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October 19, 2009

Vegas Vacation

So I'm finally posting pictures from last weekend's Vegas Vacation! I brought my gigantic camera with me, so a lot of our pictures from going out are from Cathy and Jenn, who were smart enough to bring normal cameras with them. I'm a firm believer in giving photo credit, so if you are wondering who took a picture, just click on it and I have either Cathy, Jenn, or Lauren as the title. Basically, if it's a really crappy photo - it's from my iPhone, if it's taken in the hotel room, it's probably my big camera, and if it's taken "out and about" it's Jenn or Cathy's.

Anyway, we all slept at my house last Thursday night to be ready to leave for our 7:30am flight. We slept in one of the guest rooms sharing a big king-size bed, where I apparently did quite a bit of sleep talking. I didn't realize I was so chatty in my sleep! Apparently I was shouting, "Nope! No way! Not ten in a million!" Was I gambling in my sleep? Who knows.

Our flight to Las Vegas was absolutely terrifying. We all thought we were going to die on multiple occasions, experiencing the worst turbulence I have ever been a part of. That's really saying something, considering that my plane to Rome landed in a tornado. For real.

At least we had a pretty view out the window! Here are the Rocky Mountains:

I like to think this is part of the Grand Canyon, but honestly I have no idea:

When we arrived at Caesar's Palace, we got a room upgrade to a deluxe jacuzzi room! Having slept for about two hours the night before (and not at all on the plane) I was super excited about the big comfy beds:

View of one of the pools, down below:

Hayley and Cathy getting ready to head down to the pool:

At the pool:

Looking up at our part of the hotel, the Palace Tower. We're such high rollers, living the penthouse life on the 10th floor:

After getting a little sun, we showered and got dressed to go exploring. Jenn and me in the room:

Cathy went to meet her boyfriend, Joe, who came for part of the weekend so Hayley, Jenn and I headed off to the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace.

Here's a giant statue of David:

I think this is a statue of Hera but I don't know for sure:

The forum shops were unbelievable. It was set up to look like the streets of Rome, and having lived in Rome one summer, it really did!

The Trevi fountain:

The main atrium of the forum shops:

Spiral escalator:

We had some time to kill before meeting Cathy and Joe for dinner, so we went in a lot of the shops, trying everything on. Here's Hayley and me wearing matching magenta leather gloves at Coach:

Watch out mean streets of Greenwich! Hayley and I are starting a badass motorcycle gang with our leather jackets and sunglasses. Except, rather than motorcycles we're going to drive pastel Vespas:

I always wondered what I'd look like in glasses. I think I look smart! Like I could be any ologist of my choosing!

After shopping for a while, we headed over to the Planet Hollywood restaurant to meet Cathy and Joe for drinks and nachos - the best kind of dinner.

Hayley and Me:

Cathy and Joe:

Cathy, Jenn, Hayley and Me:

In front of the Trevi fountain:

I love how Cathy is standing behind Cleopatra. My new boyfriend Julius and I look great though. What a couple!

On the way back, we did a little gambling. I took out my very first dollar, put it in a random slot machine, pressed a button, and won! First try!

We went back up to the room where we got changed to go out and took a few hotel room photos.

Hayley and Me:

Cathy, Me, and Hayley:

We decided to go to Pure that night, which was right in Caesar's Palace. On the way, we passed the Pussycat Dolls cage dancers. There were two of them, a brunette and a blonde. The brunette left something to be desired, but the blonde was fantastic. She did upside-down splits while hanging from a cage. I aspire to only do half that much with my life:

After checking out the cage dancers for a while, trying to learn their moves, we headed over to Pure, where there was an enormous line. It was insane. It looped through the casino going back and forth just like at Disney World. Hayley and I were first of our little group to get in line and went all the way to the back where a man who worked for the club pulled us out and said "You girls don't have to wait here. Come with me," and escorted us past the entire line to the very front where we waited for only a few minutes before being let in. Did I mention how much I love being a girl? Because it's a lot.

Here we all are in Pure:

I am soooo happy that this guy is doing the lawn-mower right next to me. Don't I look thrilled? There was not nearly enough alcohol in that drink to make this ok:

Cathy and Joe:

We danced a lot at Pure but all ended up crashing by 1am (4am Eastern time) because we were so exhausted. Pure was actually my least favorite of the three clubs we went to that weekend. It was filled to capacity with drunk people stepping on my feet and dancing to barely tolerable music. I hear Jamie Foxx was there too, which doesn't particularly impress me. He's no Justin Timberlake!

The next morning, we all woke up obscenely early (still used to an Eastern time schedule) and put on our bathing suits to head down to the pool to nap in the sun.

Hayley:

Me reading at the pool, waiting for the sun to get to our little area:

We spent a lot of time sitting on the edge of the pool getting tan and drinking fruity cocktails. Here's Cathy and me, as seen in Joe's sunglasses:

Cathy and Joe sitting on the edge of the pool:

Hayley, Cathy and Me playing in the fountain in the circle pool:

Cathy and Jenn:

The big pool:

After tanning for a bit, we all got showered and dressed again and decided to walk the strip. We started at our hotel and walked all the way to the Stratosphere! We discovered later that it was over three miles away. It looked so close!! None of us were too excited about the walk after the first couple miles, but at least we got to see all the different hotels.

Here's all of us standing in front of the fountains at Caesar's Palace:

Paris:

The outside of the Forum Shops:

The Venetian:

Looking down the strip - see that little dot off in the distance? That's the Stratosphere. We're so dumb:

Treasure Island:

We went inside Circus Circus just for a laugh. It was freaky in a Hunter S. Thompson kind of way. I won't be staying there anytime soon:

Of course we also had to stop in the World's Largest Gift Shop:

This place sold absolutely everything! Anything obscene or stupid you can think of, you can find it here. Yes, anything:

So you know those stupid electronic parrots that say "Hello," and "Polly want a cracker," as you walk past? Well they had a nasty one that screams and swears at you. A group of very immature men was in the store, standing by the parrot making it shout all sorts of profanities. Cathy and I walked past and OF COURSE the parrot goes from it's regular "F*** You," "Give me a f***ing cracker," to whistling and "Hey baby, show me your tits!" Obviously my immediate reaction was to grab my boobs and I think this made every guy in the store's night, judging by the roars of laughter. And that was our cue to leave.

We walked next door to the Stratosphere where we took an elevator to the top floor to check out the Vegas lights from above:

We even took a dorky souvenir photo. The photographer told us all to put our hands on our hips, which proved quite difficult for Hayley, who had a little issue finding her hip, apparently:

Hayley's version of "Hands on your hips!" is actually the only reason we purchased this photo.

After buying our picture, we caught a cab back to the hotel. On the drive, we saw this pimped out ride covered in the Gucci logo. This guy really must drive the ladies wild:

Back at the hotel, we got dressed to go out once again, this time to Tao at the Venetian. Earlier that day at the pool, some guy from Tao had approached Hayley and me and offered us free drinks and admission for our group if we'd come to Tao that night, so of course we said yes. Who doesn't love a guest list and free beverages?

Hayley and Jenn at the hotel:

Cathy and Me getting ready (yes, we made Joe stand on the bed to get us from our most flattering angle):

Cathy, Jenn, Me, and Hayley:

Joe and Cathy:

Elevator shot:

Caesar, Cathy, and Me doing the Point & Scout, my favorite photo pose!

Heading into the Venetian:

Inside Tao:

Me, Hayley, and Jenn ordering free drinks at the bar:

Best job ever. Sitting in a pool wearing flower petals, splashing around all night. What do you think you call that on a resume?

Despite what this picture may look like, we were talking not kissing, I assure you:

We kept worrying that our free drink status was going to wear out at some point, so we ordered as many of the most expensive drinks as possible in a very short time period. This may have had something to do with the state we were in when we arrived back at Caesar's Palace.

Taking a little nap:

Hayley and Me being ferocious lions and/or she-wolves in the closet:

Such a creepy picture of Hayley:

After a good night's sleep, we woke up the next morning and spent some more time at the pool where I got a text from our Tao friend, who wanted to guest list us at Lavo that night. Of course we said yes!

After getting in our last day of sun we decided to walk to the other end of the strip to check things out there.

Cathy, Venus, and Me (we had quite an audience while taking this photo):

We walked through the Bellagio where we saw this amazing chocolate fountain. I wanted to eat the whole thing:

We actually got lost in the Bellagio for quite a while, but saw some cool things on our journey that made it worth our while:

Cathy, Jenn and Me:

Glass flower ceiling:

New York, New York Hotel:

Inside M&Ms World - we each made our own custom bag of M&Ms in any colors and varieties we wanted:

After filling up on M&Ms we walked to the Hard Rock Cafe where we had dinner. By a complete coincidence, our waitress had just recently moved to Las Vegas from our area and used to be a bartender at one of the bars we go to on weekends! Is that a bad sign that we know enough bartenders to run into them on the other side of the country?

Anyway, that brings us to the story of the Hurricane.

Our waitress/bartender warned us about the Hurricanes, but how could we resist? Telling us they're "dangerous" only makes them more exciting.

The bar at the Hard Rock:

The Hurricane:

It tasted so delicious and fruity, you hardly knew it was loaded with alcohol! Well, at least we didn't know until a little bit later.

Passing Paris on the walk home:

I think it's safe to say we realized we were all drunk off of one drink when the four of us passed out at nearly the exact same moment for two hours. Luckily we woke up at 11pm, which left us plenty of time to get ready and head off to Lavo to dance the night away.

By this point Joe had gone home and Hayley was a little burned out so we were down to three.

Me, Cathy, and Jenn:

Another elevator shot:

Lavo was absolutely my favorite part of Las Vegas. We saw DJ Vice, who was amazing, and drank shots of Patron all night long from some very foolish young man with deep pockets. He was paying for our drinks with $100 bills, which I thought was very gauche of him. Needless to say, we parted ways:

Another great job - hang out looking hot and doing nothing. Why didn't the Career Center at Trinity tell us about these opportunities? If only I had known!

Champagne and sparklers - I think Jenn is the only person who remembers this portion of the night, because this doesn't even look vaguely familiar:

Cathy, Me, and Jenn:

Don't remember this either:

Anyway, the three of us are complete morons and somehow managed to all leave separately to go back to the hotel. Jenn was first back at Caesar's, and Cathy and I stumbled into the hallway out of separate elevators at the same time, about 6am. Cathy was soooo excited to see me, she ran at me and tackled me to the ground, where we lay giggling until Hayley and Jenn came and found us.

Cathy crawled on her hands and knees into the room where she then dove head-first onto our bed, shoes and all. I decided to take her picture, but not before falling into Hayley's suitcase and tripping over my own shoes two or three times.

Cathy blacked out at least half of the night, so it's a good thing I had my camera to document the mess that was my very best friend:

I took her shoes off and got her all tucked in because that is what BFFs are for. Another thing BFFs are good for is taking topless photos. Topless photos that I was too drunk to realize were topless until sharing with Cathy's mom on the drive home from the airport the next day. Oops!

One thing I do not recommend about partying until 6am is waking up early the next morning to catch a flight. Cathy and I were still drunk at the airport, which made for an interesting check-in experience. It only took me 2 hours to discover I was wearing a thong backwards (not an easy thing to do!) and I think Cathy nearly passed out in the bathroom.

Anyway, I can't wait to do it all over again!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at October 19, 2009 02:44 AM

Comments

Posted by: your lovER at October 19, 2009 06:56 AM

Posted by: G at October 19, 2009 10:34 AM

Posted by: M at October 19, 2009 10:35 AM

Posted by: jocelyn at October 19, 2009 03:44 PM

Posted by: your lovER at October 19, 2009 03:59 PM

Posted by: Lauren at October 19, 2009 04:02 PM

Posted by: Ali at October 19, 2009 04:54 PM

Posted by: Lauren at October 19, 2009 04:59 PM

Posted by: Louise at October 19, 2009 10:26 PM

Posted by: Phoenix at October 20, 2009 06:47 AM

Posted by: Nicole at October 20, 2009 05:38 PM

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