All You Need Is Love!
Vegas Day 1 was Thanksgiving Day. We flew out early (thanks for the airport ride, Jason!), arriving in Vegas at abut 10am. As soon as we drove down the Strip towards our hotel (luckily located a few blocks off the Strip), we realized this was not going to be the kind of Thanksgiving where only a few things were open. In typical Vegas fashion, everything — except the In-and-Out Burger — was open and full of people.
So once we checked in, we walked down to check out the action. Lunch was a very un-Thanskgiving couple of slices of pizza at an outdoor table while people-watching, and then we checked out some shops and the gardens at the Flamingo. Beatrix especially like the bath and body store where all the bath bombs were shaped like cupcakes.
We walked down to the Venetian and got our first sense of how HUGE everything in Vegas is. Outside was this large complex and canals with gondolas, but we were stunned when we walked inside and ALSO saw canals and gondolas, and full streetscapes of buildings with shops and a cloud-painted sky, and cobbled streets...
After a couple of hours of walking and some big blisters, we hung out in the hotel for a little before heading back down. Dinner was at a place called the Yardhouse (just apps and one of their 135 beers on tap), since the buffet line was crazy. Then, off to see:
My amazing friend Noah, who plays Father Mackenzie in the show, had gotten us tickets with his discount. The generosity of this overwhelms me, because though I consider him a friend, I don't know him all that well. I first met him through Live Action Set years ago, but he's been mainly in Vegas for the past while, and we just don't hang out. Nevertheless, he went above and beyond to pick out great seats for us, and brought us backstage with his parents and brother (who were also visiting afterwards). An incredibly generous and lovely Thanksgiving event. (We also go to meet my friend Megan's husband Shav who was there that night and was nice enough to introduce himself!)
The show itself was GREAT. Very different from your usual Cirque du Soleil show in that is uses circus no more and more less than sound, video, teach, and dance to tell the story (we are REALLY talking tech — more than 6,400 speaker in the theater, thousands of lights, fully automated winches that mean they only need 12 actual riggers, and videos that make it the largest installation in the continent). The Beatles were the first music group I became more-or-less obsessed with, and they have a deep place in creating the me that exists now. To have that story mixed with circus was an incredible experience that made for a very special first night in Vegas.
So once we checked in, we walked down to check out the action. Lunch was a very un-Thanskgiving couple of slices of pizza at an outdoor table while people-watching, and then we checked out some shops and the gardens at the Flamingo. Beatrix especially like the bath and body store where all the bath bombs were shaped like cupcakes.
We walked down to the Venetian and got our first sense of how HUGE everything in Vegas is. Outside was this large complex and canals with gondolas, but we were stunned when we walked inside and ALSO saw canals and gondolas, and full streetscapes of buildings with shops and a cloud-painted sky, and cobbled streets...
After a couple of hours of walking and some big blisters, we hung out in the hotel for a little before heading back down. Dinner was at a place called the Yardhouse (just apps and one of their 135 beers on tap), since the buffet line was crazy. Then, off to see:
My amazing friend Noah, who plays Father Mackenzie in the show, had gotten us tickets with his discount. The generosity of this overwhelms me, because though I consider him a friend, I don't know him all that well. I first met him through Live Action Set years ago, but he's been mainly in Vegas for the past while, and we just don't hang out. Nevertheless, he went above and beyond to pick out great seats for us, and brought us backstage with his parents and brother (who were also visiting afterwards). An incredibly generous and lovely Thanksgiving event. (We also go to meet my friend Megan's husband Shav who was there that night and was nice enough to introduce himself!)
The show itself was GREAT. Very different from your usual Cirque du Soleil show in that is uses circus no more and more less than sound, video, teach, and dance to tell the story (we are REALLY talking tech — more than 6,400 speaker in the theater, thousands of lights, fully automated winches that mean they only need 12 actual riggers, and videos that make it the largest installation in the continent). The Beatles were the first music group I became more-or-less obsessed with, and they have a deep place in creating the me that exists now. To have that story mixed with circus was an incredible experience that made for a very special first night in Vegas.
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