Nicole schreibt...

I had long wanted to visit "Fabulous Las Vegas", that ultimate monument to American kitsch you wouldn't see anywhere else in the world and so I had been very much looking forward to this trip. However the last days before the trip were rather fraught with anxiety as the Lufthansa cabin crews were going on major strikes and I really wasn't sure whether our flight would happen or not. I was lucky though: Everything was business as usual on Monday when we left, but on Tuesday a major strike disrupted services. Whew. So I was pretty relieved when our plane left Düsseldorf en route to Chicago in time and it turned out I had also hit the jackpot seat-wise as mine was the front row of sardine class, so I could stretch my legs to my heart's content (but still couldn't sleep).

I was fairly fried by the time we reached Chicago, but instead of having some time to recover, we spent it mostly at various United counters trying to get a boarding card for my mother - apparently too much of a demand for them. By the time we had passed security, we could only just jog along Terminal 1 and head into the plane to Las Vegas,� but in the end I was just relieved that we had made it and all flights had been on time. And the approach to Vegas over the Grand Canyon (was it? Well, it looked like it) was really wonderful to behold before the Strip and its crazy buildings appeared and we landed.

A taxi took us to our abode, the crazily overblown sprawling Caesars Palace in the middle of the Strip and to one of the nicest biggest hotel rooms I've ever had. The bath tub even had a Jacuzzi - which was sheer paradise after the long journey. It left me too tired to venture out for dinner though, so I went straight to bed only to wake up all the time and find my tummy grumbling at me. At half past midnight I couldn't bear it any longer, got dressed and headed out to find the hotel and its surroundings still buzzing with people. But the Starbucks was closed and I couldn't find any snack bar of sorts, so I had to make do with pretzels and chips. At least after the nightly sojourn and some food in my belly I could at last sleep a few hours before jetlag struck again.

The first full day in Vegas was still dominated by jetlag and thus partly spent napping by the poolside or in bed. One first walk took us through the Forum shops and as far as the Venetian, that marvelous hotel with its fake Venetian setup: The Campanile, the Doge's Palace, Rialto bridge and L'Orologio all in their mini-sized glory as well as canals and gondolas. Many Europeans huff and puff at Vegas imitations of "our" places, but dammit, I loved every bit of it. In the evening we went on a longer walk to the Wynn, that fancy new palace mogul Steve Wynn built to his own ego, where we had tickets for Le Rêve, the non-Cirque du Soleil spectacle by Franco Dragone with aerial and aquatic acrobatics, the likes of which I had never seen and which were truly stunning.

But it was the next morning that brought the true highlight of the trip along: A helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon. We were being picked up by a stretch limo, which was a hilarious great moment of its own, and taken to the heli terminal at McCarran Airport, where we boarded our heli. Our party of six comprised of four Germans and two Danish people and a charming pilot.

I had been wanting to fly in a heli for a long long time and it was truly great - slower and a lot closer to the ground than any plane, offering incredible views of the desert, Lake Mead, the Hoover Dam and finally the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, where we flew low through the canyon over the Colorado River to finally land by its bank for a little picnic including champagne. Which was the real highlight - to be able to go into the canyon, land there, really enjoy the wonder of this spectacular landscape made by Mother Nature alone. And meet a little chipmunk, too.

It was time to let that amazing adventure sink in, so I headed to the pool for a few hours (marred only by the obnoxious twat two sunloungers down who thought he had to smoke a fat stinking cigar for a long long time, how very considerate to everyone around him - not). Another walk took us to Paris then, another very amusing copy of Europe (and a very un-Parisian menu in the fancy "French Brasserie" by the fake opera house - mon dieu!) and neighboring Planet Hollywood with its Arabian-themed mall.

In the evening we had to hunt down the hotel shuttle to the Rio across the freeway - only half a mile in true distance and easily walkable, but with the freeway running between the hotel and the Strip it might as well have been on the moon for pedestrians. The hotel seemed a bit seedy to me, more the classic gambling Sin City-den and as such the perfect venue for a Rat Pack Revival show, which had been my mother's wish to see because she had a thing for Dean Martin. And so it was mostly her age group in the rather uncomfortable Crown Theatre, but the oldies did seem to have a ball with Franky, Dean and Sammy (although only "Dean" actually looked like the original, while "Frank" at least sounded very much like Sinatra and even I got a kick of hearing classics like My Way live on stage.

The last day in Vegas started with a mellow morning by the poolside before finally visiting the south end of the Strip with the MGM Grand (to get tickets for the Cirque du Soleil) and New York New York before catching a bus to Downtown Las Vegas - the old heart of Sin City which has been converted into a pedestrian zone with a roof above it called Fremont Street Experience.
Yea, it would have been much better to see the glittery glory of the old casinos like the Golden Nugget and the famous cowboy at night, when it is all illuminated by millions of lights, but there just wasn't time for that and overall it just felt dingy and a little bit iffy there to begin with (not to mention the grotty area between the Strip and Downtown the bus passed). Frankly, I was glad to be back on the Strip and its snazzy hotels.

Next morning it was time to head west - picking up my old friend first, the gorgeous Mustang Convertible I had so loved in Florida (well, not the very same one obviously, but the same model) before leaving Las Vegas� en route to LA - four hours of mindnumbingly boring driving through the barren Mojave desert with a lunch and fuel stop at In-n-Out-Burger in Victorville.

Luckily the drive through LA (which I had worried about) went hitch- and jam-free all the way to Santa Monica. The place was just as lovely as I remembered it and we went for a first walk to the pier and beach before visiting Third Street Promenade and finding dinner.