Vegas baby Vegas!

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So guys, after waxing lyrical about the up and coming Vegas trip I am back in Lake Tahoe after being in Vegas for the weekend...and what a crazy, crazy town it is! I'd have to admit that it was a ball being there but perhaps not highest on my must return there again list!
So, we went over for Wolfie's birthday, our most kind and gracious host here in Tahoe. We had two nights booked in at the hotal called the Venetian and it was exactly as you would imagine a hotel in Vegas to be and NOTHING like anything i have experienced before. Before describing this, I should say that Vegas as a town is like Disneyland for adults, and I'm sure I"m ripping that line off from somewhere...but it's a great description. All hotels and resorts seem to have themes, and as you can guess the Venetian was all about Venice. so we rock in there and it is absolutley huge...I'm talking room numbers into the thousands and the whole place is designed around very gaudy, renaissance type theme including architecture and paintings. The rooms were fabulous, with marble style bathrooms, huge beds and even living rooms in the suites. Having said this the thing you need to remember about Vegas is though it is in the middle of the dessert and it is a purpose built ton designed specifically for gambling and other 'entertainment'. With this in mind the rooms have to be nice because quite frankly there is not a lot to see (ie no fabulous ocean or city skyline to look over). But like most hotels, the Venetian in all of it's splendour has compensated for the lack of glamour outside the hotels by making it's fabulous city inside the hotel. Basically, the hotel had created a mini Venice al fresco style inside - complete with painted-on sky on the ceiling and lighting which continuously gives the feel of late afternoon/early evening (ie happy hour). It is so real that after a while, even when we walked in at around 1am we instantly felt like it was only 5pm and definiately time for another drink. The place even had a canal and canal rides like they do in Venice! The hotel was based around gambling and shopping - essentially they don't want you leaving with any money so if you win, they make t hard for you to get out wihtout passing five million shops (girls, think burberry, Jimmy Choo, Dior, you name it!) In fact, much like the IKEA in rhodes or Bondi Junction, we're pretty sure they've purposefully made the hotel the WORST sign posted hotel I've been into just to make sure they can get the most money out of you by making you bypass every single store and item on offer before telling you the real way you need to go... when looking for the tower in which our room was we were directed through literally hundreds of gaming tables and pokies and let me tell you after a few tasty beverages and a walk trhough town in very high stilhettos the balck jack table seemed like the most sensible option until we could fnd someone who could direct us to our room. For a while therre I could feel the same kind of tears welling up in me as Idid in Sydney after wanting to duck into IKEA for 20 minutes, only to emerge 4 hours latrer completely exhausted having seen 5 million different style of country, modern, retro home style settings plus homewares to match. When we did finally make it up to the room Wal and I clung to each other in desperation and decided the next day we'd buy a bag of M & M's and leave a candy trail so as to never go through the ordeal again. Another obstacle to getting to your room is the security. If you're a girl on your own they will not let you go into the suite section of the hotel room without a pass just in case you're 'one of those girls' being paid to go up to the rooms. All in all I completely understand this, however after Wal had left me in the biggest cosmetic shop I've ever been into , I walked up loaded with my with my five million additional bits of make up I was told by the girls I clearly needed (day foundation, night foundation, shimmer for morning, shimmer for evening, rouge for blue toned days, bronzer for a pick me up - all of which will be too heavy to lug around and will no doubt cost me about $300 to shipback to Oz... but this kind of clarity of thought wasn'y actually with me that day - I just sort of handed over my AMEX- mental note girls, margaritas can make you a little more willing to spend your cash than just a skinny latte during shopping) anyway I finally tear myself away from what can only be described as the cosmetic mecca and head up to the room but the security man wouldn't let me through because I had no pass, Wal did and he had headed up there earlier to leave me to shop...now completely appreciating the fact that the establishment does not want hookers in there, I clearly did not look like one...jeans, snow boots, about six different colours and testers of foundation and eye shadows plus an enormous bag of recently purchased make up I clearly was a simple tourist emerging from the Venus Fly trap, that is, spending money in Vegas! Luckily Wal came in just behind me and showed our hotel key, when I asked him how he found me he said he didn't - the additional twenty minutes head start I gave him while buying cosmetics had been spent with him becoming incredibly lost in the hotel and he hadn't actually come to save me from the security man, he was himself just walking up to the room!
One of the big attractions to Vegas is the shows so we saw Cirqu du Soleil's O show, and for those of you not in the know that is the show done using the massive the pool set...and it was absolutely amazing! I'm not sure describing it would do it any justice at all (...and then the girls in the leotard bend their legs over their head and then they make a pyramid shape and then a guy triple backflips and somersaults into the pool whilst some girls in matching leotards and big dreadlocks swim in unison all while the pool is changing shape... you really can't write about what they do!) but needless to say we would def recommend it to anyone. For the same price as the tickets to see the show, Mr Wallace and I sat a black jack table feeling very glamourous for the entire 5 minutes it took for us to lose all of our allocated gambling money! they give you free drinks while you gamble and we've worked out our gin and tonics costs us $70 per drink...noice! So the other highlight in Vegas is the Belagio and the water show that happens every fifteen minutes (think back to Oceans 11 i nthe last scene where they all sit out the front of the Belagio and watch the water display and lights) the water show is done to music with the fountains moving and swirling to make completely fabulous shapes...it's very fabulous and one of the ONLY things in Vegas that is free. WE also went to gun range to shoot guns...hhhmmmm...now I'm not much of a gun person but the Americans love their guns so we thought we'd try it. I had a hand pistol, bought 20 rounds to shoot. Wal had some sort of machine gun thingy. So the guy leads us to the booths and I swear I've never felt so scared in all my life, even the sound with ear muffs on was so scary I jumped everytime someones gun went off - the guy was laughing so hard at me when he was trying to show me what to do it was very embarassing! I took two shots at the Osama bin Laden target I had chosen, missed, became petrified I would accidentally shoot someone and gave the rest of the shots to Wal. That's right people, princess Georgie was well and truly in da house! In summary, I would say that as much as Vegas was a wish list entry for me, you really can't spend more than 48 hours there - we met a girl who was born and raised in Vegas and HAD NEVER LEFT and we were all pretty amazed that she was still sane - or at least appeared that way.
So after Vegas I find myself here in Tahoe on our last day here. Wal has gone snow hiking which sounded really fun - (basicaly they hike up in either snow shoes or go up special skis which allow you to glide up the hill but the skis don't slide backwards - GREAT inner thigh works out girls and i think is a must for our winter !!)- until the guys started showing him his rescue pack in case he or one of the others falls into deep snow or succumbs to a mini avalanche. We were all sitting around, again sampling some delicious coronas last nigth and Wal's being demonstrated how to assemble a poking stick incase he needs to try and find where his hiking buddy hasbeen buried by an avalanche.... at the end of the explanations he was still picking up the beacons and saying things like "what do i do with this beeper thingamajiggy" so I'm hoping there is no mini avalanches and he and his hiking buddy Chris make it out ok!
So we're off to NYC tomorrow morning at 6 am so we're down in Reno for a night tonight - more casinos - woohoo - me thinks we might just hang tuff away from the black jack table and get some sleep before the flight... will keep you posted on how things are and missing ya'll...
stay safe and much love
G & Wal

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