Entering, and Then Leaving, Las Vegas

This past weekend, I drove to Las Vegas to visit Cybill, who was in town for work and offered to let me stay at her hotel with her. She was essentially my sugar mama for the weekend, as we were staying in a posh suite at Mandalay Bay. Things we marveled over: two bathrooms, a phone in the bathroom, a tv in the bathroom, and a cool view of the strip (we were on the 25th floor). Yes, 75% of the marvelous things were related to the bathrooms.

Remarkably enough, I finished my work for my Monday class on Friday (don’t expect that to ever happen again) so I could have a carefree weekend. I left on Saturday afternoon and it’s about a 5 hour drive from Los Angeles, but it’s a much prettier drive than say…west Texas, so it wasn’t too bad. The route takes you right through the Mojave Desert and the mountains don’t even look real sometimes. Then Vegas just sort of pops up out of nowhere. We were both a little tired on Saturday night, me from driving and Cybill from jet lag, so we just went to the Bellagio to see the water show and then grabbed some dessert at a little pastry shop, at which point we literally saw three men and a baby. Specifically, we saw three men and beer and a baby. It was actually a little frightening.

Sunday we got up and walked all over the place. Mandalay Bay is connected to the Luxor, which is connected to MGM, which is either connected to or really damn close to New York New York. Either way, we wandered through those four for a bit, then went back to the hotel to see the Shark Reef. It’s a pretty neat little aquarium in Mandalay Bay…not sure it’s worth $17, but it was cool. And I can add an animal to my list of weird animals I’ve touched this year: skate. The others are zebra, rhinoceros, giraffe, and penguin. In case you were curious.

I took Cybill for her first In-N-Out Burger experience, then we took the monorail and saw Harrah’s, The Venetian, The Mirage, and Caesar’s Palace. We literally walked in circles most of the time because all of these places are ridiculously confusing and everything starts to look the same. We made several large and unnecessary circles in each of the casinos we visited. Over the course of the day, we passed at least 11 Starbucks. I say “at least” because we stopped counting after the 11th (I think the 24-hour Starbucks was the 11th.)

Speaking of Starbucks…a lot of Starbucks' now will put your name on the cup when you order so people don’t mistakenly take someone else’s drink. The first time Cybill and I went, I looked at her cup and saw that her name had become “Silva.” The second time we went, she said her name, then spelled it. It ended up on the cup as something along the lines of “Sybhill.”

Sunday night we went to dinner at House of Blues, conveniently located right in the hotel. Barbecue, booze, and blues…good night. I was up and out early on Monday for the drive back to L.A. so I could go to class that afternoon. Boo.

If I had to guess, I'd say that Cybill's favorite part of the weekend was when I explained various archaeological artifact-dating techniques. Surely a moment she'll never forget.

All-in-all, it was a great weekend. And no, I didn’t forget to tell you about the part where we gambled, because we didn’t actually gamble at all. I’m sorry. (The person that apology is for knows who he is…)

And now I must go do an assignment for my scary production class. More movie reviews coming soon probably.