Vegas - Day 4

Happy birthday America! I woke up this morning with a massive headache (due to the activities of the night before) and generally feeling a bit off as Karen came back to our room with her Starbucks. She had purchased her favourite beverage in the whole world, café mocha, as well as a bagel with cream cheese. I had a few sips of her coffee and decided that I would go downstairs and get one for myself. I came back up moments later and we sat together and finished up our breakfast.

We met up with Nick and Mandy in the afternoon and went exploring a little bit. As part of that, we made an attempt to secure tickets to Penn & Teller for tomorrow night at one of the many Tickets 4 Less locations in Las Vegas. The premise here is that if you wait until the day before or the day of the performance, you can get a great deal on tickets (as much as 1/2 off in some cases). Unfortunately, tickets for Penn & Teller weren't being sold until the day of the performance, so we had to wait until the next day.

We left Mandy and Nick to explore on their own as we had to get ready for tonight's performance of Cirque du Soleil - Love at The Mirage at 7:00. We arrived at The Mirage well before and made our way to the theatre's box office. We explored the lobby and took several pictures as it was really quite a sight to see. We peeked into the gift shop without going inside, as it was already teeming with people. We purchased refreshments from the theatre's bar, a single bottle of water, which cost us $4.50! Outrageous! We made our way through the theatre's doors and located an usher, who upon looking at our tickets, upgraded our seats considerably from the 300 section to the 100 section. As a result, we were only one row back from the stage!

The performance ended at 9:00 and as we got up from our seats to leave, the crew were already frantically preparing the theatre for the following performance at 9:30. We poured out into the lobby along with everyone else and we made our way out onto the street. We were expecting for there to be some kind of fireworks display, but we didn't know when it would happen, and we didn't know where to be so as to get a good view. We decided to stay close to The Mirage, hugging up to the guard railing along with pond in front of the hotel.

As we were waiting for something to happen in the sky, a generously inebriated fellow decided to make something happen in the The Mirage's pond. Deciding it was a nice night for a swim, he drove straight into the pond, fully dressed with backpack and all, much to the delight of the crowd. He swam around for several minutes, making his way up onto the rocks. Somehow, he managed to get all of his clothes off, save for his tighty whities, which although soaking wet, allowed him to keep what little was left of his dignity.

While all this was going on, the volcano at The Mirage began to erupt, which I caught on video, and went on for a couple of minutes. Once the volcano show ended, everyone's attention focused back onto the inebriated fellow, who was slowly getting out of sight. Moments later, the sounds of sirens could be heard and an ambulance pulled into the entrance of The Mirage, undoubtedly here to collect a package. Soon after, fireworks lit up the sky and did so for several minutes.

Karen and I made our way back to our hotel, passing through the Miracle Mile Shops, in an effort to locate something edible as we were starving. We waited in line at one place for several minutes before finally being able to give our order, only to be told that it would take them 15 minutes to make it. We continued our search and we happened upon a Sbarro, truly a gift for above. Karen ordered a slice of cheese pizza, and I got two slices of meat lovers. Upon arriving in our room, we devoured our slices and went to bed almost immediately afterwards.