Showing posts with label Las Vegas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Las Vegas. Show all posts

Monday, July 13, 2009

The Vacation, final.

Recalling the entirety of the vacation has taken some time, but we finally come to the end. The final days of the vacation fast. On Friday we went down to the strip and actually got to see one of the Bellagio's water shows from beginning to end. To see water shot up into the air with great force is amazing! You can hear the jets going off, and the water rushes upwards! I was awestruck! There are points in the show that just take your breath away seeing how the water dances in front of you.

Friday night I met up with another tourist and hung out at the hard rock hotel for a few hours. Seeing the city from that hotel is quite interesting. It is set well off the strip, and the walk to the strip takes about 30 minutes. This was not enjoyable, since I was walking alone. But, I did make my way back to the strip and got a few more drinks. I played some more slots, then went back to the room. Saturday was uneventful, preparing for the trip back home. We got food on the strip, took our nap, and at 8 o'clock, we set off to the airport to go home. I almost cried when we left. While waiting in the airport, we stopped and waited on of the bars in the concourse. We started talking to a retired airline pilot, and I even helped him use his wireless network card in his laptop to connect to the Internet.

Our time in Vegas truly changed us. Arriving home, we felt like we were missing a part of ourselves. Erie seemed so bland, dull, boring. The only enjoyable part was arriving back home, to my stuff and my dog Mara. It took a week for us to decide that we wanted to move to Vegas. The following weekend we put in our application to Turtle Creek. Again, it took some time, but we got approved, and we are now underway with packing up our lives and moving! Its amazing what all has to happen when you move across the country. You must filter through your life, get rid of objects you have acquired, weed out your cloths, and decide what is important and what you can buy when you move. Condensing your life into 4 boxes is a struggle, then realizing you have to drive 2 1/2 days across the country with only 4 boxes is slightly frightening! Here's hoping it all goes well!

Sunday, July 5, 2009

The Beginning

Hello, and welcome to my Blog!

I would first like to welcome all of you for visiting what I hope to be a guide and review of everything Las Vegas. I got the idea after talking to several people online about what Las Vegas has to offer. To start off my Blog, I felt it would be necessary to start from the beginning of my journey, and illustrate how a small town boy came to moving across the country to a big city. Such a large transformation deserves to be documented.
I feel I must begin by explaining that "I" am not a singular person, but a package deal. Many times I will refer to a "We". This "we" refers to myself and my best friend. We are moving together across the country to our new home in Las Vegas. We refers to that which of the greats that preceded us. Will and Grace, Jack and Karen, Marc and Amanda, Bryon and Carrie.

The Beginning

Several Months ago, my best friend got in contact with an acquaintance from college. This acquaintance now lives in Las Vegas. He talked about the weather in LV alot, saying how its always sunny. He would "reminisce" about his times back here in PA dealing with snow, and the unstable weather. This peaked our interest. One night, while lying in bed, my cell phone lit up. Calling me was my best friend, and she was excited to explain that we should visit LV on vacation and how fun it would be. So, it was set forth the next day, looking up package deals and room rates. Luckily her parents have time shares with RCI. Through the RCI website, we found last minute deals, and quickly booked a weeks stay in LV. We were so excited! I never would have imagined that one day I would be visiting LV. Unfortunately, the communication with her acquaintance dwindled, so we had to go about the trip on our own.

Now, Carrie tends to make sure that all things are adequate before we move somewhere. She does ALOT of research on many things, and did research online on Las Vegas. She discovered that LV did not seem so bad, and that it was kind of appealing. She started researching jobs, along with her continued search for the perfect online job. Soon, she was quite smitten with what LV seemed to offer. She would make small comments here and there. "Did you know that Vegas gets about 10 inches of snow a year?". "Ya know, in Vegas, the sun actually stays out.", "Vegas is the fastest growing city in the U.S.". After many comments, and some discussion, we decided to look into moving to Las Vegas. Now our small vacation was no longer a vacation, but a relocation "Go-See" as one would call it.

The weeks following the vacation were filled with anxiety, nervousness, excitement and fear. The fear was mainly because I had never been on a plane before! How scary is that?! During this same time, Carrie and I began to send out resumes and cover letters to jobs we found on Craig's List, Jobs.com, Monster, and Career Builder. We also found some jobs on ReviewJournal.com.

It was not too soon that I found out that employers in Las Vegas do not hire anyone who does not live in the city. I did get one call back, but after explaining that I was PA, they told me that it was their policy to only hire locals. This presented a dilemma. How was I suppose to get a job and move if I couldn't get a job? So, the vacation became our focus. I hoped to possibly go on an interview during this time. This seemed to not work out. I never did get another call back from anyone.

Soon, the Vacation Happened. We set out the morning of June 6th, from Erie International Airport. My first plane ride and it was on a puddle jumper that looked like a toy from the gate. But, I will admit, it was kind of fun! That rush of the jets, the lift into the air, the feeling of NOTHING under us! I was on 3 planes before we were in Las Vegas. The entire trip lasted about 12 hours. We were tired, but when we got into Vegas, we still found time to go to one of the clubs on the strip called Krave. Complete Details of the trip I will not discuss here, that's for another entry...

It only took one day and I immediately knew that I wanted to move to Las Vegas. We had a tour guide take us around the outskirts of the city, and showed us the true Vegas, apart from the strip. It took Carrie coming home before she was set on moving. I almost cried when we left McCarren Airport.

Once we got home, we felt that we had been changed. Erie area seemed so... Depressing. When we left LV it was 84 degrees. (At 11 at night!!!!) When we arrived in Erie at 10am, it was 64... Talk about a shock to the system. The week that followed felt like the most depressing week in my life. I wanted only to be in LV again. The sun, the heat, the landscape. It all called to me. It took Carrie a week. I was at my step-grandmothers house celebrating my father's birthday, and I got a text from Carrie. "Lets do it"... "Do what?"... "Move".

I was so excited, I couldn't breath. The next day, we began looking into apartments in LV. We found one called Turtle Creek. The website seemed to be nice, and the floor plans were what we wanted. Carrie contacted them, and on Saturday night, exactly a week after we came home, we submitted our application for an apartment. Now, I will mention here that Turtle Creek seemed to take their time. We were on baited breath waiting for our approval or denial. If it was yes, we had loose ends to tie up here, family to say goodbye too, careers to leave. If it was no, we had to look for another place. After a few days, Carrie contacted Turtle Creek, and it seemed that our application still had not been processed. A few days later, we called again. It took an entire week, the next Thursday, till we had an answer. We were approved!!! Again, I couldn't talk. So much excitement. We screamed! We couldn't even finish our ice cream that we were eating at that time. Our entire worlds changed. We are moving to Las Vegas!!! I had to go into work and tell them that after 3 1/2 years of working for them, I would be leaving. That Thursday night was has now passed. It was a week and a half ago. I want you all to join me as I, and We, go forward and move my entire life to Las Vegas.