Day Two

Saturday morning, we all decided to converge upon the Paris hotel for some breakfast at their awesome buffet. Heather and took a cab from our hotel and got into one of the biggest lines I've ever seen there. We were in the back of the line at about 10am, and wondered if we'd make it in time for the breakfast. The rest of the crew showed up about 20 minutes later and by then, we were much closer to the cash register. Luck was with us as we managed to pay for our breakfasts before they started charging 10 bucks more for "brunch". While we were in the line, the group gave me a card and a birthday present, a new wide angle lens for my camera. I spent most of the rest of the trip using this lens, it's pretty cool how many pictures I can capture now that I couldn't before.

After breakfast, we headed to one of the many ticket stores on the strip (this particular one was down near the Planet Hollywood casino), and bought some tickets for the Penn & Teller show that night. The lady at the booth recommended we get to the Rio early to get our seats assigned, so we walked back to the Paris and took a free shuttle over to the Rio to do just that.

One of the things that bothers me in Vegas is how far apart the casinos are. It seems that public transit should be better (and cheaper) to move the tourists around, and that the casinos themselves should subsidize it. There are certain areas of town I almost never visit (Fremont St, the Rio, the Palms, Circus Circus, etc) that I might make a point to see if I could easily get there without taking a 10 dollar taxi or waiting in line for a bus. I'm not the biggest gambler in the world, but I'm sure many people who do come to Vegas to gamble probably never venture further than the block or two that surrounds their hotel. Good monorail service, a less crowded bus that left every few minutes or even some moving sidewalks between casinos could make this much easier to do.

Anyway, once we arrived at the Rio, we picked up our tickets, then hit a little bar in the casino waiting for the show they have their to start. After about 30 minutes of waiting, we realized they don't start doing the show every hour until 7pm. At least we had some drinks while we waited. :-)
The group split up after that for awhile. Heather and I went back to our hotel to try and get a nap, (I failed), then eventually headed back to the Rio once again (this time in a Taxi because the shuttle line was too long), and had a very nice Italian dinner at a place called Cafe Martorano. It's apparently an Italian restaurant during the evenings and turns into a night club at night. They were asking for reservations when we arrived, but were still able to seat us right away.The food was some of the best Italian food I've had, and I was very impressed with the service. We had plenty of time to eat a nice slow dinner and still get to the Penn & Teller theater before showtime.

The show was good (it has changed quite a bit since the last time I saw them 4 or 5 years ago) and we all enjoyed it. After the show, Heather and I took a taxi to the Bellagio with Andrew and the rest of the gang rode in the rental car with John and met us there. Once we had arrived, we did some sight-seeing around the casino, then once again walked the strip on the way back to the TI, where we did a little gambling before calling it a night. Another good night...and the best was yet to come.