Days 46 & 47: Las Vegas, NV

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

This saying becomes problematic when you're blogging about your travels. If I just left it at that, I'd probably have to change the name of my blog to The Worst Blog in America. I don't like that name, so I guess I'll tell you what happened in Vegas.


First I'll tell you about Robbe's apartment. His complex reminds me of the ones in Houston. It's big, new, has lots of parking, a pool, balconies, etc. Here's a photo from Robbe's balcony:



The apartment belongs to someone at Zappos, so nothing in it, except the fancy blender and George Foreman grill, belongs to Robbe. The art is my favorite part. I think there are a total of three pieces in the whole apartment - one in the dining room, one in the living room, and one in the hallway. The one in the dining room is the best. It's a painting of two bottles of wine. It's not a good painting. And it's crooked. I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of it! Just trust me, it's bad. On Friday night, after the show, Robbe and I made another piece of art for his apartment. Check it out:





The furniture in the house is really weird too. The living room has four microsuede lazy-boys and a glass coffee table that I think looks like a spaceship. It looks like a total bachelor pad. Then the bedrooms have this ugly country style furniture. I think I would go crazy living in that place.


Robbe made breakfast on Saturday morning. It was delish. I was a little skeptical when he handed me a tall glass of thick, opaque, green liquid, but it turned out to be really yummy. It was a veggie shake that Robbe makes every morning with his fancy blender. He also made eggs and toast. I asked him if he wanted to come live with me and make me breakfast every morning, but I don't think he took me seriously.


In the afternoon, we went for a bike ride at Red Rock Canyon. Before I arrived in Las Vegas I told Robbe that I wanted to go for a bike ride. I explicitly said that I was not a serious cyclist and that I have a whimpy bike, but he obviously wasn't listening because when his friend Neelu came to meet us at the bike store where we went to rent a bike for Robbe, she took one look at my bike and said, "This is a fifteen mile loop, the first five of which are all uphill; Is your bike equipped for that? Are you a serious rider?" I thought we were going on a nice, leisurely bike ride. I'd even made plans to meet my friend Allison afterwards for drinks at 6:00. It wasn't leisurely and I didn't make it to drinks.

Robbe trying on his helmet

I told them I was going to die if I tried to ride my bike uphill for five straight miles, but they encouraged me to try it, so I did. We even started two miles before the normal starting point so that we could get warmed up on some flat ground. The flat part was great. The uphill part was torture. The 100 mph winds and high altitude only made things worse. It also didn't help that I was completely dehydrated. I drank my entire Nalgene within the first mile of uphill riding and felt like I was going to throw up. After two miles uphill, I could barely breathe, so that was the end of that. Even though it was downhill on the way back, the winds were so strong that coasting wasn't an option. I wanted to kill Robbe.

Robbe and me at Red Rocks Canyon

Our plans for Saturday night were to go out on the strip, so we went home, got ready, Robbe made dinner, and then we headed out to Ghostbar at around 9:00. Ghostbar is the place where the cast of The Real World, Season 12 hung out. It's on the top floor of The Palms Hotel. The view from up there is nothing short of spectacular. Here are some photos from that night:

Me and Neelu at Ghostbar

Evidence that I was actually in Vegas. Try to ignore the hair in my face.

Me and Neelu again

The ubiquitous crowd shot

Me and Robbe

We slept in on Sunday morning and then Robbe made another yummy breakfast - veggie shakes, Southwestern eggs, and black beans. We watched Away We Go, a really cute and funny movie starring Maya Rudolph (LOVE her!) and John Krasinski. It starts out kinda slow, so if you see it, hang in there.


In the evening, we went to Red Mango. This was a highly anticipated trip. Red Mango is the original tart yogurt establishment. Pinkberry copied them. The yogurt was pretty good. My only objection is that it has an initial aftertaste that tastes a bit like spoiled milk. If you have another spoonful right away, you can avoid the spoiled milk taste, but it's inevitable given that eventually you won't have another spoonful of yogurt to eat.


Ooh - one thing I forgot to talk about is these crazy sleep masks/devices that Robbe wears. He has three of them. They all involve some sort of band that goes around your head and they monitor how much REM sleep you get, or something. The worst of the three looks like a jumbo sized sleep mask - it's really cumbersome. But that's the least of it. This device somehow figures out when you're dreaming and then flashes a bright red light into your eyes to momentarily wake you up and signal to you that you're dreaming so that while you're in your dream, you know it's a dream. So that's kind of cool, but I tried it on, and it was really unpleasant having a bright red light flash into my eyes. I have absolutely no desire to try one of these things while I'm sleeping.


Overall, the weekend was great. It was wonderful to see Robbe again and we had lots of fun. We agreed not to let another two years pass before we hang out again.