Gambling in Las Vegas

 Our last day in Las Vegas was totally unscripted. We got up at a reasonable hour but I was starving which is unusual for me. I wanted to get our boarding passes. Despite our so called complimentary boarding pass access at the internet kiosks I was prompted for payment. Turns out I wasn’t the only one. I went to the Concierge where there was a line of other Aria hotel guests who had been prompted for payment to access their boarding passes. Can you tell I’m not impressed with Aria? I don’t have to go out of my way to stay here again that’s for sure. So I waited in line for about 30 minutes until the boarding passes were safely in my possession.

When I rejoined my mother she had lost a couple bucks at a slot machine. She didn’t seem to be starving like I was so we moved on to another slot machine. She was determined to “learn this gambling business”. At this new machine, she hit some buttons and next thing you know, she had made $39 from her dollar. We cashed that thing out with the quickness, let me tell you. But the gambling bug had bitten and there was no stopping my mother.  The rest of the day, whenever we wandered into a casino, we sat down at a slot machine and lost some more dollars. We only managed to turn a dollar into $5 or $7 here and there. It was quite interesting though seeing folks play with hundred dollar bills while we were hesitating over single dollar bills.

It was more interesting for me because prior to coming here I had told my mother that she should make a budget as to how much she would like to gamble a day, say $20 a day which would be $100 her time here. She balked at that. Looked at me incredulously. I didn’t even get to finish my sentence. And now here she is wanting to go on and on and on telling me she hasn’t yet gambled the $100 for the week.

In the evening we wandered into Paris and had dinner at  Le Provençal.  What a difference from the lunch the day before. This is when I figured out that my mother truly enjoyed that Greek lunch because the list of criticisms here did not stop. First it was the service. The bread basket and oil were just plopped in front of us without any introduction.  The waitress wasn’t smiling nor was she graceful in her movements. The bread was cold. The salad wasn’t nice because there was a touch of mustard in the dressing.  At least she liked her roasted chicken.  But I’m not going to pretend. I ordered a salmon dish, and it was as I would have cooked it at home. Dry! That is to say when I eat salmon in a restaurant, I don’t expect it to be dry.  And yes, the waitress could have engaged with us (and the other patrons) when she randomly came by.

After dinner, we went up the Eiffel Tower for some magnificent nighttime views of the strip. We saw the Mirage volcano erupt one last time and the Fountains of Bellagio dance a couple more times.

Then we went back to our room at Aria to pack in preparation of our 7:00 am flight out of Las Vegas the next day.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone