Sunday morning, very close to afternoontime, we dragged ourselves out of bed. I hurt from dancing. We had layers of stamps on the back of our hands. In short: we were doing Vegas right.

We met Colleen and Steve in the lobby and went to get food at Paris again. This time, we went to Le Burger. Everything on the menu had a corny french name. Our favorite item, which we were unfortunately too hungover to be able to consider, was the Eiffel Tower of Power. It was a giant tube of booze, for you to share with your friends.

Le Gardenburger and Le Fries were rejuvenating. We headed out onto the Strip to do some touring.

We crossed to the Bellagio, and went in to see the fountains. I didn’t realize they did seasonal displays; the fall getup was hokey and terrifying:

We crossed into Caesar’s Palace and decided to look for the sports book. We all wanted to bet on games, but had no idea how one did that. The thing about the sports book, though, is that they have comfy chairs and many, many TVs showing sporting events. We sat down to watch another one of the playoff games, during which I took a nap. It was awesome.

After a while, we went off in search of drinks to fix the remaining hangover. Steve found a bar on a boat, but Matt and I had no such luck; we went to the lounge right by the Pussycat Dolls club (which advertised Nicky Hilton’s birthday party tomorrow!), and our tiny little drinks were $11 apiece. SCREW YOU, CAESAR.

caesar telling us to shop at the forum shops. not that his drinks are too expensive.

We decided to move on, lest we become broke at the bar. Matt and I wanted to go to Diesel and the Nike Store in the Forum shops, plus there was this bar in the middle of the mall I was kind of obsessed with, due to the fact that I’d never gotten to go there on previous visits. I don’t know… I fixate.

That bar was the right one. Colleen and Steve split a half-yard of Mai Tai that contained 13 shots of booze. The guy behind the counter even warned them about it. I got a giant Long Island, and Matt got another drink. By the time we’d walked about 20 feet, we were already feeling it. And that’s when I realized I was standing right outside Shanghai Tang. I just stood there in shock.

I’d discovered Shanghai Tang many moons ago when I came across a Deng Xiaoping clock they made. The couple of times I’ve been to New York since then, I’ve made a special trip to their store. It’s probably one of the most expensive places I’ve ever set foot in. Everything is gorgeous and ridiculously overpriced. However, I managed to find a purse there for a hundred bucks, and fell in love with it. So it became mine.

colleen and steve modeling sunglasses at diesel

We went to the Nike store, where Matt found a pair of awesome kicks. Since our shopping was a huge success, we decided it was time to head back to our hotel pool for a bit.

We changed, then headed downstairs, only to be told that the pool closed in 20 minutes. Did we care? No way. Matt and I went and jumped in, hoping that Steve and Colleen would make it in time.

They showed up a few minutes later, carrying ice cream cones. When we told them they only had a few minutes to swim, they scrambled to find a place to put their ice cream. Steve chose the little intake vent next to the pool, because it was the perfect size to hold it upright.

It was fine until Michael Vick walked by.

OK, it was really just a dude in a Michael Vick jersey. A dude who stepped on Steve’s ice cream cone!

We managed to get decent pooltime in before the lazy teenager in the lifeguard chair started making moves to close up. We went inside and stopped for food quickly, then went to our rooms for napping/changing.

Then it was time to go downtown!

Fremont Street was swarming with bikers, who were there for a big rally. It was awesome. The Jack Daniels bar facing the street in Binions had Jack cocktails for $2. Thanks, bikers!

We went into Binions and found one of the few $5 blackjack tables. Sadly, our old friend Robert Milligan wasn’t dealing. Matt and I each put down $100. His didn’t last very long (even though he was playing well), but I kept going for quite a while, always hovering around my original stake.

Pete, Christa, Klein, Stephanie, and Andy showed up, and a few of them sat down to play at a different table. They raised the minimum bet to $10 (though we were allowed to keep playing at $5), and I started betting $10-15 a hand. Since my chip stack still didn’t change much, I decided to quit while I was ahead. I cashed out at $105, and I was very happy with that. We wandered around Binion’s for a while, went to see the million dollar display, and then stood around talking with Matt’s friends. We made tentative plans to get together later, depending on where we were.

We had all planned on dressing up and going out somewhere nice, but it was getting late, and we were hungry. To change, we’d have to take a cab back to our hotel, then another cab to wherever we were going. We decided to stay in our regular clothes and just go over to Hard Rock for dinner. At the PINK TACO, of course.

We had an awesome dinner, and what seemed like 40 margaritas (but I believe was actually two). Our server took forever getting new drinks and bringing the tab, but we didn’t mind much. After that, we decided to look around Hard Rock to see if we could get into any of the clubs. It seemed unlikely, since Matt and I were casually dressed, but the first place we approached didn’t really care. We paid our $10 cover and headed into Wasted Space. Based on the decor, I half expected Bret Michaels to be there.

There wen’t many people there at first, but the drinks were pretty cheap, and the music was entertaining. We hung out, talking and watching the people who paid way too much in the table service section. The DJ would put on a good dance song for about 30 seconds, then do an awkward transition into something like ‘Don’t Stop Believin’. It was unusual, though entertaining.

Since we had to be up at 9 the next morning, we headed back to Bally’s around 1am, and crashed hard.