las vegas

I'm going to do my best to make this Vegas post interesting, though to tell you the truth my heart's still sad from yesterday, and my body is still sick from my trip.

I feel that my immune system has gotten complacent from living in Florida and I can no longer handle being trapped in confined spaces with sickly people for several hours like I used to.  I think my greatest fear is going to be realized, that I will have to wear one of those masks when I travel to keep from getting sick.  So embarrassing.

Anyways, besides the fact that I couldn't eat or drink anything the entire time I was there without immediately throwing it up, I had a really fun time.  When I first arrived Jon's whole family was there to celebrate his brother's wedding so I got to meet all of them and hang out with family time which I love. They were staying at the Hard Rock so I stayed there with them the first night.  I hadn't been to the Hard Rock before because it's actually not on the strip proper, but it's pretty cool.  They have a lot of fun music memorabilia as would be expected.  I was particularly excited about this:

As well as both of the britney outfits that I found:

Little did I know when I was snapping these pictures that Ms. Spears was actually in the very same hotel as me.  Jon and I had found the only juice bar in Las Vegas on the second level of the Hard Rock Hotel and of course I was literally the only person who was interested in going to it.  So we were sitting at this juice bar which is across the hall from their club "Vanity" seen here:

That man would be one of Britney's bodyguards.  At first we couldn't figure out what was going on, there were just a lot of crew people walking around with camera's and lighting equipment.  We peaked in and saw some chick in black leather and a big black wig and immediately had to know who it was.  After much stalking and loitering we finally overheard enough different people reference Britney to figure out that it had to be her.  Unfortunately Jon and I are both too chicken to say anything, and we had to check out of the hotel shortly after this anyways so I guess it just wasn't meant to be this time.

We checked out of the Hard Rock on Wednesday and moved over to Planet Hollywood, which is where the picture at the beginning of the post was from.  That was the view from our window, it was pretty cool, probably more impressive at night but I couldn't capture it on my phone.  We could see all the cool hotels, New York New York with the rollercoaster, Caesar's, and my personal favorite, the Luxor.

And I was glad to have a comfy room with a nice view and an even nicer bathroom, since that's where I spent most of my time for the next several days.  I gathered my energy a couple times to walk around with Jon and was glad that I did.  Otherwise I would never had seen this:

the homage to Siegfried and Roy.

We also made the trek all the way to the Cheesecake Factory but they were horribly busy so we didn't end up staying.  I did take a picture of my favorite animatronic show:

If you ever plan to eat at the Cheesecake Factory you will become intimately acquainted with this show. Depending on how long the wait is to be seated you end up seeing it once if not twice before you even sit down, and then you no longer get to see the show, but still have to hear it going on over and over throughout the course of your meal.  It actually becomes quite hilarious.  You forget all about it and start to get comfortable with your inside voices when all of a sudden you see fire shooting up from behind the aquarium and hear Neptune's voice booming through the cavernous mall.  Uggghhh I want to go back now!

Mostly I was just struck, as usual, but the beauty of everything.  I just love all the attention to detail, every single casino is more fabulous than the one before it.

When I look at how big these building are from the outside I think why would you ever need something so huge.  Then I remember as soon as I walk through them, because inside of the casinos they have things like gardens:

with ferris wheels:

or rivers, heavily trafficked by gondolas:

And yes, that is the painted ceiling up there, it is not the real sky, though it looks identical to the pictures above which are of the real sky.  

All in all I had fun, I got to do some shopping that I desperately needed to do, and I gambled a little, though I made some pretty stupid choices.  I guess the biggest mistake I made was not trusting my gut and sticking to my all time favorite machine:

Oh well, next time kitty glitter, next time.