Bryan W. Alaspa 1A trip to Vegas
September 17th 2009 13:20
So, I have just returned from my very first trip to Las Vegas. I can honestly say I have never seen a city quite like it. In fact, I have a hard time believing such a city could really ever be duplicated anywhere in the world. It has a lot more to do with it than just gambling. You can find gambling in and around Chicago if you really want to. It goes beyond that. There has never been a city quite as strange and strangely alive like Las Vegas.
First off, I can now confirm that there is gambling as soon as you get off the plane. The baggage claim area of the Las Vegas airport is like the floor of any casino you will find in any hotel on the Strip. You could spend your entire trip in the airport if you aren’t careful, quite honestly. At the same time, everyone will tell you that the odds at the slot machines at the airport are the worst in the entire city.
I was there for business. I stayed at the golden Trump International Hotel and Suites. My room had a glorious Jacuzzi/hot tub dealie and glassed-off stalls for the toilet and the shower. There was a television in the mirror of the bathroom. It was the greatest thing I had ever seen and had I been able to pack up that bathroom or hot tub in my suitcase, I would.
I did have a moment to walk the Strip. Right across from the hotel is a giant mall called the Fashion Show Mall. It is many blocks long. However, it is like any other mall anywhere else in the world. It may be longer and bigger, it is still a mall, complete with food court.
Once you reach the far end you come out on the Strip. As soon as you get out there, there are huge flat screen TVs playing commercials. They play them loudly. They play them over and over and over again. There are little stands in this kind of courtyard and I felt sorry for the guy in the gelato stand who had to stand there and listen to the same music play over and over and over again.
A walk down the Strip is a walk through the surreal. There are pirate ships in man-made coves in one spot. There is a volcano in another. Across from the pirate ship is a hotel made to look like Venice and there are canals with singing gondoliers. Then, however, you step into the hotel and you see what Vegas is really like.
There are no windows. There are no clocks. You can walk through one end of the Venetian and never leave. It is connected to the other massive hotel called the Palazzo. In between are casino floors lined with endless slot machines and then there are restaurants. There are shows and there are stores. These are not your average stores. There is a bookstore there in the Palazzo that sells rare books and has a first-edition, original cover edition of the “Catcher in the Rye” selling for $19,500. This is not a place to go to pick up a book to read on the flight back.
All of this takes place in the desert. All around you are this strange, short mountains and covered with brown. Just brown. This is a strange, bizarre oasis in the middle of dead brown nothingness.
I know that Vegas is an interesting place to visit, but I cannot imagine living there. How you could live surrounded by all of that craziness, I will never know. I hope to go back some day, however, when I can focus on seeing the city and not having to work.
Just remember, what happens in Vegas, these days, ends up on someone’s Facebook Page.
First off, I can now confirm that there is gambling as soon as you get off the plane. The baggage claim area of the Las Vegas airport is like the floor of any casino you will find in any hotel on the Strip. You could spend your entire trip in the airport if you aren’t careful, quite honestly. At the same time, everyone will tell you that the odds at the slot machines at the airport are the worst in the entire city.
I was there for business. I stayed at the golden Trump International Hotel and Suites. My room had a glorious Jacuzzi/hot tub dealie and glassed-off stalls for the toilet and the shower. There was a television in the mirror of the bathroom. It was the greatest thing I had ever seen and had I been able to pack up that bathroom or hot tub in my suitcase, I would.
I did have a moment to walk the Strip. Right across from the hotel is a giant mall called the Fashion Show Mall. It is many blocks long. However, it is like any other mall anywhere else in the world. It may be longer and bigger, it is still a mall, complete with food court.
Once you reach the far end you come out on the Strip. As soon as you get out there, there are huge flat screen TVs playing commercials. They play them loudly. They play them over and over and over again. There are little stands in this kind of courtyard and I felt sorry for the guy in the gelato stand who had to stand there and listen to the same music play over and over and over again.
A walk down the Strip is a walk through the surreal. There are pirate ships in man-made coves in one spot. There is a volcano in another. Across from the pirate ship is a hotel made to look like Venice and there are canals with singing gondoliers. Then, however, you step into the hotel and you see what Vegas is really like.
There are no windows. There are no clocks. You can walk through one end of the Venetian and never leave. It is connected to the other massive hotel called the Palazzo. In between are casino floors lined with endless slot machines and then there are restaurants. There are shows and there are stores. These are not your average stores. There is a bookstore there in the Palazzo that sells rare books and has a first-edition, original cover edition of the “Catcher in the Rye” selling for $19,500. This is not a place to go to pick up a book to read on the flight back.
All of this takes place in the desert. All around you are this strange, short mountains and covered with brown. Just brown. This is a strange, bizarre oasis in the middle of dead brown nothingness.
I know that Vegas is an interesting place to visit, but I cannot imagine living there. How you could live surrounded by all of that craziness, I will never know. I hope to go back some day, however, when I can focus on seeing the city and not having to work.
Just remember, what happens in Vegas, these days, ends up on someone’s Facebook Page.
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