Let me talk about the bad and the ugly first so I can end with a smile on my face, and I hope on yours.
Las Vegas is not a customer-friendly town. Oh, I'm sure the city itself is...but the money-maker, the famous Strip, isn't. If you have a Diamond card (Vegas-speak for game rewards), you get some perks--free shows, front-of-the-line service, discounts, valet parking, etc. If you don't, well, you're just another schmuck with beaucoup bucks to spend.
If you go out there on a shoestring, like I had to, you are amazed at how expensive everything is. Pay for the monorail, pay for expensive meals that would be ten dollars at home, pay two dollars for an apple (not kidding), tip him here, tip her there. You can buy t-shirts, three for fifteen, if you can stand the sleazy booth. You can buy a bottle of water for a dollar if you trust the fellow with the cruddy cooler. You can buy a necklace for ten thousand bucks or for fifty. You can buy a scoop of ice cream for five-fifty, or a single strawberry covered in chocolate for six-ninety-five.
There are police everywhere--on bikes, in cars, marching the perps down the street in cuffs. Pit bosses keep watch over the patrons. There is security in every corner.
The worst thing, though, isn't the half-dressed girls in cages--after all, it is Las Vegas and the girls have chosen to dance for entertainment. No, I didn't find the girls in the casino or in the shows vulgar at all. What I did find vulgar were the young men and women on the street, driving trucks with pics advertising brothels, and the ones passing out cards and fliers with sex for sale. OK, call me a prude.
There are escalators everywhere. You even use them to cross the street! You walk or take the monorail and then walk, every place you have to go. I may have missed the Y, but I didn't miss the workout.
All that being said, the Strip is a wonderful place to visit. It must be the combined energy of the shows, the bells of the casinos and the day-lit evenings that power the billions of watts. The lights are amazing--there is no other word to describe them. Floodlights, neon, bold and bright, cascading, flashing, pulsing...all I could find to say was WOW.
And the statuary! Two stories high! A spiral escalator that takes you to the top! Ceilings painted as sky, some with brilliant flowers made of glass. Chocolate cascades from ceiling to floor; baubles glitter in store windows; fountains spring forth in the middle of a courtyard. Fresh flowers grace the backdrop in one place, the front desk in another. The garden at the Flamingo has live flamingos, swans...so beautiful amongst the palm trees.
Yes, I had a good time. No, I didn't win a bundle. I loved the high-energy shows the best, and the simple fact of not one mosquito the entire week. Nights were balmy and breezy; days hot, sunny and dry--not a drop of sweat to make my mascara run.
Would I go again? Not unless I had to. It's sensory overload for me. Besides, we didn't go dancing. Las Vegas is glitzy and glamorous and there is more money on a single roulette table than I earn in a year.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
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