Viva Las Vegas?

Ah, Las Vegas. Mostly for me it WOULD have been a fantastic trip- except that I got real sick. So sick that I completely missed the New Year. Yes, utterly depressing.
Well, anyways, we left on Monday and headed up to Flagstaff, where we were going to stay at Elaine’s apartment for the night to break up the trip. There was a ton of snow everywhere- literally. Like had piled up and collapsed roofs. We had a pretty chill night, but I had difficulty sleeping-which may be where the trouble began. Things went surprisingly smoothly the next morning, and we got an early start on the road to Vegas. I rode with Christin and Steph, and it was a pretty nice drive. I quite like the sun, blue skies, and mountains of the Southwest. Although green forest is pretty, it gets- I don’t know, boring, and claustrophic compared to a nice expanse. I saw the Hoover Dam for the first time- cool, I guess, but surprisingly a huge tourist crowd- I don’t really get the appeal of getting out of your car to hang around for a long period of time, but it’s history. A big piece of concrete.
So we get to Vegas, and get into the room the six of us will share at the Monte Carlo. It’s nice, and soon enough the first gambling begins at the casino. Elaine throughout the trip somehow manages to keep winning money at slots, but the rest of us lose money like normal people. We decide to walk around the strip and go into the various hotels. It’s very crowded, people carrying jumbo drinks on the street of all shapes and sizes. We walked through New York New York, the MGM, and Caesar’s Palace. They are all huge and fun and somehow just the right amount of cheesy. This is, however, when I was starting to feel exhausted and sore, and when we headed back to the hotel for a break. I then got very sick and preceded to puke my guts out. My friends got ready and went to the club Pure at Caesar’s, while I stayed in the hotel and tried not to die. The next day, I took it easy in the morning and then decided to try going out to look at some more hotels. We went to Treasure Island, which was pretty cool, with a bunch of fake ships. Then to the Venetian. I had been to the Venetian in Macau, and was just kind of annoyed with the fakeness, and the cheesy weirdness of the casino. Somehow in Vegas it works though, it’s impressive. Macau is just sort of depressing, with everything so spread out; it’s missing something, the fun, wild atmosphere of Vegas. Anyways, soon enough I started to feel sick again and as it was New Year’s Eve, I tried resting in the hopes of being able to out at night.
The only place we could get in for dinner that wasn’t ridiculously expensive was the Outback, so we got all decked out and headed to dinner. The street was closed down and we could tell it was going to be an absolutely wild street party, with crazy stunts jumping cars and motorcycles, drunken madness, and fireworks. We had a lively dinner, but I was feeling just awful. I realized that I wouldn’t be able to make it til midnight, and if I did I would feel terrible so I decided to stay in. The thing that made it so frustrating was that it was exactly my kind of party, and what I have always wanted to do for New Year’s: a crazy street party. So I went to sleep and completely missed it. Our last day we visited some more hotels before heading back to Phoenix. I really liked Excalibur, which is probably the nerdiest themed hotel, but I clearly have a fondness for staying in castles.
Well, it obviously sucked missing most of the trip, especially on New Year’s. I haven’t missed midnight since probably the age of four or five. But I do really like Vegas, and now I want to go back- I really hope I have a chance to go back and actually experience it.