What happens in Vegas, stays on our blawg (not the good stuff though...)

Third semester has begun…

Here is recap of how Mark and I spent the last week of our break…

GETTING MY GRADES…

I pulled it off.  I finished my first year of medical school with a 4.0 GPA.  All As, all the time.  I was VERY pleasantly surprised.  I had emotionally prepared myself for the worst, since 2 ^nd semester had been such a mess.  When I opened the dreaded email containing my grades, I was so happy that Mark took a video of me.  He says that he will show it to me next time I doubt how awesome a student I am.

Another perk of my grades (in addition to pride....and the RayBans I bought myself a reward)..

...is that I get to keep my job as a tutor with my friend Ned.  

I know...another red-head...what is wrong with me?

We have the same sense of humor, which should make tutoring gastrointestinal medicine and reproduction this semester very interesting…

GOING TO LAS VEGAS…

This was my 4^th trip to Vegas.  The first 3 times were with my bestie Vanessa.  Going to Vegas with a significant other is SO DIFFERENT!  I’m gonna go ahead and say it is frankly, not as exciting.  When I go with Vanessa, we spend hours getting glam, eating expensive treats, going to shows and on rides, and getting into clubs for free without having to wait in line.  It was definitely a more relaxing trip with Mark, but it was weird being there without Vanessa.

Vanessa, Hugh, and Me...no big deal...

We went to Vegas for the wedding of our good friends Tyler and Amanda. 

The Gilchrists....including ANOTHER red-head....it's an epidemic...

They got married at Treasure Island in a small, intimate ceremony.  Seeing Mark standing up there as a groomsmen made me realize just how close we are to having our own wedding ceremony (we will hopefully be booking our wedding venue this Friday…then I can blog about where it is without being afraid of jinxing it).  Tyler is Mark’s best man.  The reception was at an Italian restaurant called Maggianos.  Dinner was family style (they bring platters of different things and everybody takes what they want and put it on their own plates) and delicious!  After dinner is when things started getting messy… 

Oh dear...

We arrived at the restaurant at 6pm and were scheduled to be there until 10pm, and which point we would relocate to a country bar at the hotel.  Dinner was open bar.  Mark didn’t realize we had to leave by 10 until they announced last call around 9:30.  Mark took this as a personal challenge and proceeded to order 3 doubles of Johnnie Walker Black Label.  He had already been drinking before this, and was at that happy-tipsy level.  It was all downhill from there.  Seeing how drunk Mark was getting, I stopped drinking myself in anticipation of the night ahead of us…

There was laughter and high-fives and hugs and showering of compliments.  Mark proceeded to introduce me to all his friends repeatedly (even though I had met them all multiple times before).  He even introduced his sister to his best man…they have known each other for a decade, but Mark was convinced this was the first time they were meeting.  He would yell “HIGH FIVE!” and instead of putting his hand up for a high five would bear hug you.   He would drag me around the bar to his friends, pet my face, and ask “Isn’t she pretty!?!?!?  Look at this face! So pretty….”.  This happened more than once.

These 4 pictures are in chronological order...

By midnight, Mark and I were back in our room and he was recycling all the alcohol from the night into the hotel water supply (ie, vomiting for an hour and half).  I had never seen Mark that drunk.  The fun quickly wore off and the “I’m never drinking again” speeches began.  He eventually fell asleep/passed out by 1:30am (side note: he woke up to puke again at 2am)…

The next day I got him Gatorade and some food and the TV remote and went to the pool.  I felt bad for about 5 minutes that Mark was upstairs alone hungover, but very quickly got over it.  He was functional by the time dinner came around.

In other Vegas related events, for those of you who don’t know, I like to gamble.  Not a phrase you necessarily want to hear a future physician say, but it’s true.  The last time I was in Vegas, I won enough money to pay for my trip.  Strangely enough, it was on a slot machine (the Sex and the City slot machine to be exact).  That was awesome.  What is not awesome is that every time I see a Sex and the City slot machine now I want to throw all my money into it.  I have the problem of sometimes viewing gambling the way I view school: if I just work hard enough at it, I’ll get what I want.  Obviously, this is completely wrong.  Nonetheless, I burned through a good chunk of cash gambling in Vegas. 

Money making machine.

Mark’s sister, Jocelyn, and her rad friend Lindsey came down to Vegas while we were there.  It was great to see them, not only because they rule, but because Mark and I were slowly getting on each other’s nerves a little, so it was nice for me to have girls to hang out it.  They had the Vegas experience that Vanessa and I have when we go.  The best part of seeing them was always at hangover breakfast when they would tell us about the shananigans from the night before and I would threaten to make really loud noises.  Made me feel like a proud mama bear. 

Chicken wings @ Hooters

Other Vegas highlights:

- Seeing Mark’s friend Scott do wheelies on an elderly woman’s wheel-chair on the dance floor at the wedding reception while everybody chanted “Scott! Scott! Scott Scott Scott Scott!” to the tune of “Shots” by LMFAO…

- Going to a Bachelorette party in Vegas and getting bottle service…

- Maxing out my credit card shopping…

- Eating a serious burger at Holsteins (a delicious burger restaurant at the Cosmopolitan hotel)…

- Having Starbucks multiple times a day…

- Room service...

Best waffle of my life...

- Having a Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream parlor in our hotel (if you ever have the chance, try the chocolate milkshake there…they blend their Chocolate Therapy ice-cream with their Chocolate Brownie Fudge ice-cream and some milk….stupidly delicious….and probably pretty low–calorie)…

- Taking Mark to his first Cirque de Soleil show, Ka…

- Sitting at the pool and not feeling guilty about not studying…

- Eating a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup the size of my face (it actually took 6 of us to eat it)…

Gotta love America.  Strangely though, even with the regular sized packages, Americans only get 2 peanut butter cups whereas we get 3 in Canada.  Take that, America!

- Double-date with Tyler and Amanda the night we flew out (where Mark ordered steak)…

Vegas Lowlights

- Mark throwing out my Starbucks mug

Here’s the story.  Our first day in Vegas, we went to Starbucks (duh).  I really wanted a Starbucks Las Vegas mug to bring back to Dominica, so I bought one.  It was overpriced, but I really wanted it.  After we had coffee, I was heading to the mall to go shopping and Mark was heading back to the room to change into his bathing suit and go to the pool.  (which reminds me of another highlight...the shoes I bought for the wedding....)

J'adore

Anyway...before Mark and I parted way, I asked him,

“Can you take this (the mug) up to the room for me?  I don’t want to carry it around while I’m shopping.”  

I made sure to make eye-contact while asking.  I made sure to get a verbal response.  Mark said

“Sure, no problem” 

and I physically handed him the bag into his hand.  The next day, I ask Mark

“Where’s my Starbucks mug?” 

“What Starbuck’s mug?”

“The one I paid $18 for yesterday and asked you to bring upstairs.”

“I don’t know.”

Fantastic.  So we spend 5 minutes searching the room for it (it was a small room) and can’t find it.  Mark’s reply?

“I must have thrown it out.”…

Damn it McLean.  I eventually bought myself another mug, though not the Starbucks mug.  I bought a Hooters mug from the Hooters restaurant…and didn’t let Mark hold the bag.

Back to the Vegas low-lights list...

- Paying $23 for a 2 minute phone call to Vancouver from our hotel room.  We actually had a second $13 fee for another phone call, but they waived that one once we complained about how stupidly expensive it was…

- Being denied service by a cab driver (highlight: almost breaking his car door as we stormed off, second highlight: calling his boss to complain about what a douche he was)…

- Discovering that living in Dominica has made me somewhat lactose-intolerant (this really gets in the way of me drinking macchiatos)…

- Leaving Las Vegas (at least this was a low-light for me…Mark might have put this on the highlight list…)

So…now we’re back.  I think it’s fair to say that Las Vegas is the opposite of Dominica…and Las Vegas is my favourite city in the world…so you can figure out what that means.  This semester I will be doing a lot more clinical stuff and hopefully not be stressing out to the degree I was last semester, but who really knows.  Stay tuned for our next post about our Sangria in the Sink party!

Ciao!

Denise.