Wow, what a city.  Plastic Americana at its finest.  I must admit that in spite of my compulsions to claim the opposite, I’m a fan.  My first trip to Vegas was New Years 1997.  My husband, then boyfriend, Dharmesh and I went with his brother, Vipul, and my sister, Hilde.  It was not on the top of my list of places to visit. Las Vegas  - neon lights, gambling, burlesque shows .. no thank you.   We went.  The neon lights were bright , Dharmesh, Vipul and their colleague David gambled the nights away, and we did end up at a “light” burlesque show at Ballys.  But, Vegas was a treat.  To be clear, it is still not at the top of my vacation list, and it is not a place in which I would like to live; but it is certainly a place like none other on earth.  Go there for the glitz, see a show or two – Cirque de Soleil’s “O” is an absolute must, and walk down the main strip of an Epcotesque City in the midst of the surreal setting of the desert.  Dine at the Eifel Tower which is a smaller scale, but exact replica (down to the bolts which hold it together) of the Paris original.  Take a gondola ride down the Grand Canal, recreated inside The Venetian Hotel, which meanders along shops and Italian facades and are guided by Gondoliers much happier to serenade their passengers with beautiful songs than any gondoliers we saw in Venice. 

We just returned from a six day trip to Vegas.  Again, my reluctance to go was strong, I thought a quiet get-away to Maine for the Labor Day weekend would be nice.  But this was a celebratory trip.  Dharmesh sold Pyramid two weeks ago and we were looking to celebrate in a memorable way.  Vegas won out.  Again, once we landed the city drew me in - it’s palatial hotels and casinos, the strips and strips of parallel glowing highways that seem to simply end as the desert valley meets the mountains, and the enormity of blinking neon lights that cast a glow over everything once the sun sets.  One neon light is annoying, one million is somehow both annoying and utterly amazing.  Dharmesh’s brother, Vipul, a fellow Pyramidian, and his wife, Eva, flew in for the weekend, and the four of us had a wonderful weekend of shows, delicious food, and a bit of art shopping. 

For a high-energy, dress to the nines, vacation, Las Vegas will grab you.  Do it at least once. After four days, you will most likely be ready to leave, but it will have been an amazing experience.  Afterwards, you can be thankful that you do not live under the constant glow of neon lights, and you may feel a strong urge to go to Maine or any other corner of your world which offers the tranquility of nature and reality.   But it is worth seeing.  Who knows, you may even go back.