This is my favorite trip that me and my husband have taken so far, it was the first trip that we took as a couple. Below are the journal entries from our trip in September of 2010:
Friday, September 10, 2010
9pm
This is already the best trip ever! Me and William were trying to waste some time before our plane arrived in O'Hare (Chicago) when all of a sudden William says "There go Doug E. Fresh!" Of course I didn't believe him so went back and forth discussing the fact that I didn't believe him but we started following him anyway. He was walking too fast and we didn't get a chance to meet so we stopped by the bookstore to look around and William saw a man with an eye patch on and was like " That's Slick Rick, I'm not playing that's him!"
So we left the bookstore and started to follow him and we probably wouldn't have caught him if it wasn't for him stopping to look at some jewelry. He was with some young hispanic/black lady and he was wearing a black "wife-beater" and jeans and he was sorta out of shape. Any way we walked passed him because we didn't want to draw attention to him and cause a a scene. I know that he saw us because when we were creeping up on him, he kept turning away so I couldn't see his face. Then William just went up to him and said, "Excuse me but are you Slick Rick?" and he was like "Yeah" and shook our hands! It was crazy!!! I'm really regretting buying this journal after seeing him because I could have gotten an autograph or something. I didn't even get a picture! Dang! Well this is only day one hopefully we see many more celebrities in Vegas!! I'll be writing more later I'm now on the plane watching the new "Karate Kid" movie! I hope it's good.
11pm
The movie is pretty good but I looked out the window and caught a glance of a thunder storm. It looks so cool because I can't see the lightning bolts, just the clouds sparking a glow and it was very frequent too like every second the clouds lit up. It was so beautiful to see a storm above the clouds at night time.
1am
That was the longest plane ride I had in a long time. I hate being in one place that long, but we finally made it and everything ran smoothly, baggage claim, check-in and our room is BEAUTIFUL! We are staying at the Stratosphere and got an upgrade! We decided to explore the Vegas nightlife until 4am! That's crazy! I can see what the guy on the plane was talking about when he said that you can be in a casino etc. and not even notice what day it is. The sky was getting light by the time we got back! It was fun though.
We walked up and down the strip and experienced a lot of "drunkards" and people yelling stuff at us. When we were on the bus stop this guy asked us where we were going and that he would take us. We just said "No Thanks". That was weird I wonder why he wanted to take us? Was it because we were all black or like William said "he wanted to rape and kill us!" I'm glad he didn't push it though. We then walked by the Venetian and Paris and ate at McDonalds but before then we walked around in the Mirage. It's a lot of trees and plants in there and it helps because its not as "smoky" in there. That's what I hate about Vegas! Everybody smokes in the casinos. Anyway we were admiring the sky dome at the Mirage and this drunk guy just yelled at me "Pay attention!!" and some other curse words. I was like "Wow these drunkards are crazy!" because I wasn't even in his way. Hehehehe. It was a fun night though and I look forward to our adventures tomorrow!
Saturday, September 11, 2010 (Nine-Eleven)
11am
Today for some reason I woke up at 10am. I thought I was gonna sleep in because we had such a long day yesterday. I thought I was gonna go crazy. We left Whitewater at 3pm and didn't get to Vegas until 1am and didn't get to sleep until like 4:30am! That's crazy! Anyway we have a beautiful view of the mountains and the Stratosphere tower. I'm so glad that Stephanie recommended this hotel...so beautiful I think we are going to get dressed and eat at IHOP and go to Target for some knick knacks that I need then...who knows, but I'm sure we will have tons of fun! I think we should come to Vegas once every year. I'll definitely be back to the Stratosphere! We have a good view of the Stratosphere jumpers too. People can pay $100 to jump (bungee) off the top of the tower (800 ft tall) its crazy!
Today we went to (spent most of the day) the Planet Hollywood hotel where we had Earl of Sandwich for lunch. It was pretty tasty but after a while it started to taste like a breakfast sandwich because it had turkey, cranberry sauce that tasted like jelly on it. We then walked around the Miracle Mile shops in PH. We visited a gallery (art) with the work of Kush Vladimir and his work is amazing! He has paintings that look like pictures and the gallery worker said that it only took him 4 days to complete! That's crazy! He did say that it took him a couple years of sketching and developing the look of the image, but still...pretty cool! After that we walked around and rested at the Miracle Mile water fountain where we met a lady who gave us free tickets to the Beatles tribute show. She said that she was trying to sell them because she paid $60 each for them but she didn't have any progress selling them so just gave them to us. I guess she purchased them for other people in her party but they never showed up. Too bad they cancelled the show! Lol. That's alright though because we exchanged them for tickets to an even better show... Hitzville (Motown Revue). It was pretty cool how the singers performed and the one lady sounded just Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner. It was a little long of a show (I think like 2 hours) but still very entertaining. We then walked the strip and caught the Bellagio fountain show and went back to the hotel. My body was hurting so bad! Maybe because we were walking around from 12pm-1am! Well hopefully we can go to the M&M World, New York New York, Madame Tussauds and the Purple Rain show and old Vegas as well as a view of the strip from the top of the Stratosphere. We shall see.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
We woke up around 9:30am and just talked until 11am. It was nice to just laugh and talk about what we experienced so far in Vegas. One being that there are a lot of Asian and Hispanic people and foreigners (Germany, France, Australia etc.) out here. I'm excited to start the day but also taking it easy today because my legs are still sore from the day and night that we walked for hours. Yeah we will probably be catching the strip bus more often today.
Well today we left the hotel kind of late (3pm) we were tired and didn't feel like rushing. First we stopped at McDonalds to get some lunch. They had Strawberry Passion Juice that was so delicious! Then we headed upstairs to get a view of the strip etc. from the top of the Stratosphere. It was a lovely view but I forgot that I was afraid of heights. William being the dare devil hat he is, rode the X-Scream ride at the top of the tower. We have footage and a picture of his experience. Hehehe. After that we headed to Madame Tussauds at the
Venetian Hotel and hung out there for most of the day. I think they ripped me off because I paid $40 for both of us and the original price was $50 and I gave the lady two $10 off coupons. Oh well, it was fun but my feet were killing me, I had to keep sitting down. We wanted to go to Purple Rain show but it started at 10pm and we were "pooped"! We were looking for a good place to have our last dinner in Vegas and wanted a steakhouse. At this time it was about 9pm so it was a late dinner and we wanted to eat at the Sahara Steakhouse. When we got there they said that they closed at 7pm today (they were supposed to be open until 10pm). That's fine because we just ended up going back to the Stratosphere and eating at a wonderful authentic Italian restaurant. I had to order the Calamari! It was so tasty and I loved the authenticity of the food, not like Olive Garden even though I love their food too. Anyway, I ordered the Chicken Marsala with Rosemary potatoes and William got the Cheese Ravioli. His tasted really good too. For dessert I had a chocolate mousse pie. It was so rich. It was the perfect last meal. After that we were extra tired and went upstairs to go to bed. Well we leave tomorrow at 2pm lets see if we can squeeze in one more place to see before we leave.
Monday, September 13, 2010
We woke up today at 9:30am because we had to checkout at 11am. Checkout went very smoothly and they let us keep the keys as souvenirs. That was cool. They said that we could check our bags at the desk if we wanted to tour some more and that's exactly what we did. We had a few hours before the shuttle came to pick us up so we headed to the Luxor where William took some pics and check out the Egyptian stuff. We had lunch there as well, at Little Ceasers (I got a slice of cheese pizza and we both shared some cheese bread sticks). Then we walked to the MGM Grand hotel to go to M&M World! Before going there we stopped by the Lion Habitat to see if the Lion's were out. There was a previous attack a couple days before (no one was hurt though). There were no Lions so we just headed to M&M World . There were 3 floors of M&M stuff and at the top floor they were showing a movie starring the M&Ms. We couldn't see it though because it was getting close to 1pm and we didn't want to miss our 2pm bus. So we just took a couple pics, got some footage and left. I am now on the plane back to Chicago and good news! We should be back at 10:15pm instead of 10:45pm and that's great because this ride is long and I can't wait to get home and watch our videos and stuff. We had so much fun in Vegas and I can't wait to go back next year sometime. I also can't wait to get home and share our fun with our family! Well they are playing the movie "The Last Air Bender" let me see what this movie is talking about...I already missed like 20 minutes of it already. Oh well.
I also plan on reading quite a bit. I want to read the Bible from start to finish (I've been meaning to do this for some time now). Also, I just want to enjoy spending some time with my husband and enjoying what Chapel Hill and North Carolina have to offer this Summer.
