Format: Because I tend to get wordy, I'm just going to highlight an "L" or two for each day of the trip.
Day 1 doesn't count too much because it just included 2 LEGS of travel: flights from Bloomington to Dallas to Las Vegas.
Day 2: LANDMARKS.
We booked a day-long tour to the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is a number of things: huge, high-up, and awesome to look at. We enjoyed a picnic and hike along the South Rim.
The Grand Canyon
Our tour also included a stop at Hoover Dam (that I was oddly really excited to see). We saw the dam from both sides and it's pretty sweet, as far as dams go. Random fact: all of the concrete used in Hoover Dam could be used to build a two-lane road from Manhattan to L.A. That's a lot of concrete people. Also, a ginormous bridge is being built and, upon its completion, traffic will cease to cross the dam. Considering my love for the movie, Fools Rush In, I was glad I got to cross the dam. We stopped in Seligman, Arizona which is a small town on Historic Route 66. Interesting fact: The movie, Cars, was based off of the town of and some people in Seligman.
Hoover Dam
Route 66 in Seligman, Arizona
Day 3: LIGHTS
Las Vegas is full of lights. During the day there are lights. During the night there are lights (the darkness/light combo makes The Strip much prettier on the eyes). Ellie and I hit up the Paris Hotel (which seriously looked like Paris in Disney World) for breakfast crepes and checked into our new hotel (paid for by our company).
Paris Hotel and my breakfast crepe.
Hard Rock Cafe
New York New York hotel (notice that it was still light when we started walking towards the sign). Whew, we finally made it, many steps and a sweaty face later.
Day 4: LUXURY
Ok, so there was absolutely nothing wrong with Bally's (the cheaper hotel we stayed at on The Strip for our first two nights) but it was a crap hole compared to the luxuriousness of Aria. I was saddened that we wouldn't be staying at Caesar's Palace as originally promised, but the awesomeness of our room more than made up for it. We walked into the hotel (which always smelled of vanilla and new-ness) which was decorated very chic-ly and swanky. We took the elevator up to the 31st floor and opened the door. The lights slowly turned up, the TV turned on, and the curtains opened us in welcome and it was all automatic! Seriously, party like a rock star. Everything in the room could be controlled by a little console between our beds. Every morning we woke up to the light we chose slowly turning on, the Today Show slowly appearing on the TV, and the blackout curtains slowly retracting. So much better than a buzzing alarm clock. And the beds were the most comfortable I have EVER slept in. Ellie and I each created semi-circles of pillows around us to further increase the comfort level. We also set a sleep timer to turn off the lights and TV each night. We had two large closet areas (to hide/organize our stuff), two sinks in the bathroom, robes (always an indicator of hotel fanciness) and a walk-in shower.
Bathroom.
Comfy beds and our floor-ceiling windows.
"Is it awesome?" "Yeah, it's pretty awesome."
Day 5: LEARNIN'/LIMO
So this was technically the 2nd day of our training but we learned A LOT both days. I enrolled in my benefits plan (and felt very grown up doing so) and filled out lots of paper work. All our learnin' on days 4-6 took place at Caesar's Palace so it will be featured here. Because of the movie, The Hangover, I was slightly obsessed with making references to it when we were there.
"You probably get this a lot. Is this the real Caesar's Palace?"
We also had a cocktail party at Caesar's and got picked up from there in a limo...for free. That's right. An Italian restaurant off The Strip offers free limo service from the resorts to the restaurants and we took full advantage.
Cocktail party attire and our table at dinner.
Tangent on Las Vegas Resorts: each one of these on The Strip (there are a bunch of them) has the following: hotel, casino (full of smokers that you have to walk through to get to the hotel part), conference/meeting spaces, pools (yep, multiple pools at each place), mega-lobby, several restaurants, several shops, and performance space for shows (like 1 of 6 or 7 different Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas). And it takes FOREVER to walk through these resorts and between them. I heard a lot of walking was involved but it was more than I could imagine!
Day 6: LETHARGY/(the) LIST
Ok, all this walking and learning was making me super tired. Still, we persevered through a day of conference sessions. The lethargy slightly improved after a lovely lunch at Serendipity (also featured in my trip to NYC) and splitting a Frrrozen Hot Chocolate. That night, our mystery adventure tour was sadly canceled (cue bummed out face) so we took to a brief nap at the pool. Lots of shower, hair-straightening, and make up later, we got ready to go out. Now, I had a method ready for getting into a club without cover and without waiting, however, Ellie and I are too nice and didn't want to turn down the other girls there for training so we agreed to go with them. They were very mis-informed and we ended up waiting in line for a lengthy period of time because, as we learned, you don't get anywhere with clubs without being on "the list" or having lots of skin showing. So, we finally got out of line and Ellie and I were sought out by a promoter of a "bar/lounge" in our hotel so he personally led us there and gave us 2 for 1 drink tickets (which still makes for extremely over-priced drinks). I made friends with an Asian bachelor party and we enjoyed some drinks. Then we conveniently headed upstairs to our room.
All dressed up and waiting in line. No thank you.
Day 7: LOUNGING/LOUDNESS
Because 3 days of learning is a lot, Ellie and I had decided pre-arrival that we would skip day 2 of the conference. In lieu of learning, we first hit up the hotel buffet (appropriately titled "The Buffet") for brunch: 1 plate of breakfast + 1 plate of lunch = satisfying 2 meals of the day!
Ellie was excited about crab legs. Here's my super fancy buffet dessert (which included Nutella!).
We then laid out at our hotel's pool and by laying out I mean we spent all the time in the pool because it was too unbearably hot to lay out for more than 45 seconds. We went back to Caesar's Palace for the conference wrap-up. Then we went to hang out at the Garden of the Gods AKA Caesar's Palace pool area. For a year I had been excited about their awesome pool-age. There was a big round pool with a statue of Caesar in the middle, some side pools, a swim-up blackjack pool, and a long semi-heated pool. It was awesome.
We also stopped in front of the Bellagio to see the famous fountains set to music.
Bellagio fountains starting up and then full force!
Then it was back to the hotel where I used my method and arranged our no-cover, no-wait entrance to Pure Nightclub. Pure was everything I expected: expensive drinks, scantily clad girls, gross guys, and loud music. I felt like we had to go to experience Vegas and I'm glad we did. The music was fun, we danced a little, and I really enjoyed people watching, however, it's not something I feel the need to do frequently. I played some slot machines before we left and lost. Good thing I didn't invest a lot. Tangent on people watching: I have never seen more heavily tattooed people than I did in Vegas.
All dressed up and in the club with no line-waiting.
Day 8: LEAVING
We got up super early after going to bed super late (bad idea) and went to the airport to take our respective flights home. We were both ready to go home. I seriously felt like I was living someone else's life but it's nice to get back to my own. Las Vegas, you were overwhelming and pricey, but you were good to me!
