After my weird time-share Arizona trip and freezing cold San Diego trip, I was looking forward to a nice business trip this past week and actually got one. So I will tell you about it. With pictures, because they are worth 1,000 words.
The first good part of my trip was the fact that I got to bring Boyfriend with me, which meant I had someone to talk to on the plane which prevented me from staring at crazy people all day. The talking was mostly trash-talking though, because we are nerds and play Scrabble while flying.
I was very crabby at first because I only had dumb letters that weren't worth anything. That drives me insane.
But I still totally won because I am awesome. And because it was Boyfriend's birthday the night before, so he was not in prime condition. After my glorious win,
we moved on to simpler games.
Which later became the new form of communication for everything.
But yeah, eventually we got to Vegas. While we were headed to baggage claim, we started talking about how everyone working for the airline was really intent on making jokes, like it was their new marketing campaign. When we were waiting to board, the gate agent gave the instruction that the flight was full and that "only those customers sitting in even or odd rows" would be given seats. People frantically pulled their boarding passes out to check their row before the agent started laughing at them. And the pilots told jokes, the attendants told jokes... it was all very weird. Has anyone else noticed this? I remember right after 9-11, some of the airlines I flew on were going out of their way to be "fun," and held silly contests while you were landing. You could win a bottle of wine for having the oldest penny or something goofy like that.
Anyway, Vegas. We stayed at a casino slightly off strip where a very large poker tournament is played in the summer. It's very loud and during our trip to the elevator, we got to see a woman riding a dolphin suspended from the ceiling and a clown running through the casino grabbing the @sses of tourists. The room was very nice, though I will warn anyone staying there- the showers in the suites have windows. This is not the place to stay with a co-worker or other person you don't want to watch bathe. It's not a big window, and it does have a picture of grapes on it
but you can still watch the room TV while showering or watch someone else shower while you're in the room. And if you leave the shower door open after you get out, you're also setting yourself up to be viewed as you go to the bathroom (if you're standing up.) It was a little weird at first, but by the end of the trip, I was turning on CNN and watching it through the window while I showered.
I had work to do, so I don't have too many awesome Vegas stories for you. Our last night there we went downtown on a mission to go to every casino and get whatever free crap they would give us. We started at the top of the block where the Dean Martin impersonater sings at 7 after the hour, down to the neon Walgreens.
At the end of the evening, we had received: two bottles of Miller L1te, two t-shirts, many beads, key chains, and $33.50 won off free slot pulls we were given. We celebrated by going to try the deep-fried Twinkies that I posted a picture of in my last Vegas-related entry. We also tried the deep-fried Oreos. I've heard people rave about both of these items, so I was pretty disappointed when I realized they were disgusting. We each tried a bite of the desserts before throwing them away and getting back to our ridiculous yard long margaritas. It was sad.
But of course, if you're sad, the new and improved wacky airline staff will be glad to entertain you. For our first flight home, we made the mistake of renting Wicker Park at the airport. I really thought that I had read on this very website that it was good, and I swear I never heard anyone tell me that someone had remade Single White Female and managed to make it a hundred times crappier. But they did and we watched it and it was bad. The last flight home included an upgrade to first class and the chance to be the audience for the head flight attendant comic.
The plane was going to take a while to load, so I decided to use the bathroom before we took off. When I went in, the FA told me to yell before I flushed the toilet because the plane was still on the ground "and people would need to get out of the way." I smiled and laughed, went to the bathroom, washed my hands, and...couldn't get out the door. I unlocked it, turned the handle both ways.. but it wouldn't budge. I'm getting freaked out that I'm locked in the airport bathroom and I really will have to start yelling and everyone will think I'm crazy. But then the door just flies open- because the FA had been holding it shut the whole time. He thanked me for remaining calm and told me that "he could tell I knew how to handle myself in an emergency." So then he shoved me in the cockpit and told me that the pilots would let me "drive" if I wanted- just to "ask them where the steering wheel was." The pilots did show me the controls, which was nice.
During the safety rules, the FA did half of the rules into the intercom for the entire plane to hear, but did strange asides for the four rows up front. When he noticed the people in row two talking, he stopped in the middle of the announcements to yell at them BY NAME (he had come around and checked off all of our names at the beginning of the flight.) He then ripped one of the cushions off the first-class aisle to actually show us the straps that make it usable as a flotation device. At that point he informed us that the cushions we were sitting on in first-class float one hour longer than coach seats, and that we should keep that in mind. Later he talked to me for about five minutes concerning the distribution of almond bark in the snack mix. As strange as it was, the flight went by fast and I almost completely forgot about that horrible movie. But not quite. Whoever told me that was good is on my list.
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