Today is Christmas yay! Oh wait, I don’t care. BAH HUMBUG.
I woke up at 5:00 am because duh. I am in Las Vegas. I am at Orleans and they have a point multiplier promotion today so I must go gamble. I walked over to Terribles for coffee. I have to say, their coffee is pretty damn good.
Sunrise outside the Orleans hotel and casino.
Then I played.
I had left the room with $120 and played all over the damn place. I hit four of a kind fives to start.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
This morning I woke up at 4:00 am in my comfortable bed at the Orleans Hotel and Casino in beautiful Las Vegas. I could not fall back asleep so I got dressed and went to gamble. Obviously.
There is a Starbucks near Orleans but I do not know if it is open 24 hours so I settled for gas station coffee from Terribles next door. Yes I know you can get coffee for free while playing. No, I would rather not have to be at someone else’s mercy for coffee.
I wanted to play the nickel Keno machine I had won $940 on a year ago TODAY. But it is taken. Because it is 5:00 am so obviously that one machine would be taken. So I settled for the Double Double Bonus video poker machine that had been kind to me last night. She was kind once again.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Today kicks off a twenty day trip to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. But not before I work a half day, as a reminder of why I need to win eleventy billion dollars and never come back.
That global warming shit meant that I was leaving New York City when it was 70 degrees, and arriving in Las Vegas when it was in the 30’s. The past couple of years, it has typically been colder in Vegas than back home, but this was a huge first world problem. I did not want to wear my winter coat in 70 degree weather, I needed it for Vegas. Luckily, I am an expert packer and not only did I only need a carry on for twenty nights in Vegas, I had enough room in there for my winter coat. Score!
I was selected for pre-check, which I absolutely love.
I ended up gate checking my bag for free because I wanted to make sure I did not get stuck having to keep my laptop bag under the seat in front of me. I hate having things under there, I feel like it constricts the flow of oxygen.
My flight was delayed, but it was nowhere near as much doom and gloom as the news was reporting. I guess all the fog in the city was really messing up flights. My flight only arrived in Vegas a mere fifteen minutes late. We had no form of entertainment on this flight, unless you consider an announcement asking if there was a doctor on board, entertainment. I don’t know what was going on, but whatever it was, caused the flight attendants to have to make several announcements for people to stay in their seats. I assume it ended fine since we were not met by medical or a coroner upon arrival. Delta if you are reading this, next time I would prefer an individual television.
I am leaving tomorrow for twenty days in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. This trip is slightly different than previous trips because my trip style has changed.
For the past couple of years, I keep insisting I am never going back to Las Vegas. I truly believe this every time I say it. I want to use my time to visit the rest of the world. It is cheaper seeing the rest of the world. I am serious. I used to do that thing “Where else can you go and get comped rooms and comped meals and blah blah blah?” It turns out that is a trick question. Because you do not need comped rooms and comped meals to spend less per day in China, than you would in Las Vegas, for one random example.
Do not get me wrong, I am not telling YOU that YOU should stop going to Las Vegas. I have been around Vegas message boards long enough to know that this is how it goes:
Me: So on my trip I….
The Internet: OH MY GOD WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THAT ON VACATION
Me: Well it is MY vacation so…
The Internet: I WOULD NEVER DO THAT ON MY VACATION.
Me: Well I am not suggesting…
The Internet: BLAH BLAH BLAH I WOULD NEVER DO THAT SO I DON’T WANT YOU TO DO IT EITHER. LA LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU.
Me: Sigh…
So when we last left off, I was in hour nine (thank you Royal Flusher!) of a 37 hour trip to Las Vegas. Since I am the world’s worst blogger, you may not remember part one since it was posted so long ago. You can find that here.
I took a nap, with the alarm set obviously. No time for over sleeping.
I got dressed….wait no I didn’t. I didn’t need to because I never got undressed. I just rolled out of bed, put on shoes and went back down to Main Street Station. I stopped at Lapperts for another iced chai latte. These things are SO GOOD.
I stopped at a Friends slot machine, with the full expectation that I would lose my money. This seemed fair since I deserved to for playing slot machines. But I hit a bonus and won. SURPRISE!
I posted this on Instagram and paraphrased Joey with “YEAH I did” and had an influx of people texting me to ask how much I won. $101.70. Nothing more than penny slots for this old lady.
So I explained my logic for taking this trip here. Now here is the report!
I had originally booked Southwest, leaving San Francisco at 8:00-ish AM and arriving at 11:30-ish AM. I booked it because I had flight credit from a trip to Atlanta, where the airfare kept going down so I kept rebooking. I did not like this flight at all. It had a layover which made the flight too long. But the first direct flight of the day only landed half an hour earlier and was like three times the price. What to do, what to do…..? Ah fuck it. I ate the Southwest ticket and booked a brand new ticket on United, arriving at 7:40 am. I now have $42 in Southwest credit. But they go literally nowhere from NYC that I would be flying Southwest for. So unless a surprise trip comes up…..well whatever.
I was super, insanely excited to go to Vegas. I ended up upgrading my seat for $24 and ended up with my own row. I was like the tenth person off the plane. This was so exciting! The flight went so fast! What time is it? 7:11! This is an omen!
Look at pretty Las Vegas! I never arrive in the daytime so this made me excited.
Here is something you should know about people who frequent Las Vegas: They all love to talk about how cheap a trip is, and how you will never find another city in the world where you can go and stay in beautiful hotels and eat fine dining, for even a fraction of the cost as Las Vegas. Note that I said “they” and not “we”. I used to be part of that group. I used to love the idea of staying in a nice hotel that I was comped in, versus paying $150/night for some shitty motel in Anywhereelse USA.
But then something happened. I started traveling outside the United States. Guys, I have to tell you something. The world outside of the United States is so much cheaper. Sure there are lots of countries you can travel to where the cost is relatively the same, or even higher than travel in the States. But then I went to Eastern Europe. And China. Suddenly, that “Wow, this is such a great bargain!” Las Vegas trip morphed into “Wow, for less than the cost of a two week trip to Vegas, I can spend six weeks in China!”
So I began vowing that every trip to Las Vegas would be my last. But see, I didn’t tell anyone this, except for my cute little stuffed dog. He doesn’t judge or hold me accountable for things I say, so I was free to break that vow at will.
I arrived in Shangri-La by bus from Lijiang. The ride cost 68 RMB ($10.97 USD), took about four hours, and was full of beautiful scenery.
Upon arrival in Lijiang, I was picked up by a driver my hotel set up for free, and I was brought to my hotel. I am staying at Xi Tang Exquisite Hotel. When I had booked it, I picked it because it had round beds and I had always wanted to sleep in a round bed.
Shortly after booking, I got an email letting me know that there is going to be construction going on during the day…my heart sank as I thought this was going to continue to tell me that the room is now not available. But it was! I had a reduced rate because of the construction. YAY ROUND BED!
So when we last left off, I had just had a complete nervous breakdown in the middle of Tibet and was told that I would be leaving Ganzi in a shared minivan at 8:00 the next morning. You can read all about that here.
Well that morning was this morning and I should probably start off by telling you that I did indeed get out of Ganzi (YAY) but the story is a bit more complicated than that.
I knew I was supposed to be leaving at 8:00 so I planned to leave my hotel at 7:30. The shared minivans gather about ten feet from the door. I woke up at 6:00 am and was just about to eat a Cliff Bar and drink some milk tea when someone began knocking on my door. What the hell. I open it and it is a dude standing there who says “Dege” to me. I say “I thought we were leaving at 8:00” which he does not understand, as if it mattered anyway. He does a driving motion and says “Dege” and points down, meaning “come on, let’s go.”
If I wasn’t such a maniac, I would not have even been awake yet. I could in theory have set my alarm for 7:30 and still have been outside by 8:00. As it was, I was only awake for maybe five minutes. So now I have to rush like even more of a maniac and pack and get out now. I am ready in five minutes, but I am all shaky from doing too much when I was only awake for five minutes in high altitude. Plus, I had consumed zero calories. But hey, I am getting out of Ganzi so let’s go!