Ingvild & Janne travel the world

Fantastic view of the city of Las Vegas from Top of the World where we had our dinner and bottles of wine. Great service!

…or should that be “a night we have forgotten and a day we remember all too well”.

We got dolled up, put on our fancy shoes and invited three poker players to dinner. Not bad for a last night in Vegas.

We have previously spoken highly of Roy and the company he keeps in two blogposts. Well, being fashionably late is one thing – showing up to dinner at a fancy restaurant AFTER the kitchen is closed, is another. You should NEVER keep ladies waiting!

The rest of the night is a bit of a blur. We know it included good people, good food and good drinks, people falling/jumping from rooftops, an indoor waterfall…and even better drinks…drinks with sugar canes in them.

And oooh, did we feel the cane whipping us the morning, day, afternoon and evening after.

We made a pit stop in what can only be described as purgatory on our way to LA. For those of you who know the area; We spent a couple of hours in a 20-dollar hotel room at Buffalo Bill’s in Primm. ‘Nuff said…

Unfortunately, there are no pics documenting any of this, however we swear that we were in a check-in queue with a woman with one foot, a guy with one eye, a man with a missing nose and poor old mexican lady with at least 15 kids.

To most people, going to Vegas is probably all about gambling or getting married (which is also a sort of gambling, really). To us it was more about shopping than the options stated above.

We’re not really into shopping, but decided to give it a go @ at least a couple of shopping malls in Vegas. Janne has previously had success shopping at both malls, and Ingvild was willing to give it a chance.

Ingvild, ready for action. Little did she know that she'd come out of this mall with 4 new dresses.

And in four hours we managed to buy:

Janne:
3 jeans
1 t-shirt
1 dress
1 sweather
2 pairs of shoes
1 pair of Nike running pants
2 Nike tops
2 pairs of Nike socks
A few presents

Ingvild:
1 jeans
1 t-shirt
Unbelievable 4 dresses
1 pairs of shoes
1 pair of Nike running pants
2 Nike tops
3 pairs of Nike socks
A few presents

All in less than 5 hours! Not bad!

This is what happens when girls go wild with credit cards...

Oui oui oui!!

After spending the night at MGM Grand, arriving at Encore felt like arriving in heaven! What a hotel!

Wynn - from our suite @ Encore

The same Roy as we went out with the night before is actually to “blame” for us staying at the Encore. Being one of Norways best poker journos, he’s been to Vegas many times, and really knows his way around. When he heard we were going here (some 9 months ago), he insisted that we HAD TO stay at the Encore.

He was actually so persuasive that we followed his advice. And we just have to say: THANK YOU ROY!

We were greeted at the reception by a very nice lady apologizing that our room was not ready. Of course – we could have another room, but not as high up and not with as good a view.

We decided to wait, and left our luggage (6 bags + one jacket) with the bell boy.

15 minutes later the same nice lady called us to inform us our room was ready, and that the bell boy would be there shortly with our bags.

On the 60th floor.
In a huge suite.
With a huge bathroom.
With wonderful silk robes.
With two gigantic beds.
With a livingroom.
Even with an office.
We had 70 square meters all to ourselves!!!

Take a look at some of the pics we took:

The bathroom also featured a flatscreen TV and a separate room for the toilet.

Two wonderful gigantic beds!

Our own livingroom...

We even had a hall!

The bell boy, in addition to bringing our bags, showed us the main facilities – like the (automatic) drapes , the flatscreen TV that could be moved from facing the beds to facing the “livingroom” and basically told us all we had to know about our new home.

We have to admit that we were tempted to stay in the room for the rest of the day, but decided that going out in the heat of Sin City was even more tempting. We spent the rest of the day in the sun / by the pool, ordered strawberry daiquiries and enjoyed life. Until the pool closed for the night, that is.

Enjoying life in the sun.

Being tourists in Vegas, we walked from Encore, via Wynn to the Venetian where we had dinner by the canal. The only thing good about that dinner was in fact the canal, so we won’t use time & “ink” on it…

Can you see the gondola behind us?

After dinner we kept walking up “the strip” to Bellagio. You can’t go to Vegas without seeing the wonderful fountain outside it! Want a sneak peak? Here you go:

And yes, like the french say: ENCORE UN FOIS, please! We’d definitely do it again!

Leaving LA and driving to Las Vegas we knew that it would get hotter. A lot hotter…. And we were already experiencing temperatures between 35 and 40 degrees celsius.

However, on our way to Las Vegas we heard on the radio that Las Vegas was experiencing a heat wave…. Now did that get us worried? Honestly…? A little bit…. And the frequent signs in the Mojave desert stating “turn A/C off for 15 miles to avoid overheating!” didn’t help. Luckily our car was a lot better than the hundreds of overheated cars we passed on our way to Las Vegas aka Sin City.

It is not easy staying on the road when you are a big ass truck and temperatures are closing in on boiling on a desert highway...

The only way to describe this sort of heat is for you to stick your head in front of a hair dryer. Honestly, that is how it feels. Arriving in Vegas the temperatures were pushing 45 and we concentrated on parking, existing and breathing…

Janne winning the first of many dollars in Vegas. Girl's got skillz

First night spent at MGM Grand. Good hotel, but nothing superspecial to write home about. The night out on the town, however, was something very good!

We met up with Janne’s friend and colleague, Roy Kvatningen, and had a fabulous dinner at Lavo. Then Roy raved about this bar. He said that at this bar there was a duell. A duell between pianoplayers/singers. Not being big on karaoke, Ingvild admitted to be slightly sceptical, however she was SO wrong! Holy mother of everything that’s good and pure; These guys could play!!

The two guys who got the whole club dancing, made british girls show their tits and make us feel lucky to be alive

We had the best time, together with Roy. Even though somebody threw a drink at Janne and Ingvild had blisters, we danced our asses off. Simply legendary! We leave you with a little taste of the atmosphere of that night. Enjoy:)

For our english-speaking readers: It’s lovely to be norwegian in Denmark (in the US)

The weather in Pismo did not meet our want-to-lay-in-the-sun-expectations sunday morning, so we headed out on the highway. Our first stop for the day was in Denmark – or at least the american equivalent – Solvang.

Solvang is definately not all American!

Windmills, danish bakeries with danish pastries & breads, danish flags – it really was like being in Denmark! Except that the places serving “smørgåsbord” didn’t really have proper sandwiches A bit disappointing!

After a rather quick stop in the beautiful city of Solvang, we drove down to Santa Barbara. What a beach! Since we had decided to stay as close to Las Vegas as possible, we just passed through – making sure to have lunch at the beach before moving on to our final destination!

Santa Barbara beach was awesome!

Got to Best Western Carriage Inn in Sherman Oaks just before 3 PM – and just in time to spend the rest of the day in the sun by the pool! Great!

In the evening we decided on having pizza. We weren’t sure about the neighbourhood of this LA suburb, but decided it was safe enough to walk a couple of blocks to the next Pizza Hut store. Unfortunately they just had take-away, so we had to walk back (with the pizza) before eating it.

On the way back, some guy in a passing car yelled out to us: “Hey! Get in a car, ladies!”. Did this mean our neighbourhood was dodgy after all? Seconds later a homeless woman came up to us, asking for a slice of our pizza. This stressed us both a bit, so instead of giving the poor woman a slice of the pizza that was way-too-big-for-us, we said a firm “NO”, and picked up the pace and got home. (And yes, felt very bad afterwards…)

Monday morning was also spent by the same wonderful pool. We stayed there for a couple of hours before noon, and then started our journey to the magical Sin City: Watch out Las Vegas – here we come!!!

On the road again...