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We just returned from a fabulous and somewhat surreal trip to Vegas. When asked “did you do anything fun this weekend?” most colleagues don’t expect me to say that between leaving work at 5pm on Friday and attending a division management meeting on Monday morning, I went to Vegas.

It was a bit of a whirlwind to start. Brian picked me up from work, we met Amory at Logan to catch a direct flight, met up with Armen from SF at the Vegas airport, took a cab to the Bellagio, checked in, then met up with Nate flying in from business in Orlando. Evidently the cab line was amazingly short compared to past years, a sign of the poor economy, but nice for us. [Win!] Our room looked out over the fountain – an amazing deal for $150 thanks to Amory’s email [win!]. She was even able to change the second room from a smoking or King + rollaway to a suitable 2-double bed non-smoking room [win!]. We fueled up with delicious dinner/breakfast at the Bellagio Cafe [Win!], including some much-needed coffee, and then went out to find some $5 blackjack tables. We headed to Bill’s (formerly Barbary Coast that we called Barnaby’s Toast) where I got my first lesson. I couldn’t have been more fortunate with the patience of the group (and most of the dealers) who played more slowly and answered my MANY questions even with my little “cheat sheet“. I finished up $46 [WIN!], which I felt was an appropriate level of beginner’s luck, and we managed to stay up until almost 3am (Vegas time). [Win!]

After what seemed like an insufficient time to sleep, my body thought it was time to get up and get going. Brian met Amory (who had gotten up even earlier) downstairs while I took a leisurely shower [win!]. We met Mary, who has been dealing black jack for 37 years, and was full of stories and wry humor. [Win!] After we all assembled, we decided to head out to the strip for breakfast. We happened onto the Amore Patisserie in the Mandarin Oriental, which had wonderful pastry and even better grapefruit sorbet. [Win!] We spent an rather uneventful morning in the Monte Carlo before lunch at Fatburger so I could experience the other side of the strip. The burgers and fries were tasty [win!] but perhaps not the best long term plan; Fatburgers digest about as well as you’d think they would. After an afternoon nap [win!] we decided to check out downtown.

I can’t say downtown was a win, but it felt like an essential experience of old Vegas. The lights were bright and tacky, almost blinding as we got out of the cab. The vibe at the pedestrian mall Fremont Street Experience was a lot different from the Bellagio to say the least. There were street vendors selling all kinds of gaudy items, go-go/pole dancers at most of the casinos, a Showgirl and Elvis only a few feet away from each other taking photos with tourists. We started out at the Four Queens, and took the Light Show as an excuse to escape. The light show was disappointing – what would you do with the world’s largest TV screen, the size of 12,000 normal TVs? I’m sure it’s not what we saw. We did find an empty $5 craps table at the Vegas Club with a seasoned veteran dealer who explained that particular table’s rules and coached Amory and Armen on how to improve their odds. Craps is too high variance for my taste, but I had a fantastic time as a spectator to Amory and Armen by cheering, yelling at the dice, trying to follow what was going on, and enjoying the festive atmosphere as the table filled up. [win!] We had intended to go to the Golden Nugget, but it was too expensive for a downtown casino, so we decided we’d had enough and it was time for dinner.

Nobu was a BIG win from the first bite of yellowtail to the last bite of dessert. It was hard to pick which dish was our favorite – I think each one got a vote, except perhaps the beef, which we still thought was worth trying, but felt heavy after the tasty fish dishes prior. Especially compared to Olive’s the next night, it was a good value for the top notch food. [WIN!] We thought about gambling at Hard Rock but by then Brian and I were ready to call it a night. We got a very restful night’s sleep [win!] and were ready for our final day of adventures.

Finding Amory at Mary’s table again on Sunday morning, I decided to join her. This was definitely the most fun I had all weekend – a quieter pace before noon, camaraderie at the table, fun dealers, finally feeling comfortable with the game and good cards. [Win!] The guys wandered while Amory and I camped out for the whole morning. We finally stopped when it was time for Amory’s spa appointment and I joined the guys for lunch at the Cafe (again) – yum. Unfortunately we had to check out of the hotel so no naps today – we had to power through! After lunch we returned to Bill’s for a while to watch the football game, then when Amory met us we wandered over to the Flamingo. I scoped out the bird habitat, watched the end of the Jets game, then got roped into playing Pai Gow Poker with Brian and Nate.

I had sworn I would only learn one game per trip, and this trip it was Blackjack, but it turns out Pai Gow is suitably mindless that even I could pick it up within minutes. First off, it’s perfectly acceptable to show your hand and ask a fellow player or the dealer for help. [win!] Second, it’s very likely that you’ll push any given round (since you play two hands at once) so the money leakage is slow. Third, the cards are dealt to all player positions regardless of who is playing, so it’s a slow paced game and again the money leakage is slow. Finally, the stereotypical player seems to be a middle-aged Asian woman, so the intensity is very relaxed and low pressure. [win!] I ended up enjoying this wind-down of our table gaming, if for no other reason than it was fun to be punchy with Armen (who favors craps and does NOT favor pai gow), Amory (who really wanted food at this point in the day after skipping brunch), and Nate and Beej who were having fun but were a bit tired. [win!]

I’ll skip any further mention of dinner, other than to say the wine was good. We said farewell to Armen who had an earlier return flight and returned to the Bellagio to kill a few hours until it was time to go to the airport. Nickel slot races are a tradition, so we each put $10 into a machine and started pressing buttons. It’s common to win a few bucks along the way, but it’s part of the race to quickly dispense with these “setbacks”! However, Amory’s machine kept counting… and counting… when she got to $40 we decided to stop racing and actually cash out the winnings. It kept counting! She won the max on that machine, almost $100! WIN! So of course then we went and played some ill-fated blackjack for the last half hour. I think Beej came out ahead but I did not and poor Nate did even worse. It was definitely time to go home after a wonderful weekend of delicious food, pleasant weather, great company and fun times.