Geeks do Vegas

Once upon a time in America ...the geek squad went to Vegas.
We left Mountain View at 3.30 and we took the plane from SFO. After a flight that took ~2h we got to Las Vegas.

Do you know how you can figure out that you are in Vegas??? You see the slot machines in the terminal. In Vegas there are slot machines everywhere...we were joking about having slot machines in the restrooms. Somebody pls remind me to tell you about "testing on the toilette" and "unit testing". You'll have a blast.

Let's rewind.... we were in Vegas. One of the guys rented a car big enough for the seven of us so after we got the car we went on a search for the hostel where we made reservations.

A couple of days before this story I was talking to somebody who said that I'm a pampered little brat that's not used to living in less than idyllic conditions. Well ...let's say that even if it was true then it's not anymore. We shared the room with a russian or smth and both mircea and I slept holding our camera bags. It was so lovely we could die.

But before that we hit the casinos and stuff.Some pictures:



First we went to Bellagio.
Long story short ...OAUUUUU. You could almost smell the $$$ in the air. There were a lot of people playing games, shopping and just wondering around. Looking around you saw all kinds of ppl from the filthy rich guys in custom made suits, walking around with their high maintenace women to .... us :D.

But everybody was having a great time...here are some pics:







Of course the next thing we did was to go and see the famous fountain. No it wasn't playing "Time to say goodbye".
There's a list of 20 songs that it can play and that you can find here.

The fountain and the music are beautiful and we sat there mesmerized for 3 songs.One of those was "All that jazz"(cool song, btw do u remember Cabaret-the movie?). The others I can't remember.

Here are some pics(outside view and fountain):

















When we figured out that we had enough of the show we went to Caesar's Place to grab something to eat. The waiter there was very friendly and when he heard we are from Romania he began to tell us about how much he enjoys travelling and that he will come to Romania in Oct-Nov to see Sighisoara,Peles and Draculas' Castle.





After that we hit the casino floor for some action and i won a couple of bucks at Blackjack which I later lost at a poker table but ....easy come easy go.

The next pictures were taken from the ~100-ish floor(350 m) of the Stratosphere(the highest building in Vegas).

Let's say this: the view is breathtaking. And especially the view from the rides on top of the stratosphere. ;)




There is one called BigShot which at 1,081 feet (329 m) is the highest thrill ride in the world. It's like a giant ejection seat that thrusts you at 4G in the sky. Again and again :D. Pretty decent fun if you ask me. Let's add to this the fact that you have the most incredible panorama ever ....

There's another ride there called Insanity the Ride, opened in 2005 which at 900 feet (274 m) is the second highest thrill ride in the world. It dangles riders over the edge of the tower and then spins in a circular pattern at approximately forty miles per hour.
As it was closing time there were no other ppl on the ride so Mircea and I had the whole thing for ourselves.
More fun ..yey.

Pictures:


That pretty much covers our night in Vegas.
The next day we got up early :



You can see the love in her eyes.

Mircea looking towards the future.It will hurt my friend ..it will really hurt.




and we started our long road to the Grand Canyon.





The road goes through the Hoover Dam but sadly we didn't have enough time to stop and take pictures so these were taken from the car.

We had a long and dangerous ;) road ahead:



Addendum: I forgot to mention. The hostel is called "Sin City" and in the words of a great man it was "Scandal". And I'll say only this: the neighbourhood made us feel part of a gangsta movie ;).
Pics taken by Mercia:




pt ultimele 4 poze ©Mircea Bardac 2007.