Home Again...

Yes. I have survived Vegas and San Diego--and, more importantly, my fucked up flights--though I am tired and a bit sick. However, the puppy and I are happily home, and you will likely be treated to a series of "What I Did on Vegas Vacation" posts throughout the day.

Since I've been offline for almost a week and have no chance of catching up on what has been happening with everyone, let me know if there are any posts that I really must read. *hugs*

What I Did On Spring Vacation...

I've cut tagged everything here, because some of you might not want the whole vacation spiel, and some might only want parts, so here they are in day-by-day breakdown. The shows and concerts will get their own entries a bit later on.

( Getting There )

( First Day in Vegas: Showgirls and Dancing Water )

( Second Day in Vegas: Sharks and Lions and Erasure, Oh My! )

( Third Day in Vegas: Klingons, Ferengi, Borg, and Zumanity )

( Fourth Day in Vegas: Ka, Kaleidoscopes, and...Pete Rose? )

( Leaving Las Vegas )

( Day in San Diego: Ocean Beach and Pandas! )

( The Long Journey Home )

Overall, there were the usual travel stressors, but we had fun. We saw good shows, shopped, got nice things. I lost about $30 gambling, and at the height of my winning streak I won $12.50. The sis and I are crappy gamblers. If we're going to lose money, we'd rather do it on a show than in the slots.

Aside from needing a vacation from my vacation (which is the mark of a successful trip in my opinion) and scowling at a pile of laundry, I'm back and settled. Yay!

Erasure at the Hard Rock...

The reason the sis and I went to Vegas in the first place was to see Erasure. She had seen them twice before and said that the shows were phenomenal. She said that Andy Bell sounds even better live than he does on CD. She said that I would love the show with a deep and abiding love.

I am happy to say that all of this is true. Which is fortunate, because there was enough other drama associated with seeing the show.

The show was at the Hard Rock, which is about two blocks (Vegas blocks are like NYC blocks, very long.) off the Strip. No problem, we took a cab. However, that meant that we (and the thousand other people crammed into the theatre, also needed to get back home/to the Strip. The cab line at the end was about a 30-minute wait. Add to this the fact that while they let people in through two sets of double doors, they only had one set open--the set that lead into the casino--on the way out, so everyone was jamming and jostling each other to just get out. Including a rude, drunk prick behind me, who had his arm at chest level shoving me. Like that was going to help. The sis shoved me ahead of her, and when he did the same to him, she elbowed him in the chest, which didn't lead to a fight but did lead to a lot of screaming "Fuck you" back and forth between them.

( Erasure )

So if Erasure ever makes it to where you live--heck, even if they don't, make a trip to go see them--the show is wonderful. Small and intimate.

And the music... Ah yes, the music. It is sublime.

Cirque de Soleil: Zumanity...

Other than specials on television, this is the first time I'd seen any Cirque de Soleil show live. Zumanity is their adults-only erotic show, and while I was expecting sometime a bit pervier (breasts/chests were shown, no genitalia), the show was still quite wonderful in parts, a bit less so in others.

The night started out ominously for the sis and I. We were getting escorted to our seats, which my sister thought were on the side section (three sections of seats) fourth row back on the aisle closest to the middle section. Well, wrong. They put us against the far side aisle. The stage has a part that extends out into the audience a little, so from where we were sitting we would only see the backs of the actors there, and we were at an angle that things happening far back on the stage would also be out of our line of sight.

Getting these tickets was a pain for her, since Ticketbastard would give her the seat numbers, but no seating map. So she was flipping between them and the New York-New York site, where she could access a theatre map. However, the New York-New York site had the seats improperly labeled.

The sis is pissed and hauls out to the box office, who tells her "So sorry. You can stay there, or we'll give you your money back." When she gets back to our seats, she is fuming. We want to see the show, but the seats we have are not $100 seats. Luckily, the sis's being in the theatre served us well. She went back out to ask for the House Manager, and actually stumbled on someone who was willing to help. We got fab seats just in the back of the middle section.

( Cirque de Soleil's Zumanity )

The show was alternately amusing and erotic, and it had a lot more aerial sorts of acts than I was expecting. The numbers that I didn't love or dislike didn't get written about. The show is billed as "The Other Side of Cirque de Soleil," and that was really apparent in not just theme when compared to Ka.