USGround - Because USAir Doesn't Really Fly Anywhere

It began like any other day. Well, actually, no it didn't; except for the waking up part. That happens everyday. The rest doesn't.

The girl and I jumped into the car, met K, and rolled to el aeropuerto. The girl, however, was taking a different flight, scheduled to arrive in Las Vegas two hours prior to mine. She took off. I waited. I took off. Thus began a long and frustrating day, prior to a nice vacation and class...

When I arrived in Atlanta, I discovered that The girl, who was flying through Charlotte, had not yet gotten on her second flight. Apparently, a piece of the plane broke, and they had to try to fix it. I discovered that her flight was canceled. They had to find a different flight for all of the passengers on that flight. She ended up having to go from Charlotte to Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, my second flight was slated to leave, and so I had to get on the plane. Three hours and forty minutes later, I arrived in Las Vegas. My first act of business was to call The girl and find out what her status was. She (you guessed it!) still in Philadelphia, waiting for a way to get from there to Vegas.

While in Vegas at the airport, and on the way from the airport to the hotel, I learned many things. The USAir flight that was to take her to Las Vegas had to land prior to getting to Philadelphia to get more fuel due to thunderstorms in Philly. After the plane finally arrived, which was later than every estimate thus far.

I got to Caesar's Palace and checked in. I went to our room. She was still in Philadelphia. I arranged to get dinner with another guy there. She was still in Philadelphia. I went back to the room. She was still in Philadelphia.

Somewhere around 8:00 PM or so, they began boarding the plane, and she took off. I lapsed into a coma, being that I was tired from traveling, and awoke at 2:45 AM (Vegas time) to a knock on the door.

Thirteen hours late, we cursed USAir for not handling this fiasco very well, and went to bed.

To shorten the suspense, I spent each of the next four days at the class. The girl and I also wracked up a probably very large texting bill while I was in class. The only thing of note besides that was seeing the geeks line up at the windows to peer down on the Venus pool. Boobs represent the unattainable to many geeks, but not to all. I didn't see any female geeks looking down on the Venus pool. Are you surprised?

We did a lot of fun stuff after class, though. We went to dinner at Serendipity 3. If you're reading this, I recommend that you NEVER GO THERE! The service was so slow that we didn't have a whole lot of time to spend on the rest of the night. The food was OK, but not OK enough to spend an evening in Vegas at a restaurant. Afterward, we went to see the Bellagio fountain show, which is always spectacular, and then returned to the hotel for the evening.

Speaking of water, Las Vegas has these outdoor mist machines that are meant to cool down areas in which patrons eat. They do nothing. The water evaporates before it hits the ground, and so it generally just results in a colossal waste of water and energy, not that the rest of Vegas isn't an energy waste. I mean it's never dark, even at night!

On night two, the girl decided to plan our evening. This was awesome! The only problem is that Vegas was out to defeat us. We went to the Apple store, which is always fun, but always causes me heartache. I'll leave that for another time, though. Afterwards, we went into ghetto hotel land, AKA Imperial Palace, to see the Automobile Collections. First off, it's remarkable what the difference is in classes of people at the Imperial Palace and places like Caesar's, the Bellagio, the Flamingo, or even Treasure Island. Amazing... We learned, however, that the auto display closes at 6:00 PM, and we were late. So, no cars for me; at least not at the Imperial Palace. On the way there (from the Apple Store), I got to see the car of my dreams; the 1969 Shelby Cobra AC 427. I want one. If only we had a garage.

After the auto fiasco, we went to Margaritaville to drown our sorrows in dinner and tasty beverages. It was pretty good, and the atmosphere is fun. That's about it. Nothing exciting happened there other than dinner and people on stilts. Finally that second night, we went to the gardens at the Bellagio. That was fantastic! It's a small garden, but very pretty, and they do all sorts of interesting things with water spouts. On the way back to the hotel, we watched another Bellagio fountain show.

Night three was the big night, though. That night, we went to the Cirque Du Soleil show Mystère. That was a lot of fun, and we had the absolute best seats in the theater; fourth row, just above the stage performers' eye level. People flew. People danced. People performed unbelievable strength and acrobatic feats. There was a weird baby...

After the show, we ate dinner at Kahunaville, which was surprisingly good. I didn't expect much from it, but I had a fantastic Black and Bleu Burger and a tasty margarita. I'd recommend going to Treasure Island and eating there. They also have a bar component in which the bartenders do their own shows, which are pretty spectacular. That's just a good place in general. I recommend it.

After class the final day, we went to the Sin City Brewing Company, which is inside the Flamingo. The beer was OK. The bartenders were nice. The glasses they sell there are cool. Finally, we headed back to the airport to catch the red-eye back home, and that was that. Karina picked us up from the airport, just as she had dropped us off, and we went home and lapsed into comas.

THE END
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