Las Vegas- Nov.29/07- Surreal.

Next post in progress. At this rate, I'll have the trip fully chronicled by its first anniversary.

Well, after a fitful sleep, we loaded up on Christmas blend and water from Starbuck's and slowly got moving. We both used Len's laptop to check e-mail and other important things.

Stupid Oilers pooped the bed in Colorado. Glad I missed it. Went down to Il Fornaio Panetteria for a croissant and more coffee, then decided to head over to Mandalay Bay to pick up the Mamma Mia tickets, hopefully avoiding undue pressure later in the day.

Walkway to Excalibur and the Luxor/Mandalay Bay tram.
Lynora not happy.

We wandered around for a while, deciding where to go for supper. Checked out the House of Blues, but it was definitely not hopping yet. Lynora took some wildly unflattering photos of me there which I refuse to post.

Got back to NYNY close to 11:00, so we opted to attempt an early lunch at Nine Fine Irishmen. It ended up being an enjoyably bizarre force-feeding. Our waitress was cute, pleasant, and inexplicably dressed in a micro-mini kilt, thigh-high garterless stockings, and a low-cut blouse that parts of her were almost falling out of. L- "The smoked turkey sandwich sounds good". It was ridiculously huge, so she made me take a picture.

That was taken after I had most of her fries on my plate. Me- "Ugh, I'm not very hungry, I'll just have the goat cheese salad". Waitress of the absurd-" OK. How about some calamari? Shepherd's Pie?" WTF? Our favourite server line: "All done? Coffee? Beer? Crème brûlée?" Comedy at 11:30 AM.

We took the monorail back up the Strip to do some more shopping at The Fashion Show mall.


It's an upscale and somewhat snooty place that didn't have too many stores we were actually interested in, but it did have a Macy's and a good electronics store. Lynora wanted to purchase another digital camera, so she asked a few questions and (rather quickly) decided on one to buy.
Of course, she needed a memory stick and a case, so we viewed a few and did a few demo shots. The goofy salesman exclaimed "It's boxy but good!"

Len and I looked at him quizzically, and he explained that it was a line from a movie and quickly You Tubed a clip for us.

He also went on about homoerotic subtext in "Top Gun", with the other employee chiming in- apparently they had been watching it earlier in the day. I think he had us pegged as somewhat hungover tourists and ran with it. Came out in conversation that we were Canadian, one from Edmonton, and proceeded to impress with hockey talk, whereupon Lynora let me take the reins. We spent an inordinate amount of time there, but it was too entertaining not to linger.

Not the most attractive subject for test-driving the new camera.

There were other purchases made in the mall, but none that provided as many laughs. Killed most of the afternoon quite handily. The usual meandering down (or is it up?) the Strip to and from Monorail stations is both mindlessly amusing and time-consuming.

Once again, back to the room for preening- did we maybe sneak in some more of the "Coupling" DVD? Then off to Mandalay Bay for dinner and a show. We ended up going to Lupo, and again, as it was early, spent no time waiting. The calamari (yes, we had to have some after the waitress at 9Fine mentioned it) was super- it was served with some sort of mint tzatsiki sauce that defied description. And the rustic bread with tapenade and white bean dip was incredible. the meal itself was nice and reasonably priced, but I'd have been good with the starters alone.

Off to the show! Mamma Mia starts slowly, but the second act is great. It's just cheesy enough to keep a stupid smile on your face all night. Somewhat anticlimactic after the splendour of Mystere, too bad the nights weren't reversed. But at least we looked good.



Those costumes kill me. Afterwards, back to the hotel. Lynora declined a nightcap, so I went down to the casino, grabbed a to go beer (Sam Adams Amber, another good one), and we sat in the room watching "Coupling". Damn that's a great show. Many fine phrases like "unflushable", "the giggle loop" and "the nudity barrier".

Las Vegas- Nov.28/07- Perfect!

We bounced out of bed quite early Wednesday morning, eager to begin our first full day. Had a bit of coffee, checked e-mail, and proceeded down to breakfast.

Lynora had planned our route/transportation already so we walked over to MGM Grand, bought a monorail day pass and rode to the Sahara, where we hopped in a cab for the last bit of the jaunt to the Las Vegas Premium Outlets outdoor mall for the early Christmas Canadian shopper consumerism extravaganza. (Mostly Len, she's kind of terrifying when she's looking for deals.)

Best part was being accosted by an initially pleasant Israeli skin care product vendor, who did a Dead Sea salt scrub demo on me at the outdoor kiosk while Lynora was spending money somewhere. By the time she came out to meet me, once-charming salesman was glaring at my feet, brutally exposed by Capri pants and Birkenstocks, and telling me how much help they needed. "But I come from a place that has a real winter" was my only defense. Well that, and the fact that I really don't care how crusty my feet are, as long as they don't hurt. He then proceeded to apply some miracle rejuvenating facelift product on my inner arm, which promptly broke into a rash, and then argued that it couldn't be a rash because the product was hypo-allergenic. He also made some not-so-flattering remarks about by facial pores, which I rebutted by exclaiming "I'm turning forty! I'm still OK..." We started to try and get away, but he kept dropping his prices ("Just for you ladies! For today only!") until Lynora broke down and purchased me a salt scrub and some milk & honey body butter. I think she considered it payment for release. God, it was funny.

Spent a couple of hours there, got a lot of Christmas shopping done- for the kids (The Children's Place, Carter's) the spouses (Eddie Bauer, Banana Republic), and the parents (Van Heusen's).

Heavily laden with our spoils, we took a cab back to the hotel. Our dinner reservation was at 5:15, so we changed and preened, and went to the "Bar at Times Square" for a (really) quick beer. An aside- quite impressive, the variety of good offerings on tap in LV. At Times Square, Pilsner Urquell, the aforementioned Dos Equis at Gonzalez y Gonzalez, even Spaten Hefeweizen at a kiosk at MGM Grand. Anyhow, we guzzled up some Czech goodness before hopping back on the monorail to head to Treasure Island and the Venetian.

Splitting up in the interests of time management, Len ran to TI to pick up the show tickets, and I navigated my way through the casinos at the Venetian to find Bouchon. I waited at the bar for her, and was advised to try a Chimay draught- Wow. Wicked good job, Belgian monks. When Lynora breathlessly rushed in, the helpful bartender suggested a (1614?1645?)- something dark and stout-y looking which tasted deceptively lighter.

Once seated, we perused the menu after Len ordered the red wine- she had a complex justification protocol which escapes me at the moment (clarify in the comments if you can!) She was close to having the chicken again (she went with Mike last November), but we both ended up going with chalkboard specials. For her - butcher's cut of beef with mashed potatoes and seasonal veg. (sounds humble, doesn't it?) I chose the scallops with toasted barley, butternut squash and Swiss chard- I tell you, the memory of that first taste will stay with me forever. It brought tears to my eyes, it was that perfect. The scallops were crispy, tender, flavourful without excessive seasoning, and the barley, squash and greens were the ideal accompaniment. Once the initial shock had worn off, we exchanged tastes. Lynora's beef was melt-in-your-mouth, the potatoes simple and mousse-like. The most memorable meal I've ever had. We shared profiteroles for dessert, wolfing them down as we realized we were running a bit late.

Tore across the street to Treasure Island and the Mystere theatre. The show had just started as an usher guided us to our seats, close to the stage on the right side. We totally lost ourselves in the spectacle.



What a fantastic show. The bungee trapeze artists dove within eight feet of our heads. Breathtaking.

Hard to come down from supper and Cirque. On the way out of the theatre, we were handed free drink coupons for Kahunaville, a "I can't believe I'm in this kind of place" tacky tropical bar. There was a laughably stereotypic "flair bartender" show- in a cringe-worthy Tom Cruise circa 1988 sort of way. But you have to admit, there is some skill involved in those manipulations. Our drinks were of the slurpee-machine variety, Len handed me the Pina Colada, keeping the strawberry daquiri for herself, smart girl. They were both eye-crossingly sweet and I blame them for how I felt Wednesday (not the beers which came later.) We weaved through TI and made our way over to Bellagio. The decor was dazzling.

Glass floral ceilings

Gently glowing (the tree too)

More Christmas splendour

Chocolate fountain at Jean-Philippe Patisserie. Lynora was highly disturbed not knowing the downstream applications of said chocolate. I'm sure it's not wasted, honey.

Making our way back to the monorail, we caught a fountain show choreographed to "It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas" and stood on the sidewalk with goofy little grins on our faces, as jaded passersby totally ignored the fun and pushed past us. Cretins.

So we did manage to get back to our hotel, and back to Times Square, as we promised the bartenders earlier, for more Pilsners. The place was packed and as the piano players were starting to "duel", we found seats along the outside of the bar and listened in. The guys beside us engaged my sister in conversation, bought us a few drinks, and left, so we took our beers, skirted the entrance line-up and wormed our way to the crowd at the pianos. Strangely, a bunch of stagette-party girls from Alberta(!) were the major disturbers in attendance. Sadly, the piano guys used that as an excuse to play a charming version of a totally non-compelling Paul Brandt song. Please don't ask me which one.

In the thick of the crowd, we (ie. Len) engaged a few more men people in conversation, the upshot of which was that we didn't pay for a single drink the entire time we were there. And we were there late. The piano guys were great, classic sing-alongs I remember them doing included "Back in Black"(funny), "Sweet Child of Mine"(funnier) and something by Elton John (probably) and some Beatles (but that may be a fanciful recollection.) Again, Len- a little help in the comments may clear the picture.