pithy title here

Thursday morning was pretty brutal for Trudy and I. Neither of has hold great love for rising early, and the previous night's poker game went fairly long. I am really starting to enjoy the game, the friends we are playing with are pretty cool. For the past couple of weeks, I have been winning as well, which helps.

Our flight to Vegas was via LAX, and had coach class tickets. This sucked. I loathe flying coach. I always seem to be sitting behind the person who wants to recline the entire flight. I also feel pretty self-concious if I have to sit beside some stranger. I am fairly broad-shouldered, and most coach class seats are not designed for people of my size. So, six and half hours of sitting rigidly in a flying metal tube later, we arrive in LV.

From McCarran we headed to the Luxor to check-in. My failure to rememeber what day it was, and some other communication issues with the front desk staff means that this took about 45 minutes. Eventually everything got put right, but it took a visual aid drawn on the back of hotel stationary and a consultation with Hotel management. I felt bad for the woman behind the counter, I think that she got pretty flustered.

We drop our bags and stuff in the room, make some calls to friends who had arrived already, and head to lunch. For the rest of the day, we have four (4) things that we need to accomplish:

1. Get marriage licencse.
2. Drop off wedding dress to be steamed.
3. Dinner @ 7pm at the Bellagio.
4. Cirque du Soleil's "O" at 10:30pm.

So a bunch of us grab a cab, and head to the Clark County courthouse to get the wedding license. The line is long, and some of the people in it are rather 'interesting'. Not too many obnoxiously drunk people, but enough to bring into question whether the county has sobriety as a pre-requisite for application. The process of getting the license is painless; fill out form, stand in line, pay $55 CASH ONLY, sign and leave. People told us that we were on the ball for going when we did. I guess as Valentine's Day weekend goes on, the line can stretch for several blocks. The wedding office has the best hours of any government facility ever, its open 'til midnight.

'Official Documents' in hand, the posse hops yet another taxi to the Tux Place. We drop off the dress and find out that they close in 10 minutes. Bummer. However, the two ladies working there are really friendly, and let us look around and try stuff on for a while. I decide that making a ten minute ruling on what tux to get is probably a bad idea, and we decide that we will return Friday, since we have to pick the dress up anyway. We also need to get in gear if we are going to make our dinner reservations. Its decided that it would be best to go straight to the Bellagio, but none of us are dressed for dinner. The woman at the Tux shop is nice enough to a) call us a cab, and b) call the restaurant and see if we meet the dress code. We do, the cab arrives, and we are off again.

Dinner at the Bellagio is nice. Trudy's parents get to meet my Dad. Everyone seems to get along and have a good time. After dinner we went to check out the Bellagio's Fountain. That thing is pretty cool. My dad and Trudy's parents decide to split back to their hotel, so Rayna, Trudy and I gamble and drink a bit, before "O". I did okay at Blackjack. Trudy and Rayna got slaughted by the slots. :)

Rayna split when it was time for Trudy and I to head into 'O'. The show was amazing. We have both seen La Nouba, and where pretty impressed by it. 'O' was at least as good, if not better. After the show we waited in a long, cold taxi queue to head back to the hotel and collapse.

A good day.

Lessons learned for Thursday:
1. If you need to run errands in Vegas, rent a car. Even the thought of getting a taxi will set you back $20.
2. Everyone here gets tipped, no matter what they do. Carry singles. Unless you enjoying tipping someone $20 for opening your cab door.
3. The casino map is your friend. It tells you where things are. You won't just find it on your own.