Random Post 1

 Night and Day

Lights, shows, the Strip. I always saw Las Vegas as extravagant adorning the brightest lights, best shows, and infamous Strip. The earliest memories I have area about a decade ago. I was a kid that had never seen anything like it. I lived in San Diego my whole life and never knew about the towering hotels and neon lights in the middle of the desert. It's one of the only places in the US I have visited. Before going, I only saw it on postcards, movies, or somewhere on the internet.

I still remember the drive, barren, flat, and hot, very hot. The A/C at the time barely worked well enough and rolling down the window only made it worse. A seemingly long six hour drive was all worth it. Eventually I saw the buildings in the distance, but in the day time there was not much of an awe factor. I was more tired than anything and stepping out into the heat made it worse. We pulled up to the Golden Nugget Hotel and settled in. My most vivid memory from there was the pool. In all honesty, it was a Top 3 from the entire trip. It was packed and had all of the screaming children you could imagine. The pool was bigger than anything I have seen before, it had multiple layers to it with pillars, other pools, the works. Above all there was a water slide. It gave me tunnel vision and I quickly ditched my mom to go find the top. I went up and down the slide until we had to go. I was off to a good start. As night came around I started to see the other side of Vegas. The whole city lit up and felt like a huge amusement park. We went to Cirque du Soleil, buffet dinner, the whole Vegas experience. The whole weekend was packed with excitement. I went to bed exhausted every night, but woke up energized for the whatever we had planned that day. I went home seeing Vegas as a place of wonder, something similar to the feeling of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory where anything was possible. 

I never went back to Vegas until a few weeks ago. It was a friend's birthday and by now I'm 21. It was the same place yet my experience was night and day. We had the weekend somewhat planned out, prioritizing the rooms instead of the pools, lighter food, and not a single show booked. Two dinners and two tables at two clubs. My second time in Vegas was stacking up to be a different kind of fun. The drive was similar, really hot, but with better A/C. The drive felt much faster, but to be fair, marijuana is also legal in Nevada. This time we pulled up to the Palazzo, a far more grandiose hotel with no water slide. There was a heatwave rolling through and made us step out into 120° heat. I don't think anything could have killed my mood though. We went to the room, spread out our luggage and pregamed for a Michelin star restaurant. Dinner was shortly followed by a fueled night at Hakkasan. We end up back in the hotel by around 5 am. After catching about 6 hours of sleep, we slowly make our way to brunch. The second day is more or less the same. I ended up making it to the pool, almost sunburned after an hour. A few hours later, another good restaurant down, we went to Tao the second night. I went home seeing Vegas as a completely different place. This experience is something that has been happening a lot to me recently. Getting older, I have changed my experiences of most places that I went to as a child. I take it for granted now, but try to reflect more and more.