Part 3 of Greg & Maria's trip to Vegas.
It was now Thursday, the day Maria was flying in to join me in Vegas. I woke up with a giant blister on the pad of my left foot. I don't know if anyone remembers that recent movie trailer for "Run Fatboy Run" but there was a blister incident briefly shown there that looked as bad as mine felt. (Warning: click on youtube link at your own risk. I'm not embedding this one.)
After a breakfast meeting at the conference, I took an hour off to go find a Walgreens to buy some bandages and some other items to perform some self surgery so that hopefully I could actually walk by the time Maria arrived.
(Caesar at Caesar's Palace)
Since I had the conference for most of the day Maria arranged for an old friend who lives in Vegas, April Spaugh, to come and get her from the airport. From there they drove into the strip and stopped at Caesar's Palace to have lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. How can anyone think of having a meal at a place called Cheesecake Factory? That's like getting a burger and fries at the Super Sugar Yummy Shack. There's just no sense in it. Of course, they did finish things off with a helping of cheesecake. And afterwards wandered the shops there where they found a large 3-story FAO Schwarz to play in for a while.
(Maria & April)
(Maria's Cheesecake)
(Maria at FAO Schwarz)
When they were done playing there, April delivered Maria to the hotel, which gave me an excuse to leave a fairly uninteresting presentation to come and meet her. After dropping off luggage, we made plans for the rest of the evening which were to culminate with us attending one of the Cirque du Soleil shows. My foot was feeling a bit better--well, enough to walk on with the help of all my bandages--so I decided I'd take Maria on the monorail and visit a few casino sites before the show.
We went to the MGM Grande where I showed her around a bit and did some shopping. I thought we might try and watch another fall TV show there (because they give all sorts of free coupons for offering our opinion! What a cool idea!) but the timing didn't quite work in our favor. So instead we wandered over to New York, New York where we ended up getting attacked by a time-share demon.
For those who have never been to Vegas, which included us, pretty much any casino you walk into has these time-share demons who lure you in with a promise of free shows and other offers before letting you know that the catch is you have to go attend a time-share presentation. We had fallen victim to one of these offers about ten years ago with the promise of a "free" vacation that didn't turn out to be all that free.
Anyway, after letting slip that it was our anniversary, the Vegas time-share demons wouldn't leave us alone; promising us all these great things that they were going to treat us to to help celebrate our occasion. Ultimately we accepted an offer to a $140 meal(!) credit at a restaurant in the hotel and free passes to the New York, New York roller coaster. I almost had to accept just to find out what a $140 meal would actually taste like. So we sold them our Saturday morning in exchange for a meal Saturday night. I'll talk more about that when I get to Saturday.
(The rainbow colors of M&Ms)
After we got out of that casino, we went back across the street and visited "M&M's World," a large 4-story store dedicated entirely to M&M candy and merchandise. It was actually pretty cool, and on the third floor they even had a free 3D movie featuring Red and Yellow (you know, the guys from the commercials) and a lost 'M'. It was fun for a free attraction, though it did make us go rather cross-eyed.
(Maria & I in Vegas, framed by M&Ms)
(Real live M&Ms!)
Maria was still pretty full from her Cheesecake lunch, as was I from whatever meal I'd had, so we used a coupon I had from my previous TV-show review to get us a couple large pretzels that acted as our dinner.
(Ka Theater)
Finally, it was time for the main attraction of the evening. As a combination birthday present and anniversary gift, my parents bought us two tickets to see Cirque du Soleil's "Ka" (or "KÀ" if you know how to use symbols.) According to the website:
Anyway, we really enjoyed the show. Like any Cirque du Soleil production, it was weird and didn't always make sense, but the acrobatics were undeniably wonderful. The main "star" of this show is the stage, which rotates around 360 degrees, as well as any angle between horizontal and vertical. This allowed for some really crazy set pieces, such as when two armies were fighting and the stage lifted itself vertically so it looked like we, as the audience, were looking down at the battle field from above while the soldiers fought on harnesses like Batman walking up a wall.
(This giant wheel was my favorite part of Ka)
Anyway, we were thoroughly entertained and were very happy to have had a chance to see the show. There are at least four other Cirque du Soleil shows playing in Vegas right now, and now I'm really anxious to go see some more.
After the show we gathered all our shopping bags and took the Monorail home to retire for the evening. Maria was still on Texas time which is two hours earlier than the pacific time in Vegas.
It was now Thursday, the day Maria was flying in to join me in Vegas. I woke up with a giant blister on the pad of my left foot. I don't know if anyone remembers that recent movie trailer for "Run Fatboy Run" but there was a blister incident briefly shown there that looked as bad as mine felt. (Warning: click on youtube link at your own risk. I'm not embedding this one.)
After a breakfast meeting at the conference, I took an hour off to go find a Walgreens to buy some bandages and some other items to perform some self surgery so that hopefully I could actually walk by the time Maria arrived.
(Caesar at Caesar's Palace)
Since I had the conference for most of the day Maria arranged for an old friend who lives in Vegas, April Spaugh, to come and get her from the airport. From there they drove into the strip and stopped at Caesar's Palace to have lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. How can anyone think of having a meal at a place called Cheesecake Factory? That's like getting a burger and fries at the Super Sugar Yummy Shack. There's just no sense in it. Of course, they did finish things off with a helping of cheesecake. And afterwards wandered the shops there where they found a large 3-story FAO Schwarz to play in for a while.
(Maria & April)
(Maria's Cheesecake)
(Maria at FAO Schwarz)
When they were done playing there, April delivered Maria to the hotel, which gave me an excuse to leave a fairly uninteresting presentation to come and meet her. After dropping off luggage, we made plans for the rest of the evening which were to culminate with us attending one of the Cirque du Soleil shows. My foot was feeling a bit better--well, enough to walk on with the help of all my bandages--so I decided I'd take Maria on the monorail and visit a few casino sites before the show.
We went to the MGM Grande where I showed her around a bit and did some shopping. I thought we might try and watch another fall TV show there (because they give all sorts of free coupons for offering our opinion! What a cool idea!) but the timing didn't quite work in our favor. So instead we wandered over to New York, New York where we ended up getting attacked by a time-share demon.
For those who have never been to Vegas, which included us, pretty much any casino you walk into has these time-share demons who lure you in with a promise of free shows and other offers before letting you know that the catch is you have to go attend a time-share presentation. We had fallen victim to one of these offers about ten years ago with the promise of a "free" vacation that didn't turn out to be all that free.
Anyway, after letting slip that it was our anniversary, the Vegas time-share demons wouldn't leave us alone; promising us all these great things that they were going to treat us to to help celebrate our occasion. Ultimately we accepted an offer to a $140 meal(!) credit at a restaurant in the hotel and free passes to the New York, New York roller coaster. I almost had to accept just to find out what a $140 meal would actually taste like. So we sold them our Saturday morning in exchange for a meal Saturday night. I'll talk more about that when I get to Saturday.
(The rainbow colors of M&Ms)
After we got out of that casino, we went back across the street and visited "M&M's World," a large 4-story store dedicated entirely to M&M candy and merchandise. It was actually pretty cool, and on the third floor they even had a free 3D movie featuring Red and Yellow (you know, the guys from the commercials) and a lost 'M'. It was fun for a free attraction, though it did make us go rather cross-eyed.
(Maria & I in Vegas, framed by M&Ms)
(Real live M&Ms!)
Maria was still pretty full from her Cheesecake lunch, as was I from whatever meal I'd had, so we used a coupon I had from my previous TV-show review to get us a couple large pretzels that acted as our dinner.
(Ka Theater)
Finally, it was time for the main attraction of the evening. As a combination birthday present and anniversary gift, my parents bought us two tickets to see Cirque du Soleil's "Ka" (or "KÀ" if you know how to use symbols.) According to the website:
KÀ, the unprecedented, gravity-defying production by Cirque du Soleil takes adventure to an all new level. KÀ is a heroic journey of love and conflict, set within a dynamic theatrical landscape, as an entire empire appears on KÀ's colossal stage and a captivating display of acrobatics envelops the audience. Only at MGM Grand, Las Vegas..We found the theater and were eventually shown to our seats, which were at the far back center of the theater. Luckily, the seats were still good enough to see everything, minus maybe facial details here and there. I found out later from my dad that they had got really close seats when they saw it and ended up missing a lot because they were too close to take it all in.
Anyway, we really enjoyed the show. Like any Cirque du Soleil production, it was weird and didn't always make sense, but the acrobatics were undeniably wonderful. The main "star" of this show is the stage, which rotates around 360 degrees, as well as any angle between horizontal and vertical. This allowed for some really crazy set pieces, such as when two armies were fighting and the stage lifted itself vertically so it looked like we, as the audience, were looking down at the battle field from above while the soldiers fought on harnesses like Batman walking up a wall.
(This giant wheel was my favorite part of Ka)
Anyway, we were thoroughly entertained and were very happy to have had a chance to see the show. There are at least four other Cirque du Soleil shows playing in Vegas right now, and now I'm really anxious to go see some more.
After the show we gathered all our shopping bags and took the Monorail home to retire for the evening. Maria was still on Texas time which is two hours earlier than the pacific time in Vegas.
Comments
Greg was a real trooper, having giant blisters and still being willing to walk all over Vegas with me.
Also, if anyone is wondering why I look like a big, round watermelon in that picture, it's because I'm 8 months pregnant! I only ate one piece of cheesecake, I swear! April