As promised, here is the “After” version of the Vegas Blog. Just like the “Before” version, this is pretty much a waste of my not-so-valuable time since everyone who reads my blog was in Vegas with me, but whatevers.
After anxiously passing the time Friday morning/afternoon pounding coffee and watching Family Guy clips on YouTube, we finally took off at around 2:30pm. Terence – who I had told we might pick up from the airport after his 5pm landing in Vegas – texted me asking if we were on the road yet, right as we got on the 10. “Define ‘on the road’” was my response and, needless to say, he was forced to cab it to the hotel. After sitting in standard Friday afternoon traffic, we finally made it to Barstow. Between the Del Taco and the Level-Lemonades Shashank and I made for the road, my weekend had peaked and I was pretty much ready to go home. But we had gambling to do and lappies to buy Atur, so we trekked on towards Vegas, finally arriving at 8:30 or so. We met up with Terence, checked in, and the real drinking was on.
After killing most of the Level and getting ready to go out, we headed to Harrah’s to play some cards. I have a lot of bad history at that place – from losing money to storming out because the dealers told me not to curse, and this time it wasn’t really going any better. Alas, we had to solider on, as we couldn’t really go to a club/strip club just yet because we were still waiting for Atur and his San Diego crew to arrive. They finally did, just past midnight, but Atur informed us that he didn’t want to go clubbing, just wanted to gamble. Damn, this is gonna get expensive.
After growing increasingly frustrated with Steve from San Francisco’s refusal to deal me a decent Blackjack hand, I moved over to the Craps tables. I really don’t know why Craps isn’t my primary game, or at least a close second. It’s funner than Blackjack – more communal, more chicks, etc., other people can’t f*ck up your bets like they can in Blackjack (except by crapping out, but it’s completely out of their control, unlike hitting a 12 against a 6 or splitting 10’s, which is totally within one’s control), and historically, I’ve had pretty decent luck at Craps, at least relative to Blackjack. In any event, Friday night was no different, as I was able to offset some of my Blackjack losses. At around 3 a.m. or so, the strip club conversation started to happen – Terence and I were both there, after all, and it was a bachelor party. While I waited for everyone to gather themselves, I played a quick $100 hand, won, and walked away like someone who DOESN’T have a gambling problem. Unfortunately, after 10 or 15 more minutes of waiting for everyone, I fell off the wagon (or “on the wagon”?), played another $100 hand, and you can guess what happened.
FINALLY, everyone was ready to go, except for, unsurprisingly, Neel, Anuj’s brother, and Atur’s gay friend (probably the most awkward question I’ve ever had to ask anyone – asking him if he wanted to join us at the strip club). Since there were 10 or so of us, we decided to throw good money after bad and hop in a limo to take us to Crazy Horse Too, and the night started looking good. Unfortunately, I didn’t heed the advice I had heard to avoid the Horse (historically by far my favorite SC in Vegas). Evidently, the place lost its liquor license earlier in the year and, while it now had gotten it back, a lot of the girls had left and not come back. This is how bad it was – I didn’t get a lappie for maybe the first time in Vegas since I started going to strip clubs 5 years ago. And these are half naked women I’m talking about! Fortunately, Atur had the Beer/Food goggles on and got himself a few, and another individual who asked not to be identified met a wholesome Indian girl and spent a solid 45 minutes with her – good for him. The stripper taking HIS shirt off in front of everyone – bad for us.
We walked out at around 5:30 a.m., and, much to our shock, it was already daytime. Not even daybreak or sunrise or anything like that. It was as bright as high noon. Went back to the hotel, laughed as a dealer talked shit about Anuj behind his back, won some more of my money back, ate some eggs, got into yet another 7 a.m. argument with a dealer, and bid Terence adieu as he left for his 8:30 a.m. flight at what felt like 8 a.m. Terence – you may have a problem.
After unsuccessfully trying to sleep off my hangover, I finally dragged myself out of bed and we all headed down to the lobby to partake in various typical Vegas daytime activities – eating overpriced, under-tasty food court grub, hanging out by the pool staring at girls, drinking bloody marys, Bud Lights and 48-oz. margaritas, and gambling. The trend of losing big at Blackjack and winning moderately at Craps continued. Maybe I’ll learn my lesson from this. I even had the chance to chat with a cute girl from Texas while her husband was off in the bathroom. Hook ‘Em Horns.
At 7:30 Saturday night, the official bachelor party started. MC’ed by Neel and Anuj, it entailed about 20 crappy speeches, an inspired poetry recital by the MC’s, and mass consumption of Vodka and Champagne. Gaurav, who had gained some major friend/ex-roommate brownie points with Atur for showing up despite a hectic work schedule, lost them all (in my opinion) for refusing to drink any Champagne (even the non-drinkers had a little) because it supposedly “f*cks him up”. Pu**y.
The party then moved to the Hummer Limo that we had reserved for a few hours. We had planned for the first hour to basically be cruising up and down The Strip. Unfortunately, it instead ended up being an hour of a) sitting in Strip traffic, b) stopping at a drug store and a liquor store (separate stops) to get liquor, ice and mixers, and c) going back to the Venetian, our starting point, to pick up a few of the people who had just got to Vegas and then waiting for Sanjay who had ran off to the bathroom amidst the commotion of squeezing three more people into the limo. I know Anuj is pissed as he’s reading this, because he thinks I’m talking shit about the limo he reserved, but in reality it was a lot of fun, with the music blasting and liquor flowing (sidebar thanks to Asim for hooking up the Patron). The real bummer is that Vegas apparently has a new law outlawing sunroofs in limos. WTF?! How else are we supposed to see the drunk girls’ boobies?
The rest of the evening was pretty standard bachelor party fare. Dinner at Border Grill, a Mexican restaurant at Mandalay (not recommended for the food, though the atmosphere was pretty cool), clubbing at Jet (in the Mirage), where we were fortunate enough to run into not one, but two Indian bachelorette parties (Shital even got a fake phone number, which is still better than getting shut out altogether right? No? Oh well), more blackjack (I guess I didn’t learn the Craps > Blackjack lesson after all), and running into a college friend who I hadn’t seen since graduation. For some reason, we didn’t make it to a strip club (Tejas is still upset about that). Oh, and Atur FAILED to complete the entire list of “to do’s” that Tejas had put together for him. He did manage, however, to get a lap dance from a non-stripper, dance with a hot chick, and snap a girl’s thong. All in the day of the life of a bachelor.
Someone thinks it's Arjun's Bachelor Party:
Damn, it's been a while:
Yeah I do!
Labels: Travel
