I spent four days in Las Vegas a week ago with my DZ sisters, and I'm Still Tired!
What a wacky town! Just roll all of the best and worst things about being an American into a giant burrito, (add tomato, lettuce and avocado), and take a giant bite...
Best Things About Las Vegas
* Cab Drivers - they are amazingly informative, frequently insane, and sometimes very kind. One guy gave us the complete history of the town, one tried to sell us crack, and one dropped us off at a Chinese restaurant in China Town, and wouldn't leave until he gave us his cell phone number (he was worried that we wouldn't be able to find a cab back to the safety of our hotel after 10:00 PM in that neighborhood on a Sunday night). Needless to say, we called him for that return trip.
* Service - waitstaff, conceirges, pit crews, bartenders, and various other casino and hotel folks treated us like we were dipped in gold.
* Swimming Pools - some of the coolest and most comfortable I've ever seen and/or experienced.
* The Fountain At The Bellagio - I know this sounds corny. Watching it go off every 15 minutes was one of the most wonderful experiences I've ever had. It just MAKES you happy! Maybe it's built on the burial ground of VERY happy Native Americans...
Worst Things About Las Vegas
Commercialism - Here's a shocker. Everybody is trying to sell you something all of the time. I especially hated the M & M Museum and the Coca Cola Store next door. And that creepy little turd outside of The Mirage who was hell-bent on selling me a 150.00 tour of Hoover Dam.
It's Too Big - And I call myself a City Dweller...I'm actually embarrased to admit this, but LV overwhelmed me...Nothing is on a human scale, and it's all fake. The last time I visited was in 1983, and it was just sleazy. You expect sleazy stuff in Las Vegas. That's OK. What I wasn't expecting was how Disney-esque they've managed to make that sleaze into. Clean Sleaze. Very Disturbing. I'm still grappling with this.
The Food - too contrived, too expensive (except for the slightly scary Chinese joint), and highly overrated. What happened to the $5.00 buffet? The $4.99 prime rib? The $0.99 shrimp cocktail? I paid 12 bucks for a really bad cheeseburger at a Star Trek theme restaurant at my hotel. And I was surrounded by Trekkies (two of which were getting MARRIED at this dump...) Room service, however, was excellent...
The Bottom Line - it was fun, it was scary, it was dissapointing and it was wierd all at the same time. All in all, in retrospect, four days of my life that I spent pretty well...