Julie Eats: Finally Getting Around to Vegas

Lordy, I've been busy. No time to blog. I can't believe the Vegas trip was over a month ago. It's been a whirlwind since then. Vegas, then Ohio, then Steamboat, and the cabin this weekend. But we get a week without kids this next week, so much adult-oriented eating and drinking shall ensue. Hopefully a movie or two too (tutu, ha).

So Erika and I met at the Vegas airport, our flights getting in only 10 minutes apart and headed to our tacky hotel Circus Circus. Considering we paid $50 total for 3 nights (that's TOTAL, not each), I can't really complain about the place. It met our needs (i.e. a place to sleep that has a pool).

I could probably explain the trip with just these pics:

Are you getting the picture?

Okay for posterity's sake, here are some of the fill-in-between-the-drinks details:

After a couple drinks in the room and some catching up (we hadn't seen eachother in 3 years!), we gussied ourselves up and hit the town. We had dinner at Mario Batali's Enoteca San Marco in the Venetian. See the first drinky pic above. It wasn't fabulous, but wasn't bad. We shared a bottle of wine, a cheese plate (which contained some delicious peppered honey), a Romana pizza with tomato, mozzarella, anchovy, capers, and chili and Pennette alla Norma: pasta with tomato, eggplant, and ricotta. The pizza was meh and the pasta was absolutely tasty.

Erika, unlike me, is possibly the most gregarious person in the world--which does tend to rub off on me a bit. This results in lots of perks, in this case getting chatted up by the sweet old men next to us and some lovely dessert wines on their tab.

We decided to head over to the Mirage to check out where the show we were seeing the next day was. We had no real plans for the night. Maybe check out the strip and then settle in a quiet bar for some catching up. Erika started chatting with some nice young men there for directions to the box office. Let me tell you--telling people in Vegas that both of you are celebrating your 40th birthdays gets you stuff. Next thing we know, the guys tell us to come back in a half hour when their place opens--they were bouncers for Jet Night Club. You know, one of the night clubs you always see pictures of celebrities in? With throngs of people and lots of girls dancing on stages? Not. Our. Kind. of Thing. But we figure what the hell.

So we have a drink at the casino bar (see the second drinky pic above) and head back over to the two cutie pies, where there is now a huge line. They literally open the velvet ropes, afix special armbands to our wrists, and hand us a bunch of drink tickets. Quote of the weekend: A girl goes, "Hey, it's my 21st birthday." Erika growls back, "Well, it's our 40th." Nuff said. It turns out the special wristbands entitle us to unlimited free drinks--as long as they're vodka-based (okay with me!). Not sure why we needed the drink tickets too. We thought we were just really hot (haha) with all the young men tumbling all over themselves to talk to us, then we realized they just wanted our free drinks. S'okay.

I generally can't stand places like that--didn't even like them when I was young. Have always preferred loud, raucous bands and/or dive bars. (Although we used to have a standing weekday evening at a place called Uptown, where we danced to Siouxsie, Love and Rockets, Sisters of Mercy, and the like). But I. Had. A. Blast. It was so Vegas and over the top and I'm sure the 40 year old women looked ridiculous. But we didn't care.

After, we stumbled down the strip the long, long way back to Circus Circus, stopping for omelets at Denny's. The next morning it was bagels and coffee and off to the pool: the perfect cure for the "day after" (especially if you include margaritas).