Las Vegas

Once again, Vegas proved not to be as lucky for me as the good old Dunedin casino; no jackpots were struck, and even a particularly awesome Michael Jackson themed pokie machine that I had high expectations for failed to deliver. Surely it wasn't that unreasonable for me to assume I would have been able to easily win back all the money I've spent on the trip? Accommodation this time was in the middle of the action on the Strip for the first two nights at the most excellent Flamingo Hotel (they had real live flamingos hanging round by the pool! Pesky enclosures preventing you from trying to cuddle them though, but I got a lot of photos). 

Flamingos at the Flamingo

View from our floor of the hotel down into the flamingo enclosure

By the time we got into Vegas after our kerfuffle of a flight experience from New York, I was operating on two hours sleep, and Sam on none, so we snuck in a very brief (too brief, only about an hour and a half) nap before grabbing dinner at a Mexican place in our hotel, and then heading off to the second Rancid show of the trip at about 6.30. We made it in time to see the Transplants too, and the sound was a big improvement over the three songs we had heard them play in Seattle, with a particularly good rendition of 'Diamonds and Guns' with Matt Freeman guesting on bass. 'Tall Cans in the Air' was another highlight, with the inevitable raising up of said cans by audience members (tallboy PBRs are great, even bigger and better than 440 Taz. Ridiculously priced at shows - $11.00 each - but we found a 24 hour convenience store that sold them at two for $4.00, so stocked up). Rancid played another amazing show, 'Old Friend' was a stand-out and 'Rejected,' and much fun was had. I found myself down the front dancing next to a Mexican guy, who I befriended after he made it clear to me that I was nice, but that he loved his wife – this was hilarious given that he was in his fifties and shorter than me, so probably not a prime target for my affections, but I assured him I was not going to try any funny business and we sang along to some Rancid together. 

As they were playing their last song, Sam and I decided to attempt a repeat of last trip's luck and went out back to where the tour buses were to try and meet them again. And who should we encounter but our good buddy Robert the security guard from last time, who actually remembered us! Robert is fantastic, and we hung out with him for ages and a few other die-hard fans who were waiting round. Although Tim and Lars were no-shows this time (Tim had actually passed us on the pathway going there, but I didn't click until after), we got to talk with Matt Freeman again, he signed the Rancid shirt I bought in Seattle and Sam got a photo with him. I now have Robert the security guy's contact details, and he promised that if we come back to Vegas again, he'll be able to hook us up with backstage passes. Oh, and I got a Tim Armstrong pick from him too; all in all, not quite as exciting as last time, but a pretty good stalking effort. Drinks and gamblies followed, but I think we were home by the fairly respectable hour of 2.30am.

On the way to see Rancid, in front of the New York, New York hotel

Sam and Ricky Gervais, uh I mean Matt Freeman...

On Monday I ventured out by myself to the Miracle Mile shops at the Planet Hollywood hotel while Sam attempted to get in touch with JFK airport/Delta airlines/anyone who may actually be able to help us rather than direct us to a different phone number to try and sort out the lost records. The shops were mainly uninteresting and overpriced, but I was pleased to buy my first pair of tube socks (they always mentioned tube socks in American books I read as a kid, and I probably had a more exciting vision of what they would actually entail, but oh well). After I returned to the hotel, we had our first flamingo encounter, and then hung out by the pool with a beer in hand. By the time we had drunk the beer and were ready for a swim, the pool was closing though (it's Vegas, what kind of pool party is over by 6pm!?), so we de-togged and ventured out onto the Strip again. 

I was determined that we were going to do the gondola ride at the Venetian Hotel this time, but it was actually pretty lame. $18.00 each for a ten minute boat ride during which the gondolier cracks bad jokes and then sings an Italian love song. We would have been better off putting the money we wasted into a pokie machine... After a late dinner at the Cabo Wabo Cantina (we met a guy who complimented Sam on his Motorhead back patch, and said he was the first person he has ever seen wearing one. This was hard to believe, but when he explained that he was a farmer from Nebraska it made more sense. He even called his friend over to look at us), we walked for about half an hour to the Hard Rock Hotel to check out their memorabilia and have a gamble. This was where I first encountered the Michael Jackson machine, which ate a bunch of my money but gave me some pretty cool special features involving moonwalking. We had more luck on a Ghostbusters machine and made most of our money back. As soon as we started winning, a casino guy came over and ID'd us – probably in the hopes of being able to throw us out without our money – and seemed incredulous and disappointed that I was not only of age, but actually ten years older. We finished the night at the New York, New York casino, then spent our last coins on an 8.2% tallboy to share on the way home.

The rather lacklustre gondola ride at the Venetian Hotel

I had been planning on seeing the MJ Cirque du Soleil show while in Vegas, but ticket prices were outrageous and I read a bunch of really bad online reviews of it too. Contenting myself with seeing 'the glove' for free at the Hard Rock Hotel instead. 

On Tuesday it became apparent that I had a lot less money than I thought (even when taking into account the gambling), and after further investigation, I discovered the downside of fancy hotels. I realised that the places we stayed in would take a security deposit in case of damage to the hotel room etc, but I didn't realise that this amount would be in effect frozen on my card, and would take up to ten days to be available again. At this point, the security deposit from our accommodation in Seattle had still not been returned, and we had the Flamingo one on top of that – all up, about $900 that I couldn't access on my card. Grrr. The next three nights in Vegas were to be spent downtown at the Golden Nugget Hotel, and I had to give them my NZ credit card to use rather than freeze up the rest of my money on my USD one. The Golden Nugget was even swankier (yet cheaper) than the Flamingo, and we were pleased to find that their main pool was open till 8pm and then they had an adults only one with bar open till 2am. Hooray, we would get our pool party after all... While back in Dunedin, I had decided that my 'what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas' moment would be reliving the glories of seafood after about five years of vegetarianism, so I dragged us to a restaurant in downtown Vegas renowned for their shrimp cocktails. I'm sad to report that it was actually kind of gross (Mum, the shrimp cocktails you used to make were waaaay better). We ended the night wandering around the Fremont Street area, avoiding gambling for the time being.

Wednesday began with a visit to the Emergency Arts Center and Beat Coffeehouse for lunch, a cool little place a few blocks away from all the tourist madness that sold records and had artist and design studios to browse through. My phone then tricked me again; I had been searching for thrift stores to go to for vintage clothing, and it suggested what looked to me to be a cluster of 'thrift' stores all together in the one place. We walked in the baking desert heat for about half an hour (usually a distance like this would be easily walkable, but with the insanely hot sun beating down on us it felt like it took about three hours), only to discover that our destination was not a little village of vintage and secondhand stores, but an outlet mall that sold cheap label clothing. Not exactly what I was after, but we looked round for awhile and enjoyed their outdoor water spritzers and then walked back to the hotel for a quick swim at the pool to cool off. 

Downtown Vegas, view from the Emergency Arts Center

While were at the Beat Coffeehouse earlier in the day, we'd seen a sign advertising the Peter Murphy after party for that night. Peter Murphy is the guy from the band Bauhaus that Sam had booked us tickets to see in LA, but hadn't realised he was playing in Vegas as well. The venue was only about two blocks from our hotel, so Sam decided to go. Rather than spend $35 on the ticket (I don't really know any Bauhaus anyway and was sick of going to gigs for the time being), I went out for an amazing sushi dinner by myself (not quite the same as Jizo, but just as good), then chucked $20 into a haunted house themed machine which I just kept winning on, making it up to $180. Yay! I met up with Sam after the show, and given that he had spent his money on the ticket rather than dinner, but had then made friends who just kept buying him drinks, he was already somewhat slurry at this stage. Sam, his new friend Bard and I went to the nearby Beauty Bar for PBRs. The décor was very cool, all glittery walls and retro beauty salon fittings, although I was a bit disappointed to find that Union 13 would be playing here on Friday night, when would be in LA. Next stop was the Peter Murphy after party, which mainly consisted of a bunch of gothy types dancing weirdly to industrial music; Sam was drunk enough to join them though, and this may be the first time I have ever seen him on a nightclub dance floor, flailing away without an actual band playing.

At the Beauty Bar in downtown Vegas

Sam spent much of the next day in bed, and I went on an outing to the Arts District, about a half hour walk from our hotel. A respite from the flashing lights and craziness of Vegas, the galleries were quiet, air conditioned and pleasant, with some cool work on show. I even got talking to a fellow New Zealander who worked in one of the galleries (I think I've been away too long, because I couldn't quite figure out to begin with whether her accent was Kiwi or Australian). I also finally found a cool vintage clothing store called Electric Lemonade. The rest of our last night in Vegas was spent lazing round and drinking by the pool, from about 7pm to 1.30pm. I would like it noted for the record that I got up the courage to go on the waterslide (three stories high, and through a tank with sharks in it) but Sam didn't. When I shot out the bottom and into the water, I couldn't see anything, and was trying to get my bearings when a lifeguard handed me something black; for a mortifying second I thought it was my bikini top, but thankfully it was just the bandana I'd been wearing which had slipped off my head. A few more beers and some poolside margaritas later, we were off to bed and quite thoroughly Vegas'd out. Five nights would have been fine if we had endless money, but in hindsight three probably would have made more sense. Especially since we surprised ourselves by really liking LA and wishing we had more time there; details to come in next blog...   

Pool partying with tallboy PBR. Awesomely, you were allowed to buy your own cheap booze and bring it to the pool rather than buying it at their bar.

The shark tank waterslide. 

The more relaxed adults only rooftop pool area, complete with pasty Andy legs