Back in Las Vegas! December 27th we said goodbye to the Yotel (Japan inspired modern rethinking of how to do affordable stays in high density cities) in Midtown NYC and hopped a very easy and no fuss flight via Virgin Atlantic from JFK to Las Vegas airport. We caught a cab to our hotel – Circus Circus turned out to be the cheapest and still in walking distance to the Strip down town.

It’s been around for decades and was once a very ritzy place and was featured in the 1971 Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. But that was a while ago now 😉 Built in 1968 it initially only contained a casino and was plagued with financial problems from the outset. It is the world’s largest permanently built big top circus though so it does have a few claims to fame. We were in the tacked on out buildings (optimistically called The Manor Buildings) and it was quite a walk from there to the front entrance.

The room we stayed in was clean and spacious but had the definite odor of previously being a smoking room. Every time we came back and opened the door it stunk quite strongly. Luckily we weren’t there for the decor or the luxury sleeping arrangements.

First night there we saw Seinfeld.

Jerry is 58 years old now and clearly does not do this for the money. I’m not sure why he’s doing this show, but he has taken it all over. The guy on before him, his warm up act was actually as entertaining as Jerry himself – Mario Joyner. He was on for about a half hour I guess and then Jerry came out straight afterwards. Seinfeld only went for an hour and the show certainly wasn’t sold out interestingly enough.
He’s still definitely got it when it comes to standup comedy. He just doesn’t have as much as he used to. He spoke on many topics starting with thanking us all for being here and then telling us to look around, look at all the people who cannot handle being with their family during the holidays – they are here in Vegas instead. It only went for an hour but he certainly did manage to cover quite a wide range of topics:

Starting with the drama of actually going to the effort of getting yourself to Vegas and how all we’re really spending our time on is deciding where to eat, where to go, where to sleep, what to eat, what to wear and isn’t it all so draining. We spend our moments just wondering where we are going to sit down next. The human body is designed this way – it’s why the knees bend and our butt comes with it’s own cushion. In fact he said, the moment you all walk out of this show you’ll all be planning where to go to next so you can sit down.

He talked of how food is no longer fun for him. The whole process of deciding where to go and what to eat is just a chore. And there’s always people telling him Oh Jerry you’ve gotta go to this restaurant, it’s the greatest, you’ll love it, it’s sooo GREAT. And really when you get there and you order and you eat, you usually end up going – well it was all right. It might have been great. Was it great? I don’t know, the bill says it should have been great so maybe it was great and I’m just not seeing it? He’s in a constant war with Cookies. He has a huge problem with wanting them late at night when he shouldn’t and he can’t handle buying cookies in a bag cos those things just look like they’re trying to climb all over each other to get out and into his mouth. Nope he likes those cookies you buy in rows. Their like a tiny marching army and he says that way at least when he gets to an end of a row in such packaging he’s got a fighting chance of at least stopping momentarily, a pause that lets him take stock of what he’s doing with his life. So food is not a prospect of pleasure for him anymore. This whole blog post could just be about his show but I’ll summarise for now with just a list of his topics.
Poptarts
Phones
Email
Men
Dogs
Food
Marriage (he’s married now with three kids)
Single versus Married
Other Peoples’ Kids
Public Toilets
Restaurant
Listening
Two rankings in life – it’s either Great or it Sucks
White Water Rafting being much like Marriage
If you have a girlfriend you’re just playing Wiffleball
Choices of drinks these days
Coffee shops
Overparenting
Kids Birthday Party Experiences
Twitter and Facebook

He took some questions at the end and one was asking if he would do any TV shows in the future and in his own words he said “Let me answer you with this. I’m old and I’m rich and I’m tired.” So basically no.

Seinfeld was our first night there. For the next couple days we did a few other things, just a little day trip out to THE GRAND CANYON and Hoover Dam and Route 66.

So that was a huge day…then there was a visit to American Shooters. A gun range not far from the hotel where I had a go at shooting my first handgun and Tim shot some big loud things off too.

I shot a Glock 19 with 9mm bullets, Tim had a go at trying out a few guns. I discovered that being short is a distinct disadvantage in terms of natural accuracy at the target. I wouldn’t mind some proper training in the use of a handgun but I’m not actively going to seek it out. Although if I lived in the US I certainly would.

We tried out the famous Bacchanal Buffet at the Caesar’s Palace hotel.

There was lots of good food there and a much better range than any buffet back in Perth and yet only 45$. Think the Burswood and Hyatt are charging at least nearly $60 these days. Tim has lots of great photos of the food here.

New Year’s Eve we headed down the Strip early evening as it was spoken of how packed and crowded it gets later on and that the strip is closed to traffic at about 6.30pm.

Tim got himself one of the slushy gigantic test tube drinks pretty quick and then we went on to get a table at Serendipity 3 –

the same company as the one in New York that had the three hour wait. We knew we had a long wait till the fireworks so we took our time here and I finally got to try the infamous Frozen Hot Chocolate out.

It was good. Just like a chocolate smoothie really – a blend of an ice chocolate and a smoothie. And yet again the Americans and their compulsion to put whipped cream on just about everything.
Eventually we had to move as they were setting up for the ticketed event party they were hosting there. So I ambled off and found my own slightly smaller test tube drink of Pina Colada and Mango High Octane or something….either way it was sweet and slushy and very yummy. And it certainly assisted with the warming me up part.

And then we whiled away the time, sipping our ridiculous drinks, people watching (and discreetly people commenting as you do)  and waiting for the fireworks. A combination of where we were, combined with the celebratory atmosphere, Fox TV was live filming right near us, and the deliciously buzzing drinks and it was a great night and the fireworks were pretty damn good for a NYE effort.

And we made it home, unscathed, perfectly safe and sound if a little tipsy and a lot tired. It was a great way to see in the NY and Vegas certainly is one of the fun places to be on such a night.