Whew. What a trip. So good that it takes me until the end of the week to put together a coherent version of the events.
Being idiots, we let Geoff book our flight to LA. Predictably, he booked it to leave from Calgary, so we had to drive down on Thursday afternoon. This wasn't a big deal, though. It was fun to fly with the Calgarian contigent of the trip and get an early start to the drinking festivities.
We arrived in LA on Thursday evening without a hotel room or a rental car. Geoff thinks everything should be negotiated at the last minute and I'm starting to agree with him. He also thinks he should never have to pay for hotel parking or extra people in his room. "Yes, I'd like a room with two beds. That's right, for one person. I like to spread myself around. Those guys in the car outside? Oh, they're just dropping me off. But I'd like to park their vehicle here." And it works.
We checked out a bit of LA, including Santa Monica and the famous Viper Room where, among other things, River Phoenix overdosed.
Vegas. Wow. I thought nothing could live up to that kind of hype, but I wasn't disappointed. We left LA on Saturday morning and drove the Durango through the desert to Las Vegas, stopping only at the Carl's Jr. in a capitalism oasis for Six Dollar Burgers. Geoff and I sat in the back and enjoyed our Coronas. I'll resist the temptation to quote Fear and Loathing for now. We secured a room at the Flamingo, changed, and hit the town around 4pm. We drank, we played blackjack, we stopped for sandwiches around 10 (I think). After listening to CD2 (see below) on the way out, we ruled that "hundred" should always be pronounced "honey", endearing us to everyone we met. Shubh and I bailed out around 3am, but Bob and Geoff burst into the room only an hour later and kicked my bed until I showered and got back on the party train. We met two girls from New York who may have been named Katie and Julie, and the fun didn't stop until around 2pm on Sunday.
Now, it's illegal to walk around in public with open alcohol, but the police in Vegas have a good philosophy of not biting the hand that feeds them. The casinos also don't seem to care if you walk out with their cocktail glasses, so there we were, chatting to a police officer, getting tips on what shows to see, drinks in hand. I left my empty glass on a news stand. Bob threw his in the Bellagio fountain. I was a little sad to leave, but I'm sure we'll get back there for a dedicated Vegas trip.
We had some good pizza when we got back to LA. We saw Daredevil at the Chinese Theatre, which was a waste of a great theatre. We wanted to see Old School, but we had to wait until we got back to Calgary the next day. Our flight back included a 3 hour stopover in Vancouver (thanks again for booking those tickets, Geoff), so we did what any weary traveller would: we went to the pub and didn't leave until we heard them calling our names for our flight.
Sound track listing
CD 1
| CD 2
|
The Mimsies are playing the Viper Room next month.
Posted by: warcode on March 1, 2003 10:23 AM