My first experiences in a city located in Pacific Standard Time were, in a word, whack. I can't really decide if I want this to continue on to be a reoccurring theme in my life on the West Coast or not, but either way, it is the most different and I am finding out exactly how "East Coast" I actually am. Regardless, after five days of being cooped up in a Civic, out of the urban element that we've all gotten used to, we were really jazzed to be back in an environment loaded with restaurants and a variety of people. It's especially fun to see Patriots paraphernalia out here, because initially it just seems like the norm but then I remember we're a few hundred miles short of being 3,000 miles away from New England and Patriots country. I've also discovered what a conversation starter a Red Sox hat is and I love it.
After arriving at the hotel in our newly washed hermit crab shell of a Honda Civic (it's gotten to the point that now, after two days of not traveling, we all have a Shawshank Redemption-like need to get back in the car and can't handle a normal life anymore.) We got settled and prepared to get 4+ months of going out together crammed into one night of absurd Vegas F-U-N. We also decided to cumulatively celebrate our 21st birthdays a year late, since last year, when they actually happened, we were all over the place. So we partied like rock stars alongside porn stars (Who stumbles into Las Vegas just in time for the annual Adult Video Convention? We do, so if possible, this town was even more littered with surgically enhanced lovelies than normal) which started off an on going emotional pattern of Love Vegas, Hate Vegas.
To clarify, our first night we Really Loved Vegas. A lot. The next day started off completely Hate Vegas. Because this is has turned out to be a positively cinematic road trip, we should have been prepared for the typical medical detour, but alas we were not, so when Natalie woke up violently ill beyond all reason we entouraged her to a Vegas hospital. She and Liz ended up staying for the entire day getting CAT scanned by hot doctors to find out that she has a hole in her intestine and was stricken with diverticulitis, which can often be aggravated by copious consumption of nuts (she's had a can of mixed nuts in her purse since Leominster), seeds (we haven't walked into a gas station without buying Corn Nuts), dried fruit (Eleanor's brought enough dried fruit on this trip to feed a dried army), alcohol (tequila) and caffeine (Red Bull). So that ended up making a ton of sense and instead of dying in the ER of a Vegas hospital like she expected, she was released with a new lease on life and a folder full of lovely slides of her innards, all in time to get mindfreaked by O at 7:30. Then we returned to Really Loving Vegas.
The weird thing about all of this was how much the hotel seemed to know about our health issue. The management was all voluntarily accommodating, which leads me to believe that all that business about hotel staff knowing everything that happens in their hotel via hidden cameras in Ocean's Eleven is absolutely true. I think that's kind of nice, especially since Vegas is a city with zip for laws. There are maybe three crosswalks in the entire city, people treat red lights like suggestions, hookers are peddled every ten feet and people wander around drinking flagrantly, all of which definitely help to keep things interesting, but it's good to know that all of the illegality is being carefully supervised.
After we checked out, we let the hotel babysit our luggage while we tried to cram all of the daytime Vegas fun that was traded in for hospital fun the day before into one afternoon. Our various attachments to Paris have given us an innate nose for patisseries, so we found one located right our hotel complete with chocolate fountains that poured out of the ceiling. Love Vegas. Then we headed to Caesar's Palace to obtain glorious Celine Dion merchandise only to find that the management wasted no time in clearing out her gift shop immediately after the close of her show at her Colosseum. All that remained in the darkened store were several empty shelves and a few half lit portraits of the diva herself. No beautiful t-shirt with Celine's head floating on the front for me, no posters, no magnets, nothing. Hate Vegas. After this disappointment we went to find some gelato to take the edge off only to be tricked into spending 20+ dollars on individual cups of mediocre gelato. Hate Vegas again, but then we remembered how awesome the fancy French Cirque was and how sparkly Judith Leiber crystal clutches are and how lovely the glass flowers in the ceiling of our lobby are and went back to Loving Vegas.
When we were as ready as possible (because I'll never be actually ready for this trip to come to a close) to set out on our last stretch of highway to LA this little guy brought our luggage out to the car and did an abysmal job of trying to piece together the puzzle that cramming our stuff into the tiny trunk has become. It really wasn't his fault, it's not easy and we've become experts by now so we sent him on his way, manned up and did it ourselves. I think stuff has grown though, because it definitely has gotten more difficult.
To sum it up: we left Las Vegas a little poorer, slightly worldier and devoid of any awesome Celine Dion merchandise but plus one stunning set of CAT scan slides and a memory stick full of Really Awesome Photos.
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