10:00pm, Las Vegas time
The Excalibur
We landed in Las Vegas at four, but I didn’t get time
near a computer. There is only one phrase to describe this place: OTT,
seriously, un-comically over the top! Like, actually, there is so much money
and ritz and glitter that you cannot see anything worth seeing. All the hotels
are fighting for customers, and try to outdo each other, and it just comes
across looking stupid.
The hotel we’re staying in, The Excalibur, is on the main
Vegas Strip, and has a Medieval castle theme, so everything is stone or gilt
(ha ha, try “guilt”) gold. It’s flashy, in a very rich kind of way. I’ll
download pics when I can get the internet working; as we’re forbidden from
going outside, I have time now....
All the hotels have shows or entertainment to attract
people. And, I hate to admit it, but one or two seem quite interesting. There’s
a CSI mock-up, solve the crime yourself at the MGM Hotel, I think, which the
“Law & Order” fan and mystery/adventure-writer in me loves, and there’s a Body-Bits,
see the dissection of preserved corpses at the Egyptian-themed Luxor Hotel next
door. It’s shaped like a pyramid, and has hieroglyphics on the walls. I took
pics. Phantom of the Opera is playing. Cirque du Soleil is also in town, doing
three different shows, two of which seem good, but the other is more tailored
to the local taste.... I have gotten a t-shirt that says “CSI: Crime Scene
Investigators - Las Vegas” on it. I succumbed that much. Good God, I disgust
myself. Why am I falling to the advertising industry’s hands and buying stuff,
as much as I have wanted a CSI-themed tee? It’s exactly why they do shows that
aren’t related to gambling and iffy stuff. I refuse to support the gambling
culture!!!
I already dislike Vegas, if you guys haven’t figured. The
heat alone nearly made me pass out when we got out of the airport, and I’m not
the kind of person to pass out easily, contrary to appearance. I never have
passed out before, promise.
I feel out of place around so much money and fashion and
the obvious sleaze. I mean, we were warned by a friend before leaving Cali not
to leave our room after dark because of the level of prostitution and scummy
people here! Knowing stuff like that about this place has made me so paranoid.
I’m looking up to check the door is locked every few minutes, looking through
the peephole whenever I hear footsteps, watching my back whenever I’m out of
the room, staring daggers at every male that happens within two metres of me.
I’m certain I’m going to be hit over the head and dragged into a back alley. It’s
actually terrifying. I mean, Mum and Dad won’t even let me take the elevator up
two levels to the hotel room alone because of the scum around here. I’m 15, not
a child, usually capable of looking after myself, but here, 15 and alone is too
close to looking legal age to risk being alone for more than 5 minutes.
And, there is plain just too much noise and bustle and
light. That’s what gets to me the most, is more in the present and less
ignorable. I’m really claustrophobic here, actually. Just, the flashing lights,
and need for attention, and how everything is false and shined over so you
can’t see what’s really there, and how women are portrayed as toys. It’s
sickening and scary and disgusting.
At the moment, there is loud music with a pounding bass
beat from the pool outside our window, I think. It’s giving me a headache, as
is the not eating since a slice of toast this morning and then wolfing nachos,
as is the atmosphere, as is the constant stink of cigarettes. I feel so sick now.
I can’t wait until this leg of our vacation is over, and
we’re off to Chicago. I know it’s a terrible mindset, and this is an
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but I can’t take it here!!!
While I’m at it, I’d just like to point out the
unfairness of this whole set up, and the fact that this money could be going to,
say, research to heal all the people that have gotten AIDS from this place in
the past. Just saying. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas – Ha! Really? This
amount of wealth put on show sickens me. I mean, in San Fran, all over the
States, there are people on the streets, homeless because they couldn’t pay for
medical care or university funds for their children. They are the survivors of
wars and have been to hell and back, and they have nothing to show for it. But
here, people flaunt their wealth because they can, and thousands and thousands
of dollars flood in every day by gullible people wanting to win their fortunes
when the gambling industry can afford statisticians to create games that mean
that people are ripped off!!! It’s greedy and selfish and I can’t see how
people have ignored the power imbalance for so long, and continue to do so. Mum
bought food when she lived in Cali, and gave it to the poor and homeless as her
“good deed of the day”. More power to her. I might do the same, to do my part
for equality, not that there are any homeless that can afford to be anywhere
near here.
This place is so different to NZ, not even on the same
planet. I’m homesick and miserable, and miss my friends terribly. I just feel
lost and adrift and scared.
See ya, if I survive this place to return to NZ,
Rachel
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