The City of Sin was never a place Philippe or I had really ever been drawn to, but Nevada being on our way, it was impossible to snub the opportunity. I knew it was even less Philippe’s thing than mine (*embrace the tacky*), but he was a good sport as we crossed the desert, entering from the south and actually really looking forwards to it. I was bowled over by the hotels; how much effort they put into bringing different worlds to Vegas (on an extravagant, wacky scale of course!) – we passed the giant pyramid and sphinx, castles and tropical islands, the Eiffel tower and major buildings of Paris, and finally settled on the skyline of New York (with Statue of Liberty and roller coaster out front) where we took a room on the 20th floor. I was surprised to have Phi tell me we would have visitors when I got out of the luxurious shower (contrast to camping!) and a few minutes later room service knocked with a dinner tray and wine – how sweet! Already late, we took a stroll down the Strip under the dazzling lights, but gave into fatigue at an early 2a.m. – for the city of no clocks.
The next day we were a bit disgusted at the Strip under the light of day, and as Dave had warned us back in California, the heat and humidity made it so that you simply want to skip from one air-conditioned building to another. The casinos conveniently open their doors to the streets, their cool and over-oxygenated atmospheres pouring into the smoggy city. After breakfast “in Paris” at Lenôtre (we couldn’t resist!), we crossed the flashy advertising outside and dinging slots inside (no winners to witness) and finally found our way to lunch at the Bellagio with one of Philippe’s family’s friends, whose stories of the entrepreneurial American Dream entertained us. It’s always nice to hear about a city from one of its inhabitants, jaded and all!
That night we splurged on a very swank dinner of sushi (a.k.a. vegetable tempura for Kate) in a modern aquarium-looking place – fresh fish in the desert, and an impressive quality of restaurants all around, I have to add. Determined to see a Show, we settled on the Cirque de Soleil’s new “Zumanity’, since the well-reviewed “O” was sold out and we could see this one in our own hotel. We were both excited and it proved to be flashy and colourful as expected, but much more sexual, almost on an obscene level (and we’re no puritans). The conclusion was it could have been more cirque and less strip, but I was still in awe of the acrobats, extreme dancers, contortionists, trapeze artists and risqué costumes and language.
Across at MGM, we had drinks at the Centrifuge, a bar that was flashy without the $20 cover of most clubs. (Yeah, we’ve blown our budget a bit…) Our waitress was a sweetheart who “had to go dance” (on the bar) in the middle of taking our order, so we chatted with her afterwards and found out she’s from Ann Arbor; her mom’s a prof. at U of M! So Mr.-King-of-Coincidences-Blum is just over the moon, and it took her only my 5-minute washroom break to buy Philippe a drink. Yeah, I’M writing this entry. No bitterness. J
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