What Happens in Vegas

So the last few weeks have been busybusy. I traveled to Las Vegas for work at the very end of February and wow...This was my first time in Vegas and it was even More Ridiculous than I had ever imagined. This place is beyond outrageous. It is a giant adult amusement park of debauchery. I kept mentioning things that blew me away to other people, including Clint, and the only response I ever received was, 'It's Vegas...' Like, Duh. Guess I'm more naive than I like to believe. Anyway, we stayed at the Venetian, and had problems with exactly all 3 of our room reservations. Honestly, I was hugely UNDER whelmed with the treatment of my group by the hotel staff. They were difficult to deal with on multiple occasions.

The Venetian itself was just...gilded. That's really the only word I can think of to describe it. Everything was huge, and overdone, and then gold-plated. The ceilings are painted fresco-style. The bathroom in my suite had a double-sink vanity, a separate make-up vanity, a huge tub, a separate shower, and a phone in the toilet. Really? A phone in the toilet? Because Americans are that ridiculous that we can't be away from the phone while we poop. Maybe having a phone in the toilet of a Roman-inspired hotel is appropriate.

The hotels in Vegas are so big and sprawling that there are signs everywhere to direct you to where you are going. And they, of course, encompass everything you could possibly need because Heaven Forbid you should decide to travel into the outside world and Leave THE CASINO. So, for instance, the Venetian has 19 restaurants- 11 fine dining and 8 casual dining, in addition to the room service, a spa, a wedding chapel, a gondola, a MALL, 2 museums (Madame Toussad's and The Guggenheim Hermitage), 3 different shows (Blue Man, Phantom, and Wayne Brady), a nightclub, 2 bars, and-of course-the casino. You don't even have to even leave the hotel and you can fill up a week's worth of activities.

But I think there were two instances that really hammered home the fact that Vegas is an alternate universe. The first happened as I wondered through the casino at the Venetian to find a coffee shop in the Canal Shoppes. At 9:30 on a Monday morning, I walked through the casino and there, standing in front of the escalators, was a man contemplating a Bud Light bottle. At 9:30 AM. On a MONDAY. He had obviously not slept. Maybe for several days.

The second happened in our last meeting just before we left the city. The convention was held at the Rio and several meetings we had took place at the I Bar, conveniently located in the lobby (I never located the front desk to, you know, check in; but the bar was right out front). Since most of our meetings took place during the day, this had been a relatively low-key (though far from empty) meeting spot. But this last meeting took place at 4:30 in the afternoon, a time that is after the cocktail waitresses go on duty. This meeting included our company's male CEO, who looked rather sheepish as a barely-clad waitress cruised by our table several times, asking if we needed drinks. Vegas is one of the few places where it is acceptable to have business meetings in places that essentially add up to nothing more than strip clubs, only because it is virtually impossible to avoid.

I have pictures, but Google's servers are not cooperating... :( I'll post them, soon.