Obviously, I began this trip with high expectations of wild parties and crazy encounters throughout Sin City…but there was still a need to fill those waking hours (I’m Irish—good breeding means hangovers don’t last all day…) so Anna and Nymberg decided the best way to begin our adventures was with an 8 a.m. yoga class. I know, I am dancer, in theory I should be good at this kind of stuff, but the thing is, in Irish dance, your feet keep moving so fast, balance isn’t really all that necessary! This meant that when I attempted to hold the tree pose (or the warrior pose or the triangle pose…) I fell down. Repeatedly. For an hour. At the end of the class, I felt neither centered or Zen, but I did really want a drink, so I guess it kick-started some portion of my new Vegas lifestyle!
We spent a few hours in the afternoon checking out the strip—I wanted to play tourist and ride the New York, New York rollercoaster, and Anna was looking for VIP club passes being handed out along the way. The rollercoaster was amazing—but what was better was the safety attendant, who came up to check our guard bars and asked Anna, “So what would you do if some stranger just kissed you? Would you slap him?” We both stared at him for a minute trying to figure out if it was a really bad pick up line, or if he was off the meds, until we realized Anna was wearing a shirt that said “Kiss me, I’m Irish” (she claims that after spending so much time with my family, she is 100% by association). This shirt was a hit all day long apparently…an 80 year old man passing us at the elevator warned her “be careful, I’m Irish, too!” and when a guy handed her a brochure as we walked past him on the strip, she asked what it was and he told her “info on a bunch of great clubs, plus my number’s on the back so you can call me!” The highlight of my first afternoon on the Vegas strip, though, definiately came when I had my first big win at a casino (but sadly, I forgot to say those classic lines learned from every bad Vegas movie like “Winner, winner, chicken dinner!”). Of course, I wasn’t really going to gamble away my own money—that’s reserved for shoes—but we passed by a free spin slot machine outside the Tropicana casino and I won 2 free tickets to the Folies Bergere Vegas showgirls performance Saturday night! Finally, a chance to see some exciting feather and sequin headdresses!
The Friday night plan was going out with Anna, Nymberg, and Abby (Anna’s work friend) to use all the free club passes we acquired on the strip earlier. My goal for the big night out was to end up in The Bank club at the Bellagio…and on an episode of “The Hills”! Brody Jenner (and his crew…) was listed as the party host—but sadly even with our VIP passes the line was insane, and he’s really not cute enough to inspire that much of a wait! Instead, we kicked things off at Carmel in the Bellagio for “2 for 1” drinks…proudly, the only round we bought all night (it’s nice to be a girl…)! We made friends with a table of Jersey boys, but they weren’t entertaining enough to give us a nightful of stories (I’m thinking of all you readers here…), so we got a drink for the walk and headed out to Pure at Caesar’s Palace. On the way, I made one last attempt in my Brody search—I tried to talk a very cute promoter on the casino floor to let us by-pass the line. Ultimately, I struck out, but Anna and Nymberg, who were sitting at a slot machine waiting on me, asked a couple of passing guys for a dollar so they could play—and ended up winning about $30! They gave their investor back a few bucks to buy a drink, and decided that they would attempt this plot every night they go out…I think my story seeking schemes have rubbed off on them!
In Pure, I immediately met a cute guy who started talking telling me I was beautiful and buying me drinks…cue ditching my girls and becoming his best friend for the next hour! He was from Chicago and claimed to be 30, but looking over my pictures the morning after I realized his hair was entirely grey!! Yes, I had potentially found my first sugar daddy of the trip, only not at a craps table where I planned to be his “Lady Luck” and get to roll the dice and bet someone else’s chips. Sadly, I realized I was lost at that point (and posted a Facebook status update that said “Caragh is lost in a Vegas club, please help me”…it brings an entirely new level to drunk dialing and texting!) and snuck into the VIP section to find my friends, ditching him with the grumpy bouncer guarding the steps! Up in the VIP section, I kept texting the girls, but realized quickly I was in one VIP section and they were across the club in the other! Since I didn’t feel like squishing my way through the dance floor again to go find them (and increasing my chances of being lost forever…), I just jumped up onto a booth with a group of young people and asked them if they would be my friends until my own found me! No one seemed to mind, and I instantly became BFF with a little girl in an adorable gold dress…we danced on the booth, took a bunch of photos, made friends with a passing bouncer (which turned out to be a good thing later on!), and watched the drunk birthday girl undress a guy as she danced with him…classic way to spend my second hour in Pure. Finally, Anna, Nymberg, and Abby spotted me from the booth they were dancing in across from me (that they had been on the ENTIRE night…yes, we were on a whole new level of drunk here, friends), so I put my shoes back on and walked the 6 feet to dance on a booth with a new party crew!
This new group of guys turned out to be mostly higher up employees of Caesar’s Palace, so we were surrounded by bottle service with 4 kinds of vodka and more cranberry juice than I could ever spill. We danced up there for several hours, accepted free flowing refills, and enjoyed making fun of the mean guy wearing a vest…all while I managed to spill every drink that was handed to me (a la Oonagh at New Year’s 2008…) and fall off the VIP couch over and over (the balance issue goes way beyond yoga…). We had one moment of drama when mean boy in a vest determined I had spilled too much on him (it only helped the outfit, I promise…) and tried to have a bouncer kick me out—but this was the bouncer I made friends with earlier, so I was able to talk my self back in (with a little help from the guy actually paying for the booth…apparently he was enjoying dancing with one of my girls).
Somehow (don’t ask me to remember here…) we made it home safely, and Anna was in charge of making us our drunk food snack! I got ready for bed and took my pillow and blanket to the carpet in front of Nymberg’s bedroom door to wait for my mac and cheese…around 9 am, Nymberg woke up to find me still curled up there! The Saturday morning recap (several hours after that, when I had some sleep in a real bed…) revealed 3 almost broken toes (I wasn’t the only awkward one—people stepped all over me in heels!), a giant Wiley E. Coyote bump on the back of my head (from the one time I fell straight back off the couch and broke my fall with my skull…), and skin that had been dyed pink in streaks down the entire right side of my body (and all of Nymberg’s leg)…we determined this was simply a mass amount of cranberry and vodka, and invested in a “sippy cup” for my next night out!
Needless to say, I did my first day of Vegas in style…but this has become insanely long, so I think I’ll save part two’s post for another day! Still to come…showgirls, more VIP rooms, and my moment as a high roller!
How did you have the energy to write all that after a Vegas day?! It must have been the yoga! Enjoy the rest of your adventures.