Vegas: Day 2

I don't mind saying that when I woke up on my first full day in Las Vegas and threw open the curtains (read: barely roused myself at dawn and opened the curtains, bleary-eyed), the view was just as gorgeous as it had been the evening before.

Let's be honest: I don't see many sunrises.

So enjoying this one by default -- because I had to get up so early for my conference -- was an unexpected surprise. And did I mention that the airport is RIGHT NEXT TO The Strip? When planes take off, they have to bank sharply right in front of the hotels to climb out of town. Pretty cool sight several times an hour.

{Insert Here: Conference, conference, conference ... nothing you would care about ... let's skip to After 5:00.}

When Vanessa and I wrapped up our business commitments for the day, we headed back to the hotel and explored the shopping and dining options. At one point Vanessa was like, "It's weird how almost every restaurant is Italian. Don't they have ANYTHING ELSE?"

"In this hotel named THE VENETIAN?" I asked.

"Oh," she said.

We decided to eat supper at Postrio, which came highly recommended.

I ordered a cheeseburger with avocado (my favorite).

I bet you can tell by looking at it that it was AMAZEBALLS. (SO amazeballs that I'm using an early 2000s reference to describe it.) Internet, if I could reach through the screen and eat that again right now, I'd do it. LOOK AT THAT BUN.

Then I ordered the key lime cheesecake for dessert.

Graham-cracker crust and a little blueberry compote on the side? YES PLEASE.

The Palazzo/Venetian remind me a lot of The Opryland Hotel, except on a grander scale.

They give you that bizarre feeling of being quasi-outside.

Oh! This was the day I bought my selfie stick. I think this is the first picture I took with it. YOU CAN'T TELL, CAN YOU? Its shadow is only covering Vanessa's entire face.

And I don't think the guy dressed like a statue was annoyed AT ALL.

Calm down. We paid him his $3 or whatever.

After we ate, we browsed for what seemed like miles along the shopping corridors. I couldn't get over the merchandise in the shops.

The salespeople are just as bad as every Kiosk Vulture in every big mall you've ever been in. They descend on you and try to sell you everything, even though you keep saying No. Obnoxsh.

I was like, "I don't even have pierced ears. I'm certainly not going to buy a $40,000 necklace."

There was really only one store Vanessa was interested in going in, and it wasn't to buy. It was just to look.

THIS ONE.

Yep, home of the ludicrously priced, red-soled, high-heeled pump.

I nearly toppled over just taking this PICTURE. Can't imagine what would happen if I tried to put  these on my FEET.

P.S. You may THINK you've met some snooty salespeople, but you haven't really run into one until you've run into one who's asking you not to take a picture of the pricetag on the bottom of a Louboutin.

IT WAS ALL FOR YOU, INTERNET, SO YOU'RE WELCOME.

Vanessa found a pair she wanted to try on, just to see what $1,500 feels like on your foot.

Turns out, $1,500 is hard to walk in and less comfortable than you'd like. That's a public service announcement from Grass Stains.

After we finished breaking the rules at Louboutin, we walked across A Pedestrian Bridge to the shops at The Wynn. I'd never seen a sign like this in a "mall" before.

Vanessa, in her element.

The salespeople in Louis were really nice, actually. We talked to two of them for about 30 minutes, just chatting about what to do and see while we were in town.

I thought this part of The Wynn was very pretty, all lit up, right outside the casino. I had to take about 70 pictures in this spot before I got one without the stick part of the selfie stick in it. #newbie

Vanessa decided to turn in early that evening, but I walked about half a mile down The Strip around 9:00 to see the famous fountains at The Bellagio.

Don't ask me why, but I expected the "show" to last longer.

I think EPCOT spoiled me.

It's only a few minutes long -- which made sense once I thought about it, because it happens something like every 15 minutes. But before I SAW it, I thought it would actually LAST about 15 minutes. Negatory on that.

When I got back to The Palazzo, I stopped at the front desk and asked if they could point me to the "smoke-free corridor" I'd read about on the signs in the casino. On just Day 2, I was already hoarse from all the second-hand smoke I'd inhaled.

Turns out, that's a lie. They literally just mean, STICK TO THE CENTER OF THE CARPETED AREA. THERE'S LESS SMOKE THERE. THEORETICALLY.

So as I walked down the center of the carpeted walkway toward the elevators, I had to suppress the Very Strong Urge I felt to knock over every single one of those signs in my path.