Leaving San Francisco

We woke up early and headed by train (or rather: by BART) with our bags to the car rental place adjacent to the airport. The people at the counter were very taken with the fact that we actually spoke English, and proceeded to talk to us about car driving exams, German food... all sorts of stuff. We knocked out three working stations worth of car rental people. Eventually they processed us and pointed us to the parking lot, where we were told to pick out our car. I managed to force a Dodge Avenger over Gosia's Corolla, and we're very happy with it so far. It actually looks like a proper car, and it seemed more fitting to go with something thoroughly American.

At first Gosia was a very nervous driver and kept up a constant monologue about the situation on the road, actually talking to almost every passing car. It wasn't exactly non-annoying. I would try to figure out a better way to say that, but I'm kind of in a hurry.

Inner California is very pretty - green rolling hills with vast expanses of pink flowers, on account of the peach orchards (at least I'm guessing they were peaches). After you pass those you get into uneventful desert land. Uneventful desert land is uneventful, except for the car shadows strobing across the grass, which at 75 mph look kind of jittery, as if you set your graphics settings too high.

We drove hungry, because it was a long drive and we figured we'd just hit a buffet once we reach Vegas, but we got there several hours after sundown, and by the time we left our hotel room most restaurants were closed. That took me by surprise, because I didn't think Vegas EVER closed, but there you go.

I should probably mention that we stayed at the Luxor, which I call the Pyramid of Power (though our room was actually in a tower adjacent to the pyramid). The hotel was vast and had a sickly sweet vanilla scent. The room - clean and comfortable. We dressed in our weary finest and headed out.

Las Vegas itself... well, you can't really describe it. It's just as tacky as you'd expect from seeing all the movies, etc. We went up and down the entire Strip, and wandered into several hotels/casinos (though I only remember the Bellagio and Ceasar's Palace). There's an absolutely insane musical fountain show in front of the Bellagio that goes on for several blocks. There's a weirdly stocky Statue of Liberty. There's madness all around.

We eventually found a restaurant that was open around the clock and went in to celebrate having made it through our first day of driving. I wanted to have a lobster burger, but they no longer served those, so I settled for crab. Gosia got a disapointing shrimp cocktail. It wasn't cheap, and on top of that I miscalculated and overtipped, but hey - Vegas, right? We got slightly tipsy and they played Pink's "Glitter in the Air" from the speakers, so I settled into contentment.

I was ready to head to the hotel and run myself a bubble bath - the thing I was most looking forward to on this stop of our tour, actually - but I promised Gosia we'd gamble for a moment, so we found some slot machines. Gosia lost two dollars and we decided to call it a night. As we were walking out, I figured what the hell, popped 25 cents into one of the machines and pulled the lever. Some symbols locked in place, and the meter started counting my win. Around a minute later it stopped at 120 dollars. We cashed the ticket in at the machine, I gave Gosia 20 bucks to reimburse her for the disappointing shrimp, and we got the hell out of there.

At the hotel I ran myself a bubble bath, but it was so late, and I was so exhausted, that I only clocked in around 30 minutes of soaking.

The bed was soft. There was a "Do Not Disturb - Getting Our Lux On" card on the door. The whole day seemed - and still seems - like a blur.