Las Vegas: Nerdier than expected
I was gratified to hear someone screaming ecstatically through the hotel wall at The Flamingo. Sure, that’s a little creepy but that’s what I expected from Las Vegas … Sex, cocaine, drinking and gambling. If you’re under 50 and you’re not snorting crack off a hooker’s silcone, you’re not doing it right, right?
Turns out we’re not doing it right (or Vegas is a lot smarter than CSI would have you believe). The First Husband and I went to a figurative art exhibition at The Bellagio today (hello rare Picassos, David Hockney, Keith Hare, Lichtenstein, Degas, Renoir and Chuck Close). $15 entry and no queue which was a bizarre change from the National Gallery of Australia.
We also went to a goosebumpishly chilling Titanic exhibition at The Luxor. $32 entry fee, 300 artifacts and a nifty gimmick where they give you a passenger’s details when you walk in and you find out if your passenger lived at the end (I survived, Stevie perished like most of the blokes).
We choppered into the Grand Canyon this morning, fed desert squirrels and learnt about geology (red = iron, green = copper, white = talc).
We also went and saw The Beatles’ Love Cirque du Soleil show last night. I was floored by the creative magnificence of it all and had to go straight home and have a lie down. I felt like someone had tossed a vial of glitter directly into my synapses. Too. Much. Stimulation. Brain freaking out … Yeeee!
The only ‘proper’ Vegas thing I have done is win stacks of colourful little chips at roulette. I just keep winning and winning. It’s like a game of Monopoly and I seem to own Mayfair, Parklane and a lot of hotels. I am the accidental roulette queen of Vegas.
So Vegas is different to the trashy crack den I expected. It’s like a pimped out RSL club crossed with Disneyland, the Queen Victoria Building and a dash of Kings Cross (but just like Tabasco, it’s on the table but you don’t have to add it).
We are headed for Mexico tomorrow so stay tuned for Tales of Extreme Laziness from Playa del Carmen …
Tell me, you beautiful things, have you been to Vegas? If so, what did you think?
Vegas is so much cleaner than I’d expected… random but true. And it’s really not as sleazy as I’d thought – well, once you go into the older part it’s a bit worse for wear, but that’s where all the wedding chapels are.
And that sounds like the same Titanic exhibition I saw in Melbourne…
I always used to play roulette in Sydney, but switched to blackjack in Vegas. I won there too!
Yeah you’re not doing it properly, way too cultural and refined compared to the Vegas I know. You missed the yard-arm of cheap cocktails near Fremont St, plus the dodgy Vegas shows complete with topless showgirls. Then there are the freakishly quiet and eerie side streets off The Strip. But hey I did go 5 years ago, maybe things have changed in that time.
nup…but i plan to go ‘fear and loathing style’ one day
Vegas was good fun! There was so much I never got to do, including firing automatic weapons but that means going back again which isn’t a bad thing.