We hit the city of sin up for two nights in this trip so we could afford to be a little irresponsible with our behavior for one night, because I feel like that’s part of being in a city where you are just a vodka martini, a woman and an Elvis impersonator away from being married at any given time. Never fear though, as four bachelors we entered Las Vegas and as four bachelors we left. We drove past the strip on the way to our hotel, showered and hit the town.
We were pretty hungry so we kind of wanted to find one of those legendary Las Vegas buffets. What we did not want to do however was part with 30 dollars to do so (no thank you MGM Grand). So after walking around the strip for about an hour and a half, we came to the realization that it wasn’t gonna happen here. We saw the Hooter’s casino advertising 25 cent wings and all you can eat ribs for about 15 bucks. That definitely tickled our fancy, so we went in there only to discover the wing special was from midnight to 6 only and the restaurant was not an actual Hooter’s restaurant. It was Dan Marino’s restaurant. Seriously? The professional football player who is a spokesman for freakin NutriSystem!?!? The ribs however were delicious and interestingly enough, they were the cheapest thing on the menu (salads and soups aside). After we ate, we decided to walk all the way up the strip to digest this ridiculous amount of food and lose some money.
For those of you who may not know, the Las Vegas strip is one of the brightest places on Earth. There is a light at the top of the Luxor that supposedly shines brightly enough to be seen from space on a clear night. There is also a plethora of men handing out flyers for strippers… or prostitutes. The general trend among these guys was they all appeared to be Hispanic. In fact, that was the only trend that rang true as some of these people handing out these flyers were in fact Hispanic women.
We continued walking and tried our luck at gambling, which really just translated into losing different denominations of money at a time. After successfully managing to lose about 20 bucks in roulette, David and I strolled over to Caesar’s Palace where we had one goal: get free drinks while gambling at the penny slots. While there, I managed to make 5 dollars last about 4-5 hours in a penny slot, all the while getting free drinks. I was thoroughly impressed.
After all the gambling, we strolled towards our hotel and picked up a cab. I “interviewed” our cabbie, although it was far from formal. He had migrated from Eastern Europe about 20 years ago and had been driving a cab almost the whole time since then. He told us a lot about how the system works with the company he’s with. He gets his choice of hours to drive based on seniority at the company. He’s number 6 in line at his company behind some guys who have been driving there for about 25 years or so. He said it pays pretty decent, but there really isn’t any opportunity for advancement.
The next day, we hit up the old Vegas strip. We saw the Binion’s casinos where they host the World Series of Poker and we also found one of those great buffets for 10 dollars. The old strip is definitely host to a much “seedier” crowd but also home to many cheaper games. In fact, we saw single deck blackjack with 5 dollar minimum bets while we were there. They are really just asking people to count cards with that one.
After we were done losing money in the old strip we decided to go head down to the new strip and lose more money. Not too much though, just on things like the penny slots so maybe like 5 dollars tops between all of us. Mostly we just wanted to walk around the casinos we missed on day one. After that leisurely stroll, we decided to hit the hay pretty early to gear up for our next day of travel. For your entertainment, here are some superlatives/numbers from our time in Vegas:
Celebrity Impersonators – 2 (Elvis and Michael Jackson)
Grooms – 6
Brides – 7
Casino with the most disappointing interior but an awesome outside – Luxor
Casino with the most impressive interior but a cheesy outside – Excalibur
Casino with most over the top theme use – New York, New York
Casino with best use of theme – Caesar’s Palace
Money Lost
Drew – $3
David – $60.25
Kris – $50
Josh – $78
Proposed alternative nickname for Vegas: Playground for the businessmen
