(no subject)

So I went to Las Vegas this weekend. I've been there once before, four years ago. It's still as large and overwhelming as it was then.

Vegas actually sort of frightens me. I love cities, and I love the energies of cities and places where things are still going on past midnight, but Vegas doesn't feel like an actual city to me. It feels like a giant playground of neon lights, mega-hotels, mega-casinos, mega-malls. Everything is too large and too bright.

We stayed at the Wynn, which was large and grandiose. I think many of the hotels try to be upscale and tasteful, but once you leave the quiet lobbies and hit the casinos, it's already a lost cause.

I ogled at Cartier and Graff, Fred Leighton and Dior, marvelled that a single candle could cose $65 at Jo Malone. I ended up getting myself a teeny box of expensive chocolates, because they looked too good to pass up. I shall have to ration them out; there are only nine of them and they are small. I had a cinnamon chocolate yesterday, and it was lovely and mildly spicy and melted away on my tongue to leave just a shadow of chocolate and a small glimmering of cinnamon.

I also went around and looked at all the fancy jewelry I could, partly because I have a trainwreck kind of fascination with how large things can get, but mostly because my mind is like a magpie's and I am attracted to anything shiny.

There was much of the shiny. I probably looked very odd standing around with my nose pressed against the glass of super expensive jewelry stores, then stepping back and moving my head from side to side to watch things sparkle. But! It was so sparkly! I couldn't resist!

I actually ended up spending most of my time in the hotel room, as I was too tired to walk around. The room was cavernous. Also, I partially blame my sort-of incarceration on rachelmanija, because I got sucked into her book and never quite emerged.

Also, it had a really neat bathtub with "chromatherapy" (aka little lights to make your bathwater change color -- I'm as baffled as the next person) and a nifty keen spout that came out of the long side of the bathtub wall in a lovely arc, instead of flowing out of a spout. Plus, the hotel had little free bathsalts that I took advantage of. And a little pillow for your head in the bathtub. And lots of nice lemongrass-sage scented products (I forgot to steal them, sigh).

I did, however, nick the sewing kit, so the apartment finally has sewing utensils!

( La Reve )

( Fooding )

The strangest thing was that people smoked everywhere. I was sniffing around and wondering what the strange and nasty smell was, only to realize... cigarettes! Clearly I was no longer in California.

Vegas is large and mostly overwhelming. It was fun, I had good food, but I'm awfully glad I'm back home.