8:00am
Departing UBC!
We got on the charter bus and headed south. Going through the border was a pain in the ass but it went quite swiftly. We stopped by McD shortly after the border to grab breakfast/brunch. I had the worst breakfast/brunch of my life. I didn't get worked up about it because meh, we're going to Vegas! It's funny how things look very differently once you cross the border. I'm not sure if it's the way things look, the environment, the people or just my mind playing games. Either way, I didn't pay much attention to the surrounding because we watched "Hangover" on the bus. This was my first time watching this movie and I thought it a suitable movie for this trip =)
Like I said, there wasn't much to look at during our bus ride until we drove through Seattle. I'm intrigued by Seattle and even though it isn't very big and it's located right by the highway, I'd like to visit. It's a shame that I've never really visited Seattle since I live just hours away. My mum and I are planning to visit Seattle over the holidays and I think that'd be quite nice.
We arrived at the airport and had time to kill. I'm so used to the type and selection of food we have in Canada that American food was well, not very healthy. I'm sure there are lots of fine dining places with healthy food, but the places we've gone weren't one of those. I had a panini at the airport which was just filled with grease. Since wasting food isn't in my personal agenda, I ate the entire thing. Feeling completely nasty after my huge, greasy, cheesy-with-zero-vegetables panini, I had to finish my meal with a pint of beer!
Yay, Eric was up for it! Our first legal purchase of alcohol in the States! I ventured myself and got an IPA, which was extremely difficult to drink at the time. I was about 2 sips from finishing my drink when we realized that we had a plane to catch! Oops, gotta go!
Halloween! I'm pretty sure I haven't dressed up for Halloween since like Grade 8. I know, I know, it's lame. Everybody should dress up for Halloween no matter how old you are. It's a way of keeping ourselves young. I guess I've just been way too lazy in the past. I know for sure that I'm going to be dressing up every year now!
Note: My plan to dress up as Cleopatra and Ryan as Mark Antony totally fell through. Maybe next year... for sure next year!
Anyway, my roomies for Vegas were my "fourth year friends"! (Ha!) Gwenda dressed up as Cruella deville and Kaori, Behin and myself are her little b*ches (I mean dolmatians..). Our costumes were done in a hurry the day before but they turned out alright! Halloween in Vegas was one of the most interesting events. Everybody's dressed up. Everybody's tipsy. Everybody's having a blast!
When I visited Macau earlier in the summer, I wanted to watch a Cirque de Soleil show; however, there were no performances during the days that I was there. Not only was I disappointed, I didn't get to see much of Macau because of who I was traveling with - elderly relatives.
To make up for this loss, I was extremely excited to see a show in Vegas. There were about 6 Cirque de Soleil shows plus many other different ones such as the Blue Man Group. "O" was showing at Bellagio but the tickets for this show were way beyond our budgets. A whole group of us decided to go see "Love". I was definitely in the mood for some Beatles. We ended up paying around $60.00 per ticket with balcony seats. We didn't think too much at the time because we were pretty happy with the price that we were paying. Once we got to the theater and headed for our seats, the people working there stopped us and told us that they were going to upgrade our seats! "Holy F*, Really?" We ended up being in the "3RD ROW". It was pretty ridiculous because another friend of ours payed ~$75.00 for like the 7th or 8th row. We were beyond bliss. The stage was set in the center of the theater so really, every seat had incredible view.
The show was unlike anything I've seen before. I've seen plays, broadways, musicals, but nothing like this. Listening to the Beatles brought nostalgia and comfort. I couldn't stop humming "All you need is love" the rest of the night! The show was creative, engaging and mesmerizing. I wish we could've seen more shows!
The rest of this specific night consisted of me getting ridiculously drunk (a happy, talkative, loud drunk). There was a part of the night which I didn't remember,but that's okay. I had a blast. Obviously, not so much the next day. I totally missed our visit to UNLV and the water treatment facility/construction site. I wish I had gone but I was in no shape to get out of bed. I tried and even went on the Monorail with some of the guys from the trip who stayed at the hotel that day as well. I traveled one station before getting off the Monorail and headed back to the hotel and back to bed.
We spent the next day just doing some last minute shopping and sight-seeing.
I wish I wasn't so sick on the 3rd night and that I was up for more drinking. People had a blast at the club that night -Jet. Even though I missed out on this, I still had a great time in Vegas. I met a lot of people that I've never talked to in class. I've gotten to know more about some people. It was great that the Grad trip was so early on in the year.
The trip was a success and thanks to all who organized it!
For appetizers, we had fresh oysters imported from France, Iberico jamon melon wraps from Spain and assorted cheese. Yum yum yum...Oh, and mussles in little staub containers. The mussles were delectable. I counted, I had 17 mussles in here. Here are the before and after pictures. 
