Tag Archives: Paris

Vegas Baby!

Some new casinos hotels and shops on the Strip.

Some new casinos hotels and shops on the Strip.

I’ve avoided Las Vegas like the plague for most of my life. The few times I’ve flown in, I’ve usually left from the airport to points south like the Lake Powell area. I’ve always viewed gambling as a form of taxation for the uninformed and the artiface and public drunkenness as massively unappealing. Yet when I had the opportunity recently to spend a short weekend there, I decided to give it another shot.

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Center square in the Venetian.

Much to my surprise, they have abandoned the Disneyesque themes and started building casinos that an adult would not feel silly being dragged into. With its elevated pedestrian walkways and outdoor escalators the Strip made me marvel at the city planning and made for an entertaining stroll up and down it. Although most of the casinos still looked the same on the inside; endless rows of generic slot machines, dizzy lighting and gaming tables, there were a few notable exceptions: The Cosmopolitan, Paris, Paris, The Bellagio and The Venetian.

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Fremont Street

Even old Vegas had its charm and coupled with reasonable temperatures and a lack of crowds, the city proved itself more interesting than I thought. I even found the short weekend too short to fully cover the Vegas I wanted to see and I’ll probably come back for more than just work.

 

 

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Paris and Barcelona 2007

The Seine at Notre Dame

Paris and Barcelona are two of my favorite cities in Western Europe. Due to a busy year, Janice and I had only a little over two weeks that we could spare on a quick trip. Janice had never been to either so we planned a quick trip just concentrating on those cities. We rented apartments in each, in the districts that that we wanted –in the center of the old towns.

You can see more of the shots in the gallery Paris and Barcelona 2007

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