Had breakfast in the hotel this morning, buffet style. They had some weird gravy and steak sauce thing, I think that is down home cookin’ style. Didn’t try any though as I was more interested in the 5 different kinds of scrambled eggs they had. I tried the ham and cheese and also the capsicum and chilli one. They had a cook standing there ready to make whatever omlet or egg dish you desired, so Pauline had eggs over easy. I really enjoyed the pancakes and waffles but we didn’t eat so much that we were stuffed.
Headed back to the room to pack up our gear which ended up taking about an hour and a half. Probably need to get a bigger bag. We planned on leaving our baggage downstairs and picking it up after we had another look down the strip, but after waiting in line for a little while to give it to the baggage handlers we decided we’d check in our luggage at the airport and then head for the outlet mall on the outskirts of town. So we said goodbye to Vegas and hello again to the airport.
Arriving at the airport we discovered we were an hour and 15 minutes too early to check in, so Pauline and I took turns minding the luggage while we went off and looked at what the airport had to offer. Since I hadn’t done much gambling in Vegas I put $5 in the slots at the airport and ended up winning $15! That made it $10 on the first day and $10 on the last – a big $20 profit. We checked our bags in at the alloted time and then jumped in the taxi to the mall.
The driver was very nice and helpful and even told us where to get a taxi back. We had a look at the outlets, including Nike, lots of shoe shops and other brand names that have all muddled together. After a couple of hours we headed for the taxi rank and the airport. At the taxi rank we were too slow as we were beaten to the door twice by rude people. It was an omen. The next taxi that turned up a few minutes later had a driver that was smoking. Since there didn’t look like any other taxi on the horizon we took it instead of offering it to another man who was waiting. Big mistake. The taxi driver then took us to the place where the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign is and I took a picture then we headed to the airport. The smoking taxi driver was a grumpy old fart so I decided that we would barely give him a tip with all his smoking and everything. When we arrived I had to fumble for the money and get some off Pauline and in the end I fucking ended up fucking giving the bloody bastard a $20 tip!!! I didn’t realise till I got out, and he didn’t say anything when I handed him the money, but he did give Pauline a funny look. I was so pissed off with him and myself I wanted to scream. I gave Pauline all my money and told her she was doing all the bloody tipping from now on. But it just sucked so much because as if you would give someone a $20 tip for a bloody $14.20 taxi ride!! AAAAaaarrrggghhhhh.
Of course I was in a bad mood for ages until we got on the plane (which was delayed). Pauline sat next to this guy who was in the window seat and he was interesting to talk to and had earned Pauline’s respect when he told off a guy who was going to put his luggage on his posters and squash them. This guy with the luggage had just complained that he couldn’t find any space and was pointing out all the large items of luggage in the overhead compartments not noticing the fact that his luggage was just as big. The guy with the posters was from Boulder Mountain which is somewhere near Santa Cruz. He seemed impressed that I knew Lost Boys had been filmed there and he pointed out that one of the Dirty Harry movies was also there. I didn’t find out until we getting off that he owned a music store so Pauline and him talked about everything from Australian politics, the crocodile hunter baby debacle and american cars. He was good in that he made me forget about the fact that I had lost my $20 profit in vegas to a stupid bloody rude taxi driver.
Once off the plane we headed for the Bart train to town and in around 25 mins we were off the train at Powell St and rounding the corner to the Mosser Hotel. Very nice lobby with an ornate staircase and elevator. Our room is rather small, but we knew that before we got here and it is well designed so that all the space is well utilised. Unfortunately the tv is rather small, there is no coffee machine and fire engines go by quite often. It has internet but only on the tv and not ethernet. But that is all bearable and the decor is nice.
As this day had turned out to be rather shit we thought it fortuitous for us to go to bed after having a bath. I watched the movie Copycat for a little while before going to bed. I really like that movie. But yeah, shit day.