I mean, we had some wine last night, but not THAT MUCH wine....and I had the cocktail waitress bring me water on a loop last night. No exaggeration, I probably had 7-8 bottles of water in the few hours I was being anally probed by morons. And I also had a bottle of water when I returned to the room to lick my wounds. How much water do I have to drink to get hydrated FFS? I know this is the desert, but this is ridiculous.
I get out of bed to walk around a bit which actually helps me feel slightly better, but I'm so tired that I need to get some more sleep but getting back into bed makes it worse. Arrgh. Not a fun morning.
Eventually the 5 extra-strength Tylenol I take kick in and I am able to drift back to sleep, at least a little bit.
9:30 AM - I am awakened by the sound of Tracey screwing the pool boy outside of the room. Oh hang on, that's not totally right.....that's my headache playing tricks on me. I think she is actually just paying the room service guy who delivered our breakfast. My bad.
We get free continental breakfast each day of our stay, OR, $30 towards anything else on the breakfast menu. Nice perk. Their continental breakfast consists of a fantastic muffin, yogurt and berries, and the worlds largest croissant. That thing could feed a small African village for a week. I almost feel bad eating it all myself.
Almost.
11:30 AM - We head across the street to the Fashion Show Mall for a little retail therapy. They have some really great sales at Macy's and we do a little bit of damage without going too apeshit. It's a pretty terrific mall. I suspect we may have gone a little more overboard had last night's debacle not occurred :)
3:00 PM - Back up to the room where Tracey hops into the bath to soak a bit before we head down to the buffet for dinner. Her feet are particularly sore today - a frequent offshoot of her Psoriatic Arthritis - and walking is difficult. Some days are worse than others, and this is one of those days. It kills me to see her in such constant pain. She is about to start on medicine number 8. Hopefully the Ocho is the one that finally gives her some relief.
3:40 PM - Tracey has left the bathtub! REPEAT! TRACEY HAS LEFT THE BATHTUB!!
Down to the buffet where we enjoy the best buffet in Vegas. Some of the best Prime Rib I have ever had....definitely the best at a buffet. Lobster bisque, crab legs, three different kinds of pasta, tiger prawns, dim sum, breaded chicken stuffed with prosciutto....and that's just what I had room for. Oh, and homemade ice cream. Fabulous.
During dinner I confirm what I thought I had noticed while walking around the mall; I have managed to re-injure my knee. I sprained the MCL in my right knee a couple of months ago. It had healed, I thought, but something about the way I was walking around the mall has aggravated it. Not only is it particularly sore, it is making an irritating clicking sound when I walk. Not good. The MCL is the ligament that keeps the knee stable, so walking in a straight line isn't too bad, but planting the leg and turning on it is quite a challenge. Oh well, it's not like I'm going to a concert where I'll probably be on my feet for the better part of 3 hours or anything.
5:40 PM - Back in the room where Tracey will complete The Process (TM) before we head down to the Park MGM for the show. We are planning to park at Bellagio and take the tram to the Park, since we don't have the patience to deal with the crowds. Tonight:
Lady GaGa at the Park MGM Theatre
Penguins at Golden Knights at the T-Mobile arena (right next door)
Manny Pacquaio fighting some sack of crap at the MGM Grand (across the street).
All starting, and finishing, at ostensibly the same time. Going to be a bit crowded on that end of the strip tonight.
6:12 PM - We get in the car.
6:51 PM - We arrive at Bellagio. Jesus. Imagine how long it would have taken us to drive all the way to the Park MGM.
We have a bit of time to kill before the show and we decide to peruse the new casino...well, the remodeled casino anyway as it used to be the Monte Carlo. Honestly nothing much seems to have changed, and we're pretty unimpressed. They painted the outside this God-awful olive green. It's ghastly. As we get to the other end of the casino, Tracey spots a wall of wine. We head over in that direction and we find it.
We find IT. IT.
The reason for this hotel and casino to exist (apart from the Park Theatre where we are about to see the concert of course).
It is called the Eataly. Like, Italy, but cuter. How do I describe it.....it's a bit like Granville Island, but everything is Italian.
And there is sort of a food court, but with fresh goods cooked right in front of you.....like, instead of Taco Bell and Coke, you get Filet Mignon and fresh fish with the head still on it (if that is your thing).
They have a cheese and salami place, a Fish monger, a butcher, a baker, and probably, somewhere, a candlestick maker. Wow, this is pretty fucking impressive.
I find out that they've been open only 3 weeks, and it has been a smashing success so far. I predict it will continue to be.
We order a couple of glasses of wine; Tracey has a Gavi and I have a Barolo. Delicious, and not the kinds of wines you normally get by the glass.
Off to the show! This theatre is spectacular......holding only 5,200 seats, there isn't a bad seat in the house. Well who am I kidding, of course there are some shitty seats way up in the nosebleeds. We are not sitting up there, of course. There is a pit of General Admission right around the stage, and we are right behind that in Row 7. Fantastic seats and the stage is...interesting.
8:10 PM - This happens. The lady knows how to make an entrance.
I could talk about this show all night. It's more Rock Opera than rock concert. It's more Performance Art than a group of songs. It's a story. It's her story. And it's fucking brilliant.
Gaga is not one of those artists who makes you wait for the big hits, opening up with Let's Dance and Poker Face. What an incredible body of work she has already. What an artist.
By the time she took the stage for her one song encore - "Shallow" - I could hardly breathe.
And, bad knee and all, I barely sat down all night.
Well, except for the 25 minute unplanned 'intermission' when the power basically went out. Poor drummer, left up there alone to bang those drums for a half hour. The guitarists were up there too playing, but we couldn't hear them at all. Actually, although it sucked the air out of the building for the duration of the outage, it was a welcome break for me and my knee. And it didn't take long for Gaga to set the place back on fire once everything was restored and the show recommenced.
And, yes, getting home from the show was a fucking debacle.
11:58 PM - Home, finally and up to the room where I update this blog while the wife has another encounter with Monsieur Tub. It's quite a torrid affair they are having.
Soon to bed. Tomorrow is a relaxing day of wine, food and FOOTBALL!
No comments:
Post a Comment