Exploring Pastures New

When Mum recently offered to fly herself over this month to baby sit the children for a few days Dan and I started planning a trip. Destination Vegas.

I'll be honest with you. If it wasn't an hour and a half away from us I probably wouldn't have put it on my list of places to go. Smoke filled bars packed with partying people, loud music playing, dilluted beer and crazy dancing. It actually sounds like a night out in my old haunt, The Roof - a pub in Bridgend - circa 1995-8. Sadly those days are well and truly behind me!

 

The easy option is to hate Vegas. Over the top is the sales pitch. A fake Giza pyramid, a fake Trevi fountain, slot machines that dont 'ding-a-ling' when you win but instead give you a reusable voucher (shame on you Vegas). Cigarette smoke. It's not an entertainment destination, it's a commercial destination. Eighteen out of the top thirty largest hotels in the world are on 'The Strip'. Hotels pump oxygen into rooms to keep you awake. Escalators take you from one hotel to another, passing all the spending points along the way. It's not easy to find a map in any hotel, and when we did we couldn't see a sign for the exit. There are no clocks. Hotels are the size of small towns -the MGM Grand has almost 7000 rooms, the Bellagio - where we stayed - is a 4.8 million sq ft resort.

 

The Bellagio - our home for the first 24 hours.

 

Me looking for a map

The reception area of the Bellagio - a great place to people watch

The conservatory in the Bellagio - with talking trees, naturally

But despite its reputation, we loved our time in Vegas. I read that almost 400 million people a year visit the city. People fly in to have a good time, so there is a positive 'making the most of every minute' energy. People were surprisingly polite and friendly. We ate dinner at 1am and had to wait for a table. The best chefs in the world have restaurants there so we enjoyed the best Indian meal this side of Swansea! Whilst you accept that nothing is old, everything is new -  it's not out of date or needing a lick of paint. It is the city to people watch - the designer clad ladies gambling with $5 chips, the scruffy guy in the baseball cap and shorts playing for seriously high stakes, the many brides and grooms wandering around, the bus loads of senior citizens, the tourists and business people and couples escaping their children for a few days. Oh, yes, that was us!

One of our favourite hotels - the Wynn...

...where we enjoyed a buffet lunch in their amazing restaurant.

We were recommended the piano bar in the New York, New York Hotel where two guys on two pianos play songs for tips, and share some fun banter. We spent four hours there. The place was dimly lit, had a sticky floor and served Strongbow on tap. We happened to squash up against eighteen British lads on a stag weekend, all dressed as penguins. It was when Dan disappered to the loo that the pianist decided to accept my request for a Tom Jones song. Infact, he asked me to the stage and handed me a microphone. Me, 18 penguins and a pint of strongbow chorused Delilah together. And suddenly it was 1998 again, and I was in The Roof in Bridgend, I felt ten years younger and couldnt stop grinning. By the time Dan returned, the song had ended, the penguins had migrated and I was left holding an empty glass with my concerned husband asking if I had been OK in the bar on my own.

 

People we didnt know, but loved all the same.

Me on the big screens, with 'the flickering shadows of love on my blinds'.

Back to the Bellagio for the midnight waterworks
 

And then back to San Francisco to spend a quality few days with Mum before she flew back home. We visited the Bay Discovery Museum, Twin Peaks and Filoli Gardens before waving her off. It was amazing to see her and the children together, and we were so thrilled she was prepared to battle jet lag and long haul for us. We wont see family again until next June when I will travel back to the UK with the children. The cost of a return flight back to Wales between now and June? Damn, I knew I should have put it all on red in Vegas!

 

Before Mum arrived, the four of us explored some new territory when we climbed Sugarloaf Mountain, which is the 'green thumb' of San Mateo - an undeveloped hill a stones throw from our house. Every day we look up to the top and wonder what the view would be like back at us. We were amazed that our two children climbed the whole way up on their own. Coming down was a bit of an adventure as we had to slide down after taking the wrong path. Our neighbours asked Annie what she had seen at the top and she confidentally told them 'a big tree so I could do a wee behind it'. The hill will never look the same again.

 

From the top - city in background, San Mateo in foreground

 

Our street from the top of the mountain - no wonder we get so many leaves in our garden!!

We also recently visited the Japanese Tea Gardens in the city, located in the Golden Gate Park. The five acre site is beautiful, and is the oldest public Japanese gardens in America.

Finally, Dan enjoyed his own adventure into pastures new when he visited Candlestick Park earlier this month. The 49ers played the Arizona Cardinals and won. Dan was thrilled to see a game before they pull down the Stadium at the end of the season, but said that unlike 'proper' English football there wasnt much of an atmosphere. Proper English football? Atmosphere? What these American Football fans need is to ditch the shoulder pads and get some passion akin to Welsh rugby support. Furthermore, a lesson in how to entertain a crowd with a rendition of Delilah seriously wouldn't go amiss.