my handy little travel guide, many more people walk over this one each year than traverse the real one) and after some steady walking ended up near the Eiffel tower. Wonderful, isn't it, being able to walk from NY to Paris? It was quite nicely recreated too, the opera was there too, and inside they recreated the feel of paris pretty well, although they had paid surprisingly little attention to langue ("Eiffel tour" it said, for example, on a street sign). We had a very nice breakfast with french coffee, pains au raisin and little baguettes there and on we went, walking more, to see other casinos. We took a picture on the steps of the Bellagio, bought souvenirs and ended up at the Venetian. It was convenient to have the san Marco tower and the Rialto bridge next to one another, and the gondolers were very good. The canals ran into the casino also, where there was -as in the Paris- a beautifully painted fake indoor sky, a recreation of the san marco square, opera singing costumed people, a living statue of Dante, and real venice masks. We had lunch there, looking out onto the square, and afterwards slowly made our way back to the hotel.
We wanted to see something besides neon and slot machines also, so we drove to Red Rock Canyon and did the scenic drive there. Red rock canyon is pretty much, as the name implies, red rock, but it is beautiful and we made many great pictures (see above).
At night we had tickets for a comedy show, but unfortunately it turned out the comedy was in a bar, meaning I couldn't go in. We considered going to "Zumanity", a cirque du soleil show, but I wasn't allowed in there either because it featured "sexual content" (yes, at twenty, I can't possible handle anything of a sexual nature. And while flyers for "hot one-on-one action" are handed out in the street, I can't see an erotic acrobatic show). We ended up having a very nice dinner at the Irish pub, with live irish music, and even jog dancing, by a girl who, admirably, kept her smile firmly fixed on her face while dancing like crazy.
We went home early this morning, because dad had to catch his flight. We did make one stop at the ghost town of calico, a miner's town that's been entirely commercialised, but is still fun to see ( a cowboy tipped his hat at me). There was a saloon, a photo shop and everything, it was a perfect stop along the way.
Back in L.A., we had lunch at Chili's with James and we went back to the rental place with dad (I've become a pretty good navigator apparently).
That was it for Vegas. Updates about San Franciso, surfing, parties, films, James, underpants and more will soon follow (I hope).
Sorry to have kept you waiting so long!
Hedwig
posted by Hedwig @ 10:25 PM
1 Comments:
At 1:32 AM,
Sabrine said…
Jay!
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