My Weekend in Vegas

I've managed to survive another weekend trip to Vegas intact, and without killing any family, which is always important when we travel there together. We flew out Thursday night, fairly uneventful, though the flight was a bit late. I opted not to go out that night, since I was quite tired, but my parents and their friends went down to the casino at the Tropicana, where we were staying. Thankfully this time my sis and I had a separate room. My grandpa Zeke also retired early, and my other grandparents were scheduled to arrive by car the next morning. We slept in and relaxed, quite gratefully, got up for the breakfast/lunch buffet, and met my grandparents and my sister. My grandma isn't a big fan of gambling or drinking, so she and I and my sis went out to do some sightseeing. We went to the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay, which was lovely and very calming, and full of small children in costume, since it was Halloween. Next stop was Circus Circus, at my grandma's request. Most of the stuff there was kid-oriented, and not to our tastes, though we did get to see the acrobats. That night for dinner we had a delicious meal in honor of my parents' 25th and my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversaries. We went to the Japanese steak house at the hotel, called Mizuno's, which is a Japanese hibachi-style grill. I was the only one who knew the etiquette and words for a Japanese meal, and who ate the meal only with chopsticks (note to self, learn how to make miso soup), and the filet mignon I had was delicious, so tender I could probably have not chewed it, it almost melted in my mouth. Again, I opted to stay in and relax that evening, playing my DS and listening to my iPod. Apparently I missed out on karaoke and a Halloween costume contest, but I wasn't terribly bothered. Next day, much to my delight, dad informed me that we were going to the drag races, which I'd been looking forward to. We had killer seats thanks to grandpa's cousin Chris, and for that race two of my favorite racers, Cruz and Tony Pedregon, did very well. Cruz won his second in a row race, which puts him in first place for points for this season with one race to go. We were all getting a bit tired by that night, I think, and tempers were running high. Dinner was very stressful, my grandparents wanted to eat early but no one was back on time, everyone was going off without telling anyone else, and my grandpa Zeke's obnoxious cousin June was in full form, loud, bossy, and just generally annoying. That evening, after we'd calmed down, we decided to see the Cirque du Soleil show Beatles Love, which my mom in particular had been looking forward to. That was really the highlight of my trip, as I'd never seen a Cirque performance. The staging was amazing, especially for being in the round, though I suppose an acrobatic show of that caliber is better performed in the round. I was enthralled through the entire show. The music was great too (I've been a Beatles fan since I was quite young, thanks to my mom) and all the acrobatics were just unbelievable. My only issue was that I was sitting next to June, and she had the gall to take a flash picture in the middle of the show, despite the warnings about photography. That really did make me angry, since as well as it being incredibly rude, it's dangerous to the performers because the flash could cause an accident in their stunts. Being the theatre geek I was, I was so embarassed to be sitting beside her when the usher came to tell her to put the damn camera away. Also because of my knowledge of theatre, I was amazed by the level of tech in the show. Of course it's a large professional production, but it was flawless, and though I knew how most of it was done, that didn't stop the magic from overwhelming me. I had a great time shopping afterward too, at the shop, and there were many other things I could have walked out of there with if I'd had the funds. I had a great time shopping on this trip too, bought some fun things for myself as well as a few Christmas presents...not saying what here, since some people read this blog, but some of the stuff I got for myself included a Beatles Help! t-shirt, some racing stuff, and a Nintendo Monopoly set to add to my collection. I wanted the Beatles Monopoly set as well, but couldn't afford them both, and I'd seen the Beatles one elsewhere, whereas I'd never seen the Nintendo one before. We were out late that night, at any rate, and we had a kind of early flight the next morning, so we went straight to bed. Next morning, thanks to the time change, we were rudely awoken an hour too early by my grandpa, who had forgotten to change his watch and was panicked that we'd be late. We got to the airport three hours early, checked in, and found our gate, then settled down to wait. My grandparents tend to panic about traveling by air, which is why we got there so early, but I got very frustrated by all their fussing. Then, to add to the fun, our flight was delayed by almost an hour and a half, so we got to sit at the crowded gate for even longer. *sigh* Oh well, I can't really blame them, they don't travel by plane as often as I do, and quite frankly, I don't worry anymore about anything that isn't an international flight, just because those are the real meaning of complicated. A short flight to Vegas is cake. Anyway, after followed a sleepy drive home from the airport, and that more or less concluded my weekend.