Welcome to Vegas! I stayed at the fun Excalibur. The hotel itself was a fairly normal hotel. It was obviously older as it is one of the older hotels on the strip, but it was still fairly comfortable and the price was right too!
While in Vegas I decided to see 5 different shows! Such a feat I must say. I ended up watching Ka, O, Love, and Mystere by Cirque du Soleil and I also watched Absinthe which resided by Caesar's Palace. Ka had the best set out of all the shows. The stage was basically 2 different platforms that rotated and twisted to almost any configuration that you could think of. It was absolutely gorgeous! The one thing I disliked about Ka was that they relied to much on the stage and occasionally the structure made it hard to discern what was occuring. O was gorgeous! Their play with water was phenomenal and, although sometimes I wished they would do a few more daring tricks, their talents were some of the best. Love was probably my least favorite mainly because I'm not personally a fan of the beatles. The acrobatics were just people running around the stage, and bouncy chords. Although it was pleasing to look at, compared to the others, it was my least favorite (although still completely worth going to see!) Mystere was the most acrobatic of the 4 Cirque shows. It was my favorite show and the acrobatics were phenomenal. Mystere is the only cirque show without a plot line which probably helped them focus on the acrobatics themselves. Absinthe was by far the best show I saw in Vegas. It literally blew me out of the water. It was an intimate atmosphere and you could see the muscles of the artists as they attempted to do some of their feats. Absinthe was part acrobatics, burlesque and comedy. They did a marvelous job and I'd recommend going hands down (only if you're 21+ though). I will also mention I am slightly biased since I did get dragged on stage and although I won't mention what we did on stage (what happens in Vegas...) I will mention that after the show I had some cute guys ask for my number.
You also can't go to Vegas without tons of food! I went to so many food places while in town; it was amazing. I went to 2 different buffets: Mandalay Bay and Cosmopolitan. Both of them were extremely amazing! Mandalay bay had awesome food although their portion sizes were slightly larger than what I wanted. Cosmo had even better food, better food portions, but at \$37 entrance, the price was a little more than I'd have liked. I also ended up going to an amazing pho/vietnamese place called Pho Kim Long (teehee), an awesome thai place called Lotus of Siam and a fairly good chinese place called Diamond Chinese. My favorite chocolate stand on the strip turned out to be a place by Jeanne Philippe in the Belagio. He had this gorgeous fountain (pictured below) and the crepes were to die for. It probably helped that the server was super cute with a french accent as well =). The restaurant that took the cake (and the icing) was definitely e by Jose Andres! It was a 24 course menu and each dish was served right in front of us. Reservations are normally required 3 months ahead of time, but since I was a party of 1 I was able to sneak in one of the nights. They have exactly 16 customers a night (8 at each dinner) and that's all. I was guest number 5404 since it's creation. Each dish was to die for (even the cheese ones!) and it was one of the most amazing nights there. If you're in town (and you have \$200 to throw) I highly recommend it. You can view pictures here
Now although Vegas is known for their food and their shows, I did take the time to go visit other places as well. I went and saw the DaVinci exhibit (which closes soon I think) at the Venetian. It was amazing! I totally loved it and if you ever have the chance to go visit it, I would highly recommend it. They do tours throughout the world. I also got to see some more of my amazing brothers, mainly Ernie Hall and Mike Radza. I had an amazing time with both and can't wait to see them again!
