Ladies and Gents, everybody is officially home from NYC and after several sixteen hour sleeps, mostly caught up on sleep. This means: PHOTOS!!!
In the wee hours of Monday the 31st, Laura, Brandi, and I made it back to PA after a stop at Denny’s for food and a stop at a WaWa to get a picture of Laura. Once at my house, we pretty much crashed. Brandi left later that day and Laura and I swam and ate – gasp! – real food, thus ending our diet of ramen, bagel bites, and taquitos.
At about 5 am we left for the BWI Airport AmTrak station. I forgot my ID but was still able to get on the train, thankfully. We did plan to stay awake and pretend we were on the Hogwarts Express, but alas, we slept through most of the ride. When we got to NYC, we met up with Shawn (Laura’s AWESOME friend) by the Paramount and then went for McDonalds. Specifically, at a two-story McDonald’s restaurant. I should have taken pics.
Shawn and Laura went off to site see and since my feet were dead from Vegas, I parked my butt at Hotel Pennsylvania to wait for the lovely, wonderful, Speth to check us in at the Paramount. When the time came to go check in, we had a neurotic cab driver. Speth sat in the front seat and Laura, Shawn, and I took the back. When Speth tried to talk about the hotel with us, the driver literally freaked out. “Do not do this! Passengers in the front seat must not talk to passengers in the back seat! Passengers in the back seat can talk to other passengers in the back seat but not the front seat! It is disruptive! It disrupts me! It is dangerous!! Do you know how many people that has killed?”
It was REALLY hard not to laugh. Anyway, we got to the hotel and our room was aproximately the size of (and Emerson will like this analogy) a cereal box and had a creepy painting for a headboard. The bathroom was marginally larger than the closet and had no lock, yet it was easy to get locked in. The toilet was like a demon and the sink looked like some sci-fi urinal. The shower curtain was touchy-feely, thus we left the curtain open to shower. (NOTE FROM LAURA: Jess may have showered curtainless, but I’m a bit more modest.)
Meeting up with everyone in NYC was amazing and I miss everyone already!!! I can’t wait until the next time we all get together. (I shall spare you the angst!)
As for the readings, I was bad on the first night. I slept through John Irving completely and being the biggest Stephen King fan ever, it was my duty to nod off a couple times during his reading. So sue me. Personally, I can’t say the first night was that great. It was okay, but not spectacular. Some of the questions for Jo were wasted on inane things like, “If Muggles had the ingredients could they make potions?” GRRR!!!!
The second night was EXCELLENT. The audience was better and more responsive, I was awake the whole time, all three authors improved in their reading (they read the same pieces both nights), I found that I nodded off more during Stephen King on the first night than I thought I did, John Irving is hilarious and I need to read some of his novels, and Jo is just… wonderful. I loved her shoes, her voice, her… just everything. Jooooooo! (Sorry for the run on!)
As you’ve probably heard, Dumbledore is… DEFINITELY DEAD. MWAHAHAHAHA. TAKE THAT DUMBLELOVERS.
So, Elysa is writing a post about our day yesterday, so I’ll go at it from my point of view.
We went out onto the strip via the Trolley and hit up the Venetian, then went to this really poofy restaraunt, then couldn’t get on the gondalas. Yeah, so if that didn’t suck enough, I was majorly sad because I didn’t get to see Harry and the Potters or Draco and the Malfoys in concert which was the ONE thing I was looking forward to on this whole trip because of my work schedule and stuff, I probably won’t have the chance to see them in concert again. BOO. Oh well. That’s okay, cuz it was semi-made-up-for when I got to take a picture with Billy from Draco and the Malfoys and sorta met the Harry and the Potters. That was nifty.
Apparently, I’m also “sort of a cutie.” That was interesting to find out.
Met Emerson, Andrew, Kevin, Jamie, Ben, Eric and Melissa. That was fun. Emerson is really nice. Kind of random and crazy, but nice. Kevin and Andrew area also really nice. Kevin’s really easy to talk to. We went on this tangent about accents and it started this whole thing about how words are pronounced. It was crazy. Eric is such a sweetie. He’s really nice and pretty funny. Found out he loves one of the roller coasters I supervise. That was interesting to hear. Fun guys all around.
I also met Brendan last night and his friend Julie. They’re really nice as well and also really funny. Omg, they cracked me up.
Ummm…other than that, we just kind of congregate at the end of the night and watch House. I love House. Hugh Laurie = *le sigh* :) That’s about it. I’m sure you’ll have PLENTY of update today. I’ll post some pix later when I can hook up my camera. I also have a wicked video of someone playing DDR. ;)
Filed under: In the Resort, Las Vegas, Out & About, Photos, Posted by Jess, Posted by Laura, Posted by Rachel
Hello, all! We have had an exciting week so far! On Monday we went to see the Bodies exhibit at Tropicana and it was amazing. The closest restaurant that we could easily find was Hooters, so we walked the whole way to Hooters (post-decidign not to get on the New York New York coaster since it’s fairly expensive) only to find out that there was an over 21 section in the restaurant and an under 21 section. The under 21 section had a 1 hour wait, so we went to The Dam Restaurant, which was also inside the Hooters Hotel.
On Tuesday we met up with K’lyssa and Eric to goto the Eiffel Tower, but the ticket line was SO FREAKING LONG and we got sidetracked because Elysa wanted a milkshake. We failed to hail a taxi by Paris, and so walked the whole way to the Bellagio to try and get a cab. We didn’t manage to get a cab, but we did get gelato, excluding Elysa, who finally got her milkshake. (They took so long, however, that they probably went and milked a cow fresh for her.) On the way out we stopped for a fountain show, which was decent, but nothing too awesome.
Finally, we walked to Caesar’s and got a taxi after a long wait. I (Jess) taxied with Brandi & K’lyssa to the Stratosphere and Laura, Elysa, and Eric shared another taxi. When we got there, we got our tickets fairly quickly, but Eric took over 30 minutes in the gift shop buying nothing spectacular. Many death threats ensued.
After an hour or more’s wait, we finally got to go up the tower. A couple photos were taken before we went up and the backgrounds were added on later, I will scan them as soon as I get home! Their elevator takes you up 130 stories in 27 seconds and your ears pop like on a plane. SO AWESOME! Brandi & K’lyssa held everyone’s stuff because they didn’t want to ride, and Laura and Elysa only had tickets for Thriller, a claw which dangles you off the side of the building. Eric and I bought tickets for everything, so to save time, we decided to get on Big Shot (A ride that shoots you up to the top of a needle on the Stratosphere for an AMAZING view of Vegas. I will get Eric to give me the photos he took to post!
Elysa and Laura nevergot go on their ride and Eric and I didn’t get on anything but Big Shot because the tower shut down due to heat lightning. :(
Last night (Wednesday night) was a LeakyMug staff party. We were all really nervous at first but after we had a mini-staff meeting directed by Melissa and sat in a circle, things got much more relaxed. Kay kicked Emerson’s ass at Dance Dance Revolution so many times, and a great time was had by all!
And now… what you’ve all been waiting for: PHOTOS!!! (Please comment on this entry if you have comments, and not on the Rock You website!)
Video and audio to come when I use my laptop. Elysa’s is killing me!!!
