Vegas and Grand Cannyon baby!

This past three-day weekend, I decided to go a little bit crazy.  Don’t get too excited, though!  I decided to go a little bit crazy for my standards.  Haha.  I didn’t want to leave back to Portugal without visiting Las Vegas and Grand Canyon and, as soon as I heard some new people living in ihouse were planning to go there for the long weekend, I decided to join them, even though we were not exactly friends.  They left ihouse on Thursday to spend three days and three nights in Vegas and two days in the Grand Canyon.  I decided to meet them on Saturday, which would give me one night in Vegas and a trip to the national park.  That way, I wouldn’t miss classes and I wouldn’t be forced to party too much but I would still be able to add two more checks to my “to do list”.

I woke up at 3:40 on Saturday, wondering why in the world I booked a flight to Vegas at 6 am in the morning.  A shuttle to Oakland airport picked me up at 4 am.  At 4:30, I got to there.  How surprised did I get when I tried to do the check in and the attendant told me I would not be able to take that flight because my reservation was “on hold” and there were no more available sits in the airplane?  I tried to complain, showing her the confirmation e-mail I received a month ago, when I made the reservation, but she said there was nothing she could do.  That was when crying time started for me.  I called Mom and Dad and decided to check if any other airplane company had tickets for that day.  Southwest actually did!  Pricy tickets but still tickets…

My flight to Vegas was calm and productive.  The guy sitting next to me was such a big gambler that he gets trips to Vegas for free, including transportation and accommodation.  Actually, he receives a good amount of money to go there, he doesn’t just go for free.  He gave me a few tips on where to go and offered me a ride to my hotel.  He said he would have a driver picking him up at the airport that wouldn’t probably mind to drive me too.  Guess what?  A limo took me from the airport to the hotel.  Vegas style baby!  [I only told my parents and Pedro about this adventure after I safely arrived at the hotel.  They were glad they didn’t know about it before.]

My hotel, Luxor, as all the other hotels in “The Strip”, Vegas’ most (and only) famous street, is a combination of casino, club, food courts, a big buffet, stores and rooms, organized in a confusing way so that people feel inertia to move or get lost on their way to other places and gamble as much as possible.  It is pyramid shaped, supposedly to represent Egypt.

Did you know that Egypt, New York, Paris, Venice, Greece, Hollywood and more places are all present in that street?  It’s crazy how everything is fake in that city.  There’s a little pyramid, a little Eiffel Tour, a little Statue of Liberty, a “little” Greek palace, besides a rollercoaster surrounding buildings, a lake, artificial rivers, lots of lights and big stores.  The streets are full of people who go there to gamble, party, go to artistic or strip shows, or shop.  I would nominate Las Vegas the capital of American entertainment.

I guess my description of Vegas makes it sound like an awful place but it is not.  It’s hilarious how it was possible for the human being to create that place, but it’s amusing and fascinating in its way.  There’s a feeling in the air that one can do whatever they feel like doing, with the excuse they are in Vegas and no one cares.

I ended up having a great day there.  I got to know pretty much everything in the Strip, to spend some time with amusing people and to have a fun night out.  It was nice to dress up a lot, feel good looking and party with everyone else.  I didn’t go to a male’s striptease show with most of the girls in my group, but I got to spend some time in a few casinos and to dance a lot in a nightclub.  Vegas: check!

The trip to Grand Canyon was great too.

People wanting to leave early for Grand Canyon were supposed to meet at 8 am on Sunday.  I should have predicted that no one would show up that early after a night out in Las Vegas.  However, I was actually ready to go at the scheduled time.  We didn't leave at 8 am, but four of us (four out of nineteen in the group) managed to leave Las Vegas before 10 am.  Not bad!

We drove for 6 hours before we arrived at the Grand Canyon National Park, South Rim.  That's the part of the park less exposed to the sun, and thus there was snow everywhere.  Although the weather was pretty cold, we managed to spend a couple of hours in the park and only left after watching the sunset.  And because an image is worth more than a thousand words, here are some pictures of the breathtaking landscape.

Monday was the last day of the big trip.  After sleeping in a little motel somewhere in Arizona, the nineteen of us had a nice breakfast together and left to Sedona, where we hiked for a while and had a good Mexican lunch before hitting the highway again.  The day was great, warm and sunny, and everyone was happy.  The way back to the airport was long and tiring but we made it on time!

I'm really sorry for the three guys in our group who booked the tickets back to Berkeley for March 18th instead of February 18th by mistake.  After such a tiring weekend, everything I didn't want to was to to stay one night at the airport before coming back.  Mom and Dad, it didn't happen to me this time! Haha.

Grand Canyon: check!

Two more American states visited (Nevada and Arizona): check!

Time to work: check!