Las Vegas

Since I got back from Vegas, people have asked what I thought of it. Answering is sort of like trying to describe a crazy aunt who steals food at family gatherings and wears fur coats in the middle of July. You've got to see it for yourself.

Vegas is like nothing I've ever experienced. The only thing that's close to being similar is Disney World. Everything is massive, expensive and irrestible for tourists. And we started at the top. We spent our first two nights at the Wynn, one of the world's only five-star hotels, because it was the site of a social media conference I'd registered to attend (the reason we'd first decided to go to Vegas). We stayed there for two nights, at the discounted rate I got by going to the conference, and it was hard to leave. Not because of the gorgeous view from our room or all of the four-star restaurants, but because of the bathroom. Which had a TV in it. Yes, a TV. Which meant that both mornings, as I got ready, I had Matt Lauer, Meredith Viera and Al Roker to keep me company.

Anyway, the conference ended at noon on Friday, and that is where our real Vegas experience began. For the weekend, we stayed at the MGM Grand, a hotel with more than 5,000 rooms and much lower rates than the Wynn. It was a decent hotel. Nothing stood out to me, but the important thing was finding a reasonable rate and a clean room. Hotels for us are a place to sleep, not hang out.

Before I forget to mention this, you should know that every hotel in Las Vegas is a mini city. You can eat, shop, gamble, drink, party and sleep all without leaving one place. It's pretty amazing, and you could probably spend days wandering around all the hotels in the city. Besides MGM Grand, we spent most of our time at Mandalay Bay, Caeser's Palace and the Bellagio.

At Mandalay, we ate at Burger Bar (one of the places Giada DeLaurentis visited when she filmed the Vegas episode of "Giada's Weekend Getaways"). It's a simple menu but here's why it draws people - you can design your own burger. You choose it all: the type of bun, meat, toppings. It can be overwhelming and at the time, I almost wished they gave you a few of their own creations to get your mind thinking. But my beef-pepper jack-jalapeno bacon-guac combo worked just fine. Also at Mandalay, we were asked to watch a 45-minute TV pilot and take a short survey, which we decided to do even before finding out we'd get paid $15 a piece for doing it. The show, "All Rise," was a relatively predictable legal drama with a few twists that kept it exciting. At the very least, it added some extra gambling money to our wallets.

Gambling, by the way, is something I didn't plan to do, beyond playing one hand of blackjack, one of my favorite card games. I've always been thrifty and the idea of shoving money into a machine with the likelihood of not getting it back did not appeal to me. That is, until Vegas seduced me. It's just too easy to throw your money away. I exercised restraint but saw plenty of others sitting mesmerized in front of a slot machine peeling one by one from a stack of bills. For the record, I did win. Also for the record, the most I won was $1. Brett won $40, then lost the same $40. Addicting, see?

Anyway, Friday night, we'd made reservations for Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in Caesar's Palace. We both ordered a New Mexican spice-rubbed port tenderloin, which was served with a sweet potato tamale that was out of this world. It tasted like cornbread but better. Our waiter was personable, and we learned that what we thought might've been a VIP room that overlooked the main floor actually used to be a rotisserie for chicken. We stuck around Caeser's that night. One of the neat things about Vegas (and I'm assuming Nevada in general) is that it's legal to walk around with an open container of alcohol. So combined with these massive city-like hotels, it makes sight-seeing a lot more fun. Especially when you're "shopping," because the shops aren't what we see in Ohio, they're what you'd see in LA. Gucci, Chanel, Prada, Givenchy. Ha. I wish.

So, still at Caesar's, we also decided to see the club scene in Vegas. After receiving VIP passes to Pure nightclub, which one might assume would give you exclusive access to the club, we waited in line for two-and-a-half hours (with a front-row view of Pussycat Doll dancers performing on stages above game tables of the same name) to enter a multi-story, dimly lit club. Unless you're on "The Hills," your time would be better spent elsewhere.

The next day, we did something I read about in an article about the top seven things you should do if you've never been to Vegas: eat at a hotel buffet. We ate at the Bellagio's, which based on price, is probably one of the nicest in Vegas. And from what we saw, is probably one of the biggest too. It was the oddest combination of foods I've ever eaten at one time but great, nonetheless. Normally, I don't like buffets. But this was nice, plus after a late night and some drinks, nothing gets you back on track better than some good comfort foods. The funny thing is, despite the fact that they served everything from sushi to smoked salmon, the ones that tasted best were the buffet classics: french toast, pancakes, eggs, pizza and cake.

That afternoon, we visited the Titanic exhibit, which was on display at the Tropicana - right across from the MGM Grand. It's similar to the Holocaust museum in Washington DC, in that at the beginning, you receive a bio of someone involved in that part of history and at the end, find out what became of them afterward. In my case, I was given a third-class passenger's name. Because she was female, I knew she might've had a chance of survival, being that they loaded women and children onto the life boats first, but I also knew that many third-class passengers weren't allowed up onto the top decks of the ship until it was too late, or in some cases, not at all. I found out at the end that she didn't make it. Neither did the second-class passenger whose name Brett got.

The exhibit is a neat collection of artifacts recovered from the ship, and the goal of the exhibit is to preserve the piece as they are, including any damage caused by the sea (an important part of their history), and to prevent any additional damage from being caused. One of the most interesting pieces was a set of dishes, found at the bottom of the ocean, stacked neatly next to each other as if they were resting in an invisible dish rack. The reason for their position - and their immaculate condition - is that they sank to the bottom inside of a cabinet, and as time went by, the wood cabinet completely dissolved, leaving the dishes stacked just how they were inside.

That night, we had tickets to the "O" Show - the Cirque du Soleil show at the Bellagio. But first, we had dinner at Todd English's restaurant Olives, which from what we read, he first opened in Boston then later opened a second location in Vegas. The flatbreads were what caught our attention; I'd never seen combinations like these before: sweet potato and caramelized brandy sauce, chicken sausage and ricotta. Great stuff, plus it comes with thick homemade bread served with olive pastes, one black and one green. Maybe we'll check out the Boston location in September when we're there.

After seeing some live music at the Fontana Bar, we took our seats for Cirque. It was something I'd been excited to see, both because I'd never seen it before and was curious and secondly, because people rave about it. I knew we'd picked a good one to see, because it was the only show that combined water with the typical Cirque performance. It was beyond worth the money (tickets were $125 each). The "stage" was a circular pool and throughout the show, people were diving, dancing, flipping, jumping, you name it. It is something I can't find words to describe, but leave it to YouTube to help me out.

We flew back to Cleveland after getting two hours of sleep and as we left the hotel at 5 a.m., we passed group after group who were just coming in from the night...just a reminder that this city never sleeps.