20060326 - First Day on the Central Strip

The day started out with me, waking up late because my alarms didn't go off,going to work at 4am, and leaving early at 10. I went home and took a shower and then we headed to the airport, flying out on Alaska Airlines. Christelle's new luggage is large, and we packed it full and had to pay a $25 extra fee for it being over 50 lbs. but we didn't care so we paid and headed to the plane.

The plane ride was a short one to Seattle with one incident of me trying to open my rice crackers and having the bag explode all over the place, haha. The plane trip from Seattle to Las Vegas was uneventful and we arrived at about 6 pm. At the airport after we received our luggage we headed over to get a taxi. The taxi driver we had was an asshole and took the long way, but I wasn't sure if he had until it was too late, so he got a 45 cent tip, jerk. We arrived at the Flamingo and we were helped by an older gentleman who was very nice, I asked if we could have a room with a good view since we were staying so long and he sure did. We got up to our room 18146, thats the 18th floor, and found that our room was on the corner with only one set of neighbors and a watermachine outside, as well as an awesome view of Caesar's Palace, Bellagio and its fountains, and The Mirage.

We got situated and headed out to explore our surrounding block. There were a lot of people handing out these little porn cards and a lot of people trying to get you to do timeshares for free shows and stuff. We headed over to the Venetian where we actually did sign up for a timeshare presentation so we could get two tickets to V, the variety show at the Aladdin, and two free dinners at Lombardi's, a very classy restaurant. Then we proceeded to check out the place.

The Venetian was very nice, one of the best for shopping on the strip. Beautiful everything. Across the street at Treasure Island, a fairly boring casino, we saw the Sirens of TI show on the street, it was pretty racy, but funny and had some catchy songs, very crowded.

Over at The Mirage we saw the volcano go off out front and that was pretty neat, the actual casino was fairly boring as well though. Then on over to Caesar's Palace. This was probably the most spectacular architecturaly, huge 50 foot statues and all sorts of awesomeness, very beautiful.

On our side of the street there is the Flamingo, O' Sheas(one of 2 places with $5 blackjack), Imperial Palace (daquiri bar), and Harrah's, which was probably the best actual slots casino, and also where we ate at Flavors Buffet, a very mediocre buffet at best. These casinos were just allright, nothing spectacular.

Overall it was a really fun night getting to see a lot of cool stuff, we only gambled like 5 dollars because the machines in Las Vegas don't pay out very well at all.