Day 102: Las Vegas

That morning Leon had disappeared off to some hiking place in the nearby mountains and we had a city to explore. He had furnished us with maps and some suggestions but the first thing we wanted was some food. We headed to Chinatown and after a wander around found a nice Thai place to get lunch. This was the nicest meal of the trip so far, we both agreed and since it was Vegas it was pretty cheap. Further into town we started looking for a place to park and drove back into the strips gridlock. We were surrounded by posh shiny new cars and we were sitting in a 10 year old minivan which was still covered with the mud from Monument Valley. I wasn’t embarrassed, I just wished I had my website name on the side :p We took a few wrong turns and ended up by the Sahara and decided to park there. All the casinos have free parking but we had chosen the one furthest from all the others which wasn’t so smart, but I needed the walk since I was getting lazy and we hiked down into town. I wondered how long the $50 I had allocated to my gambling would last….

It took what seemed like an age to get into the thick of the action, there are cranes everywhere and we walked past building sites and then a load of souvenier places. One guy wanted to take us to the Grand Canyon! Hah! We walked and walked, and even when the casinos started it still felt unreal and not like vegas at all. Half the places seemed closed but we persevered until the people became denser and the Mexicans snapping their pornographic business cards at you more persistent. Vegas; it looked like a place of heartbreak and desperation to me. The tourists wandered around with their cameras, we found out where the Chinese and Japanese at the Grand Canyon were coming from, people clutched their designer paper bags with white knuckles in this man made monstrosity in the desert. I’m guessing it would be hell in the summer but now it was pleasantly mild, at least until the sun went down and all the heat from the place spiraled in to space.

We found ourselves in the shopping center that has a painted on cloud filled sky, it never closes, it never goes dark, I would like to say it never rains but after a while the heavens opened, the thunder rolled and a special cordoned off area was subjected to a once hourly shower from the ceiling. How I would hate to be working in a place like that. I was tempted to get myself a wind up shortwave radio and in the end made the decision about it by walking around the store and trying to forget about it. Seems I didn’t need it after all, the lightsabres distracted me more than spending $60. For some reason I saw the Ben and Jerrys place and wanted ice cream. For 2 it ended up costing Dani over $12! It was about time she put her hand in her pocket :p Everything was going on my VISA card and she was promising to reimburse me when we got to Mexico. Fingers crossed!

Back on the street we supposed we should hit some casinos after passing several and not winning any millions. You have to be in it to win it… etc etc. We went into Bills Casino and stood around watching the games, unsure of what to do. I got the impression it really wasn’t Daniella’s thing, which was fine, it wasn’t really mine either, but I was here to blow my money and by darn that’s what I was going to do. Poker demanded far too many skills as I had learned in Montreal, Craps was supremely confusing (although you could come for lessons at 10.30am every day if you could get up (or stay up..)), the slot machines were all rigged to just take your money. I settled on Roulette which seemed fairly easy to understand. Place your bets on the numbers, if it comes up you win, otherwise you lose. I put down $30 and got my chips. It only took 3 spins and I was done :p This vegas thing was easy!! If I was quick I could be walking back to the car really quick! We played some 1c slot machines for a while which was obviously going to take more time than throwing $10 on the red or black in roulette but just as pointless. Dani won $16 from a dollar machine and I shouted at her to cash out, which she did and that was her done for the evening. I still had $20 to throw away though…

We carried on down the strip, marveling at the stupid buildings and tacky statues. If I didn’t have this $20 to blow I would be ready to go back to the car. It was Saturday night and I felt like I was in the twilight zone. How any one would want to spend more than a day here was beyond me, but then I guess everyone is making masses of money. We wandered into the MGM grand and looked at the tigers in their glass cages with people staring up at them through the Perspex, it’s a beautiful place to go look up a tigers bottom. We stood around watching some more games, but craps was still to complicated for me to get without some instruction. I watched a ‘pimp’* walk in and blow $100 on the table in 2 minutes. I sat down at the no smoking roulette table (nice!) and this time won a few times before all my cash was gone. If only I had more than $20! I knew I could win eventually… hah, I’m not that stupid. The dealer chatted to me for a bit as I played and asked what I thought of Vegas. I told her I thought it was vile…

* can normal guys wear a woman’s fur coat and not be a pimp?



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