My husband, the kids and I are moving to Las Vegas. We’re going to travel from Vermont to Las Vegas with all our bags packed. It’s really lazy, but that’s life. Vermont is located almost on the right-hand side of the United States and borders Canada, so you can imagine how cold it is here. Nevada (the state where Las Vegas is located) is on the other coast, right next to California. There are two extremes: hot and cold, Pacific and Atlantic, Democrats and Republicans, small towns and big cities. To solve the housing issue, the whole gang flew to Las Vegas for Spring Break last week. Las Vegas is the party city and we were ready for the next 72 hours!
On Wednesday at 4 am I woke up scared before my alarm clock – we have a long history of missing flights early in the morning and I wanted to avoid that. The flight left at 6 am and we had to hurry. Everyone jumped out of bed, grabbed our bags and went – without breakfast – to the airport where we would catch a flight to New York and from there to Vegas. The kids were full of stamina despite having slept little and the first flight was smooth, it went by quickly and the connection lasted only a few minutes. Our plane to Vegas had a TV, a novelty for me and the kids, so we watched movies non-stop for five hours: with so many options and new things, Soph decided to watch Frozen for the tenth time and Ben wanted to re-watch The Last Jedi (there were so many options, that I ended up watching a bunch of things “just to see”: the new Will and Grace, the movie Wonder and The Shape of Water). As soon as we stepped into the airport in Vegas we started taking off our coats. The sun was shining brightly, something we hadn’t seen in a long time, and it was also unbearably hot. We were all wearing long sleeves and closed-toe shoes (it was raining and cold in Burlington) and the heat was so unexpected that suddenly everyone was thirsty, sleepy, hungry, tired, all at the same time. We could barely control the kids’ mood, they were tired – but I swear I was even more so. We had Thai food for lunch at a restaurant where the food was great, but the air conditioning was so cold that my son asked to go back to Vermont (so he wouldn’t be cold anymore!). While the hotel was huge (it even had a Venice- style canal inside), the hotel room surprised me by being a real latifundium with three TVs and a beautiful view of the Nevada desert. The kids loved playing with the electric curtains, it really was like something out of a movie. When we managed to tear them away from the TVs and curtains, we went to check out the hotel’s five pools (I stopped counting after five, there might be more hidden ones). By six o’clock in the evening we were all in bed, asleep, exhausted and jet lagged.
Thursday was a work day: we visited a school in the morning and after a quick lunch we met with our real estate agent to visit houses. I had given her a list of over thirty houses and that day I questioned my sanity for the first time in the last few days: why did I make such a long list? Now we have to visit them all! But the agent was all business: she was ready for the marathon and wasted no time. She had water, pens, and everything extra ready for those who were coming from out of town. It takes two years to get used to the dry air here, she told me. Two years??? After visiting 14 houses, we went to bed at seven in the evening, without dinner (why eat when you can sleep?), exhausted. The Las Vegas strip? We haven’t seen it yet!
The next day, still tired but with the obligation to find a good house, we started at 9 in the morning, going from house to house. By the third or fourth time I couldn’t remember which was which. But despite the mental confusion that was going on, I could already get an idea of the neighborhoods and where we wanted to stay. Before going to Vegas, everyone who lived there told me: “you’ll want to live in area X or area Y”. People who like X don’t like Y and vice versa. For those who live in X, Y is snobbish. For those who love Y, X isn’t enough. I thought it was crazy, but I ended up figuring out which was X and which was Y (the neighborhoods aren’t called X and Y, of course, ha!)… By the end of Friday, we had seen twenty-one houses… we were comically tired, but that night we had to go to dinner with one of my husband’s friends. We had instructed the children to be on their best behavior for that dinner. My daughter fell asleep sitting in the restaurant, while my son refused dinner and I refused dessert (in the hope of leaving for the hotel) but our hosts were in good spirits. We went to bed at 10.30, and we still hadn’t seen the famous Las Vegas.
Saturday arrived sooner than ever and we slept until 6:30 in the morning (jet lag is no fun) and having decided at home, the day would be leisurely. The morning was too cool for the pool so we took the monorail near the hotel and took a ride downtown (the kids later said that the best part of the monorail ride was being able to sit down!). We took advantage of the free time and went to the Fashion Show Mall, the strip mall, to buy a pair of sneakers for my daughter and Legos for both kids. (How do you think we managed to hop from one house to another frantically for two days and still go out to dinner with all the jet lag? The kids’ patience was managed with future Legos and an entire afternoon of bliss by the pools. A quick jump in each of the hot tubs was also allowed.) But since I hate going to the mall more than having to go through a procedure in the dentist’s chair, my husband surprised me with a lunch at the Wynn hotel buffet. I thought the hotel we were staying at was over the top, but when I saw the Wynn… words can’t describe how “over the top” Vegas can be. The exaggeration is shocking at first, but you soon get used to it, and at every turn I found myself anxiously awaiting another surprise (hint: Vegas doesn’t disappoint). We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant that was so good that I suddenly remembered the old saying here that says “the further you are from Mexico, the worse the Mexican food is”. It makes sense. To end the night in “style” (Vegas style, really), we watched the eruption of the volcano at the Mirage Hotel – a glory for the kids – with fire, lights and sound effects. And, with our eyes already wanting to close, we walked the half-mile to our hotel room… thus ending the trip.