“Bellagio” means “beautiful hemo” (Vegas, Day 2)
Day 2: Whoa! We are a little behind in our blogging! Well, to catch you up, we were very excited to arrive in Vegas. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you anything, because what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Just kidding! We left really early, and got to Vegas at about 9:30am. We couldn’t check in until 11am, so we stored our bags, and we walked around our hotel, The Mirage. It was BEAUTIFUL! In the lobby on the shiny, beautifully carved wooden tables were huge vases about 3 feet tall of fresh, yellow roses. Behind the check-in desk were the biggest aquariums I have ever seen in my life! They were chock full of all kinds of tropical fish. It was so cool! Just past the lobby was a wooden bridge with many beautiful tropical plants on both sides of it.
Once over the bridge, you enter into the casino. It’s rather smoky, because smoking is allowed in the casinos in Vegas. There were so many machines! It was crazy. I felt overwhelmed by all the lights and noise. There were not a ton of people at the casino because it was still pretty early. I thought it was interesting that you had to walk through the casino in order to get to the elevators to the rooms. It was a long walk, and I felt bad for the weary travelers who had to trek an extra quarter of a mile just to get to their rooms. In the hotel, there was a nightclub, a bar, a casino, a Beatles lounge, several restaurants, a spa, many stores, and many conference rooms–all on the first floor. On our mini self-guided hotel tour, we followed signs to the dolphin habitat, which was outside, along with the hotel pools. I really wanted to see the dolphins! We discovered just how expensive it was to see them–$15! We decided it was cheaper to watch them on the Discovery Channel instead. There were lots of people enjoying the pool outside in the 100 degree plus weather. We also discovered, interestingly enough, that there were signs pointing to a “bare” pool. Yikes! Not a sight I wanted to check out in the least, but very funny, nonetheless.
We headed back inside the hotel. When we saw the conference rooms, we noticed there were a lot of yellow road signs with animals on them–pigs, cows, and chickens. There were huge banners hanging from the walls and the ceiling that advertised nutrition, and health information about animal products. It was kinda weird, but I actually thought it was part of the hotel, like some sort of animal rights campaign. Then we saw a huge tin foil burrito with the word “Chipotle,” on it, and Dorothy said, “Oh, Chipotle must be having some sort of conference here!” We wanted to sneak in and say that we were official taste testers, but we didn’t think anyone would believe us. We returned to the lobby, checked in our rooms (which were really cute–modern and retro), and met up with Rachel! It was very exciting to see her. She was our own personal tour guide. The first thing we did was go to get some good food. We were all so hungry. Let me tell you, getting out of the hotel was no easy feat. We had to specially request a cab that accepted credit cards as payment. We stood out in the heat and waited for a really long time. We were just about to leave, and then the cab finally came. It turned out that the buffet we wanted to go to (Planet Hollywood, which was recommended by a friend of Dorothy’s) was not too far away to walk to. But we were all feeling a little dizzy and hungry, and we may not have made it by foot in the heat. The buffet ended up being really good. They had food from all over the world, and it was separated into different “stations,” if you will. There was American, Middle Eastern, Asian, Italian, Mexican, and then soup, salad, seafood, and dessert. Yummy! I definitely tried them all–except American. You can get that anywhere, after all! After we ate, we did a little sightseeing. We went to Bellagio and watched the water show, which was incredible. (I told Nick, Rachel, and Dorothy that “Bellagio,” means “beautiful hemo” in Italian. Ha ha!) There is a set schedule of times, and at those certain times, a song is played, and tubes of water outside Bellagio are synced to “dance” to it. Water sprays, bubbles, and shoots up in perfect, beautiful rhythmic patterns to the music. It was so pretty to watch! Afterwards, we walked around and shopped a little bit. We returned to the hotel around 4:30pm, got our bathing suits on, and hit the pool (not the bare one!) It was really refreshing and relaxing. We chilled out in the hot tub for a little while, too.
Then, we got dressed and went to go pick up Rachel’s boyfriend, David, so that we could all go to dinner. We were going to eat at New York, New York, because Dorothy had a special errand to run there, but the restaurant we wanted was really packed, and the wait was long. And so, we ended up going to MGM. We ate at a really nice Italian restaurant. Afterwards, we dropped David off at his house, and went back to the hotel. By this time, we were pretty tired, and we headed to bed. Rachel was my roommate for the night, so that was really fun. It was a really great day, and we were excited to head to Berkeley early in the morning (where we would meet up with Leslie!)