Up, close and personal

Here I was, with nothing else to do besides the usual ton of reports, scripts and lessons so I thought to myself, There! I've got a weekend left this month, why not fly to Las Vegas? Sounded good, I had never been there and it still had not gone to the point of Resident Evil Extinction. And, also, it happened to be in the way to my next forced destination.


The stop and New York implied, as usual, to wait for a delayed plane. Nevertheless, we got to Las Vegas on time to see all the lights on. Boy, it looked like a theme park! We had managed to get a hotel close to The Strip, the Palace Station. It was okay, bur close is not enough in the US! Crossing the street is an issue even if you are not a chicken. The next morning it took us almost one hour to reach the Wynn and a little less, but a lot more of adventures to get back (including fence jumping and what not) , so we stuck to the hourly hotel shuttle service afterwards. After extensive walking, we did not see half the casinos, but I already decided that I preferred the ones with indoor skies, like Venetia, Paris or Planet Hollywood. Food was not particularly cheap -as reported by some friends- but portions were HUGE, so I would have gained a few pounds had I not walked so much those days.



I booked sunday for a trip to Grand Canyon, but it was somewhat dissappointing except for the Joshua Trees (go, U2!). I did not get the chance to walk too much, everything was so controlled that it looked less real than Las Vegas itself. Even the helicopter drive and the skywalk looked like some cheap attraction, but maybe I was expecting too much of the experience. All in all, I stick to the crevases in Iceland. And food was particularly ghastly. Along with casino hopping (I do not play, I'm too obsessive to put myself into temptations), I decided to go to as many attractions and shows as possible, and believe me, in Las Vegas deciding where to go is not as easy as it seems. There are these boots where you can buy tickets at half price if you wait for the queue and have no specific show in mind, so we went to Le Cirque du Soleil (Zumanity), the knight show at Camelot, the roller coaster at New York, New York, the pirates at Treasure Island, the acrobatics at Planet Hollywood and I'm sure I'm missing something, but it is okay. And, on top of it all, we found all clichés are true, from the dancing fountains at Bellaggio to guys in Elvis suits and people in front of coin machines that no longer carry cups of cents but credit cards in a chain. And big limos full of shouting blondes! I even bought a rock guitar handbag for my sis! Wouldn't mind going back sometime :)