28 May 2009

Viva!

We stayed at the Flamingo, the hotel that Billy Wilkerson (and the infamous Bugsy Siegel) built in 1945. It was overall classier than the Imperial Palace, but the rooms weren't necessarily nicer. The restaurants were better, certainly, and it felt a little bit less like a frat-house party. Here's the view from my hotel room window:

We met a very, very tall pirate at Margaritaville. Beth tried on some Flamingo apparel. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
My daddy raised me to be a big nerd, so I brought 20 $2 bills with me to Vegas. I tipped almost everyone with these, and so took a picture of my last one. I didn't get a lot of reaction, but the cocktail waitress at the Imperial Palace squealed "Oh! Great! For my collection!" and the security guard who found my wallet (it's a long story. I'll tell you later) said "Cool. You don't see these everyday."
Here's the first round of dessert at the buffet in Paris. Eclair, cheesecake, creme brulee. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I made Beth and Mary promise to have my casket made of creme brulee.I think this is Wednesday morning. Did I mention they give you free drinks in Vegas as long as you're gambling? Yeah. So I woke up, and decided to take a picture of the morning after debacle, and then post it on my blog. Vegas apparently affects my judgement on many levels.
Later, we went downtown, which is somewhere we didn't go last year. Downtown is much less polished than the Strip, and there are fewer women in 6" acrylic stilettos. It feels like a whole different city, really, and we liked it a lot. Here's the Fitzgerald, where I won the most money of the trip.
This is in the bathroom at the Golden Nugget, I think. It epitomizes the difference between the Strip and downtown. The Strip has no signs like this in their bathrooms, at least that we saw. More downtown shots. This year we tried on a lot of stuff.My freakishly large head does not allow actually "trying on" so much as "perching upon."

It was a delightful trip all around: good food, shiny lights, kind people, and pina coladas. And the two best traveling companies a girl could want.

Viva Las Vegas, baby.

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