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Mar. 18th, 2003 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckThe time change hammered us hard. It was only just after 8am local time when we arrived in Las Vegas, but our bodies felt that it was nearly noon. Unfortunately, our hotel room wasn't ready yet (they weren't obligated to have anything for us any earlier than 3pm), so we could only stow our luggage in my sister's room and wait. I took a little time to put my feet up and try to get rid of the swelling while we tried to coordinate schedules a bit. That didn't work out since everybody but us was expecting to eat by the local schedule. My sister fed us some cookies in an effort to tide us over, but my body was not in any mood to be placated.
So Scott and I went in search of a real meal. It very quickly became apparent that I wasn't going to be up to the walking and standing in line involved, so we rented a wheelchair. I was not impressed by the service. The woman helping us got pissy when I pointed out that I wouldn't fit the first chair she offered us (Scott disagrees with me about her attitude, but I stand by my view) and pointed out that the bigger chair would cost more. Saying that wasn't going to make my butt and hips magically shrink. Personally, I think she simply didn't want to be put to the trouble of digging out the bigger chair (it took her nearly 10 minutes to do it once she went looking).
By this time, I was exhausted, headachy from lack of sleep, in pain from my hip, pissed off at the world in general, and starving. Nothing was going to make me happy. Fortunately, Scott has learned not to take such moods personally, so he proceeded to push me along toward the only solutions available-- Food of some sort (even if it wasn't what I wanted) and a nap. We searched for the buffet (yeah, I know. It sounds pretty damn silly to get a wheelchair and then go to a buffet. It probably would have worked better than what we did find, though) but couldn't find it and so ended up at a place called the Zanzibar Café. I ended up staring at the menu and getting more and more frustrated.
I finally settled on the seafood salad sandwich, after asking the waiter what was in it. When the sandwich finally came, it turned out to contain unexpected peppers. That meant I couldn't eat the damn thing. (My problem with peppers goes beyond dislike. Even little flecks of red pepper in Campbell's soups are enough to make me ill under normal circumstances. Since I got pregnant, my tolerance has decreased further.) At least they didn't bill us for it. I ended up eating half of Scott's sandwich, and that helped, but I was still pretty grouchy.
About half an hour later, we finally had a room. The transfer process took a while because the Aladdin has two towers. My sister's room was in one, and our room ended up being in the other. The towers aren't linked above a certain point. (Our tower had floors 7-23 while hers had 24 on up.) Crossing from tower to tower required going down to one of the more public floors, lobby, mezzanine, casino, spa/exercise area, and moving to a different set of elevators.
Fortunately, the room compensated for a number of other drawbacks. The bathtub was wonderful. I was able to soak my hip without problem and that eased the pain a little. After that, I did my best to nap. I was less than successful due to the whole being pregnant and suffering from heartburn thing. I simply could not find a comfortable position even though we'd requested and gotten about half a dozen extra pillows.
Scott went out while I attempted to nap. He wanted to take a look at the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton. As it turned out, he miscalculated. The tourist map we'd been given by the tour company didn't show a scale but instead listed the distances between a few specific points. Scott didn't look at that list particularly, or he'd have realized that he had, at best, a two and half mile hike should he choose to walk. Instead, he looked out the window and decided that, since he could see the Hilton clearly, it couldn't be all that far away. He had trouble getting out of the building (it's designed that way. I shudder to think what a fire would do) and then got lost after running into construction on the route he'd planned.
He did finally get there but only went into the shops. He bought himself a Starfleet shirt and got a toddler outfit for the baby (He says he wants to appall his sister) and then picked up a couple of CDs, including the Wrath of Khan soundtrack which he's been looking for for years. Then he walked back.
In the meantime, I'd given up on napping and written the first section of this entry while searching for something worth watching on TV. After Scott got back, we decided that it was time to eat again and started looking for my sister or my parents. Everybody else had eaten too recently to be willing to join us, but we did manage to get reasonable directions to the buffet.
The buffet was impressive. There were about half a dozen sections (not counting the soup and salad areas), including seafood, Asian, Middle Eastern, American and desserts. I was truly starving by that point but tried to go slowly and carefully. I had two plates of food, and Scott and I split some small desserts. It was wonderful, and I was really looking forward to the chance to go back again. Sadly...
That night I got really, really sick. Scott was exhausted and slept through the whole thing even though I called for him. By the time I could go and poke him, there wasn't anything he could have done. I ended up having to shower and wash my nightgown. Ick. At the time, I put it down to too much food all at once and to going to bed too soon (3 hours) after eating. I did make Scott wake up and hold me for a while once I got back to bed.
The remainder of the night was not pleasant. The sheets were abrasive, and the mattress was horribly hard. I kept waking because whatever bit of me was in contact with the bed couldn't handle the pain anymore. The whole thing was particularly hard on my hips. Still, I did sleep at least enough to stave off an exhaustion headache.
So Scott and I went in search of a real meal. It very quickly became apparent that I wasn't going to be up to the walking and standing in line involved, so we rented a wheelchair. I was not impressed by the service. The woman helping us got pissy when I pointed out that I wouldn't fit the first chair she offered us (Scott disagrees with me about her attitude, but I stand by my view) and pointed out that the bigger chair would cost more. Saying that wasn't going to make my butt and hips magically shrink. Personally, I think she simply didn't want to be put to the trouble of digging out the bigger chair (it took her nearly 10 minutes to do it once she went looking).
By this time, I was exhausted, headachy from lack of sleep, in pain from my hip, pissed off at the world in general, and starving. Nothing was going to make me happy. Fortunately, Scott has learned not to take such moods personally, so he proceeded to push me along toward the only solutions available-- Food of some sort (even if it wasn't what I wanted) and a nap. We searched for the buffet (yeah, I know. It sounds pretty damn silly to get a wheelchair and then go to a buffet. It probably would have worked better than what we did find, though) but couldn't find it and so ended up at a place called the Zanzibar Café. I ended up staring at the menu and getting more and more frustrated.
I finally settled on the seafood salad sandwich, after asking the waiter what was in it. When the sandwich finally came, it turned out to contain unexpected peppers. That meant I couldn't eat the damn thing. (My problem with peppers goes beyond dislike. Even little flecks of red pepper in Campbell's soups are enough to make me ill under normal circumstances. Since I got pregnant, my tolerance has decreased further.) At least they didn't bill us for it. I ended up eating half of Scott's sandwich, and that helped, but I was still pretty grouchy.
About half an hour later, we finally had a room. The transfer process took a while because the Aladdin has two towers. My sister's room was in one, and our room ended up being in the other. The towers aren't linked above a certain point. (Our tower had floors 7-23 while hers had 24 on up.) Crossing from tower to tower required going down to one of the more public floors, lobby, mezzanine, casino, spa/exercise area, and moving to a different set of elevators.
Fortunately, the room compensated for a number of other drawbacks. The bathtub was wonderful. I was able to soak my hip without problem and that eased the pain a little. After that, I did my best to nap. I was less than successful due to the whole being pregnant and suffering from heartburn thing. I simply could not find a comfortable position even though we'd requested and gotten about half a dozen extra pillows.
Scott went out while I attempted to nap. He wanted to take a look at the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton. As it turned out, he miscalculated. The tourist map we'd been given by the tour company didn't show a scale but instead listed the distances between a few specific points. Scott didn't look at that list particularly, or he'd have realized that he had, at best, a two and half mile hike should he choose to walk. Instead, he looked out the window and decided that, since he could see the Hilton clearly, it couldn't be all that far away. He had trouble getting out of the building (it's designed that way. I shudder to think what a fire would do) and then got lost after running into construction on the route he'd planned.
He did finally get there but only went into the shops. He bought himself a Starfleet shirt and got a toddler outfit for the baby (He says he wants to appall his sister) and then picked up a couple of CDs, including the Wrath of Khan soundtrack which he's been looking for for years. Then he walked back.
In the meantime, I'd given up on napping and written the first section of this entry while searching for something worth watching on TV. After Scott got back, we decided that it was time to eat again and started looking for my sister or my parents. Everybody else had eaten too recently to be willing to join us, but we did manage to get reasonable directions to the buffet.
The buffet was impressive. There were about half a dozen sections (not counting the soup and salad areas), including seafood, Asian, Middle Eastern, American and desserts. I was truly starving by that point but tried to go slowly and carefully. I had two plates of food, and Scott and I split some small desserts. It was wonderful, and I was really looking forward to the chance to go back again. Sadly...
That night I got really, really sick. Scott was exhausted and slept through the whole thing even though I called for him. By the time I could go and poke him, there wasn't anything he could have done. I ended up having to shower and wash my nightgown. Ick. At the time, I put it down to too much food all at once and to going to bed too soon (3 hours) after eating. I did make Scott wake up and hold me for a while once I got back to bed.
The remainder of the night was not pleasant. The sheets were abrasive, and the mattress was horribly hard. I kept waking because whatever bit of me was in contact with the bed couldn't handle the pain anymore. The whole thing was particularly hard on my hips. Still, I did sleep at least enough to stave off an exhaustion headache.
