Vegas Baby

Sandi over at http://ahhsome.wordpress.com/ is off to Vegas for her birthday and it reminded me of my own trip to Vegas a few years ago, about 2006. I know that whatever happens is Vegas is supposed to stay there but I shall share my story with you (as long as you promise not to tell anyone, of course!)

I went with my family, some of whom had been before and thought it was an amazing experience. I should say none of us are or were gamblers. I don’t consider myself to be a lucky person and rarely win anything so I tend to steer clear of gambling because I know I’ll end up losing a lot. I don’t even bother with the lottery.

Anyway, we headed there to soak up the atmosphere, see the sights and I was prepared for some shopping, of course. It’s a long flight from the UK, which is certainly not fun! We went in April and the weather was really hot. The weird thing about Vegas is it’s boiling outside but all the casinos have really strong air-con so you’re cold inside, makes outfit planning tricky!

We had an enjoyable few days of looking around and collecting some treats for ourselves. Because of the time difference, we got really tired in the evenings and it was hard to stay up. In hindsight, we should have slept for a bit early evening and spent more time out at night. Harder to do when you’re with family not friends though!

What I notice about America is if you order a spirit based drink, they are ridiculously strong. In the UK, spirits are measured in shot glasses to the centimetre and you have a single or double shot usually mixed with the soft drink. In America, you get like six shots in there with barely any room for a mixer. Yet UK has the drinking issue, weird! Needless, to say I struggled with the potency and ended up having beer instead Same thing happened in New York with a cocktail and the barman had to re-mix it for me, embarrassing

On the last night, my cousin and I stayed out on our own while the older family members went back to the hotel. Walking through the tables at Mandalay Bay hotel, we were called over by two men playing on a Craps table. They asked us to roll the dice for them.

Neither of us had played this game before or knew the rules but we dutifully rolled the dice for them. I could see they were winning chips but was oblivious to how much.

Turns out, our rolling was pretty lucky – my cousin especially seemed to have the magic touch. The men ended up winning about $30,000. As a thank you, they gave us $1,000 chip and brought us all some Cristal champagne. Obviously, we tried to turn the chip down but they were insistent. I better add here that nothing happened with them beyond this

This chip paid for our hotel room cost and the champagne was lovely – I’ve never been a fan but I can see why some people would pay for this one.

So that’s my Vegas story. If it had happened on the first night, we would have kept closer to the card tables in case someone else needed some dice rolling