Las Vegas For Sooz's Birthday

Yes, I know it's close to Christmas, yes I know we just went to Disneyland, Sooz has had a rough year and she deserves it. Since she has never been, we went to Vegas for her birthday. It was a great trip! We stayed at the MGM grand, where we had a very cool glowing green window. I had no appreciation for how HUGE the place was! Since we had just taken a vacation, we were good and kept it short. We left on Thursday and got back late Saturday night. Her birthday was Friday, and we pretty much did it all. We saw the sights, we rode the monorail and the roller coaster across the street. We drank too much, we ate too much, and we walked really, really, a lot. We went to the wax museum, we went on a gondola ride at the Venetian, the gondolier "Mike" with the thick Italian "accent" was great. He sang 3 songs, including Happy Birthday in Italian. By the way, I don't mean to imply his accent was fake. I'm just saying, after the ride we stopped on some steps to take a few pictures, and could overhear the gondoliers talking to one another. Although all the accents had been so thick minutes before, they seemed to vanish when tourists were not visible, but I have to give them credit, they put on a great show. Speaking of shows, we went to a burlesque show that night for her birthday. Stop looking at me like that, SHE chose the show, which was quite good, with a set from a very funny comedienne in the middle. I bribed the host $20 for front row seats, which he solicited. He seemed to have a pretty good side business going. I'm pretty sure he offered most couples "VIP seats" in exchange for a healthy tip. Since we really did seem to have some of the best seats in the house, I would say $20 is an acceptable bribe for that sort of thing. (BTW - that pic is the wax museum, not the show, it just seemed to fit so well there, dontcha think?)

Of course we were torn between missing the kids and realizing we needed at least twice as long to see everything there is to see. The next day we went to the aquarium, where we got to pet a manta ray, hung out for the day, and headed back home in the evening. It was all in all, much to short of a trip, but one we both needed!