Tonight, We Are Young

Give me a second I need to get my story straight
My friends are in the bathroom getting higher than the Empire State

Okay, so that didn't actually happen. But there is a bathroom in this story.

You see, I got to spend the weekend with one of my best friends Julie. I was so excited for her to be here and get to spend a Saturday night out on the strip I even bought a new outfit.

Okay, I'll buy a new outfit for just about every occasion, but still...

Julie was in town for her friends wedding at the Mandalay Bay.I joined her after I got off of work. Our loose plan was dinner and a Cirque show but we had no set plans for either. Then we found out Chris was able to join us! Yeah! Now we could drink because we had someone to wrangle us and keep us on track. ( Sidenote: Chris won't even be offended by that quip because he has never even read my Blog. For real.)

We readied while waiting for Chris to arrive. See, Julie and I are three weeks apart and we are both turning 30 really soon. I showed Julie where my first real wrinkle is growing and she countered with her crow's feet. We talked about how it's Saturday night in Las Vegas! Let's Party! We could go to a club! But the music is too loud. The drinks are too expensive. Our backs will hurt in the morning. How did we ever do this when we were younger? Did we dress like whores like the girls do now? Maybe we could catch the early show and still get to bed early? I did work a whole 6 hours today....

When Chris arrived we had decided that we really wanted to see O at the Bellagio. Did I mention that besides the grocery store, the Bellagio is my favorite place in Las Vegas?  The Chinese New Year exhibit was still up and I am so glad that Julie got to see it.

But tickets to O were sold out :( So we decided to march down to the Treasure Island to see Mystere. Chris called the box office for us and they had a package for us that was two tickets and two buffet passes for $179. Poor Julie walked all the way to the TI in her ridiculously hot/awesome heels because I was under the impression that the TI was on the other side of Caesars. Not only is Caeasars enormous, the Mirage is between it and the TI. I felt terrible but there was no going back now!

Between the drinks and subtle things

the holes in my apologies

you know I'm trying hard to take it back

so if by the time the bar closes

and you feel like falling down

i'll carry you home

Julie and I at the Palazzo. Chris is on retainer as driver and paparazzi tonight.

When we got to the TI they were sold out of the buffet special. But they did have a 35% off locals only special we were able to get. So while we were able to get tickets, now we had to think about dinner. Chris was all over this for us. He is always looking for an excuse to go to Table 10, one of Emeril Lagasse's restaurants over at The Palazzo. When we went to Las Vegas for a vacation several years ago we had one of the best dinners of our life there. We talk about that Truffle Mac every time we eat Mac and Cheese! Beechers has nothing on it. NOTHING. Chris secured us reservations at 8 but Julie and I kept getting distracted by shiny things. Like a store called Nothing but Bling and of course, Swarovski. He had Mac and Cheese on the brain and was working really hard to corrall us towards Table 10. Words cannot describe that deliciousness that is Table 10. Maybe these pics can.

Chris has a dinner of Beef Cheeks. I ate one. It was literally melt in your mouth soft. When you touched it with your fork it just fell to pieces.

Julie had the little Lamb. And although she is G-Free, she ate the rolls because "It's inhuman that something that smells so good should be undigestable!" She is also responsible for the lovely bottle of Malbec blend we drank over dinner. Excellent choice Jules.

Why yes, I did have a side of bacon for dinner. Bacon infused with sriracha and served with a maple sauce. It was so thick and crispy it was more like jerky. Paired with the Truffle Mac it was heavenly.

A close up off that heavenly bacon. Yum.

A happy couple. I'm sweating from all the spicy bacon. 

We barely made it to Mystere on time. Oh Mystere, you were so confusing. You appeared to have no story line at all. It was all so random. Awesome. But random. You were also very overstimulating, I had no idea what to look at! I wasn't paying attention to what was happening on the stage because a half naked drummer girl was hanging 20 feet in front of me and she was interesting to watch. Julie and I were discussing the cast of characters trying to figure out the story.

• Did the pregnant bird people give birth to human babies?
• Why are there women in the balcony dressed like the Statue of Liberty?
• Who are the creepy George Washington style cult members that keep showing up?
• Why are grown men dressed as infants crawling across the stage?
• Why is there a 20 foot tall balloon snail sliding across stage? ( We were hoping it was a Trojan Snail and that hundreds of chinese contortionists were going to pop out. Never happened.)

And then I got sleepy. I didn't know it at the time but Julie did too. Something about the heat, the darkness and the music...zzzzzz.  I kept nodding off and then my head would snap back up. I didn't know that Julie was doing the same thing!

(Sidenote: We checked Wikipedia to find out what we missed about Mystere. The reason it was so random it because it was supposed to be a circus and all thc characters and acts represent emotions. Ummm... so not our fault we didn't get it. If you are ever in Vegas, I recommend Ka.)

We acknowledged the conditions made us sleepy but we still got coffee. Some of the other wedding guests had a table at Mix, the club at the top of THEHotel at Mandalay Bay. That club is 64 stories in the air. I was trying my best to play it cool but man it was swanky. All the table right next the window are bottle service only, so we sat towards the back, but it was really awesome and I would love to go back if I had someone to dance with. ( Chris doesn't dance). The bathroom stalls all faced outwards so you could look out onto the strip while you were peeing.

This is not from the bathroom, but from the table we are seated at. My phone has been dropped so many times it fails to take quality pictures anymore.

Chris, Julie and I left there around 12:30. We were all ready to hit the hay but the guys we picked up, other wedding guests, were giving Julie a hard time.  She was debating whether to stay out longer when I said, " You're not 30 yet." Well that was all the coercing she needed! And Chris and I decided to stay out longer too! In fact, we stayed out til 5am at Ri Ra Irish Bar. More guests joined us and we had a great time. I was really comfortable because I could just drink a Jamesons on the rocks and not pay $12 like at Mix, plus we could hear each other and there was food.  A gentlemen we were with named Josh was trying to get the bridesmaids drunk and kept ordering rounds. In fact he even challenged Julie that he could shoot faster.Ha! She replied with " I went to Central! Good luck at keeping up with me!"

Tonight, We are young

So let's set the world on fire

we can burn brighter than the sun

I think his first mistake was letting the girls choose the shots. Oatmeal cookies? I told Julie it was poor form to drink something called an oatmeal cookie in an irish bar but she couldn't care less. And later when the bartender suggested something " that ladies just love" with Bubble gum vodka and Red Bull ( ug.. yuck.. gag me...) they drank a bunch of those! Oh they smelled horrible, like Bazooka Joe Gum. I'll stick to my whiskey thanks.

In the end, I think Josh managed to lucky with another attendant and he owed his friend several hundred dollars when he took off with said attendant without closing his bar tab. I haven't heard the final outcome of that situation. Chris and I spend a lot of time snuggled in the corner sipping Jamesons and discussing how happy we are that we are no longer part of the dating world. That Josh guy was working hard on Julie and the blonde. Julie was rolling her eyes... a lot. It was hilarious. It was like dinner theatre at 3 am. At one point I mentioned to Julie, " You started out drinking a $70 bottle of wine and now you drinking bubble gum vodka." But that is how a night in Vegas progresses I suppose.

So if by the time the bar closes

and you feel like falling down

I'll carry you home tonight

Footnote: The song used in this blog is We Are Young by Fun. I took it a little out of context but it was either this, or Wiz Khalifa.