Sweet Enlow

To begin…    

Day 1    

My friends, Toys, had a hook-up at the Mandalay Bay with his cousin’s girlfriend.  She got us an incredible rate for the 4 days covering the 30th through 3 January.  Mandalay Bay is awesome with the only negative being that it is at the southern-most portion of the strip requiring a cab for just about anywhere.  I met up with my friends around 3 on the first day and, after taking a nap, went to a great sushi spot entitled Ra.  Following dinner, we went back to the Casino.  My friends “pre-gamed” in the room, but I went down to the casino.  After a breif stint of Blackjack, my friend Vest and I were wandering around (you really do get lost in Casinos) when we stumbled upon this girl giving out “free entry” tickets to the ultra-lounge on the top of Mandalay Bay, The Foundation Room.  After visiting Manhattan a thousand times and having to fend off the people on Las Vegas boulevard offering hookers, I was a little skeptical of this “free-entry.”  Regardless, we decided to try it out and amazingly we got in immediately – for free.  At that point in my life, it was arguably the coolest place I had ever been…that is until the last night.  Here is a picture of the view we were getting of the Strip from the outside part of the “lounge”    

I was already aware that I really enjoy lounges – a nice mix of a bar and a club.  Great music mixed in with most people just hanging out, messing around, as opposed to breaking a sweat on the dance floor.  At about 4, I retreated to my room, but my ridiculous friends stayed up till about 7:30 playing craps downstairs.  This became the standard operating procedure for them for the entirety of the trip – their endurance was pretty incredible.    

Day 2    

After waking up to a pretty bad hangover, we all decided we needed to go to In & Out Burger.  If you haven’t been, or read Tucker Max’s book, they you don’t know how simply good this place is – believe the hype.  This day was New Years so we needed to buy tickets to the Mandalay Bay “Block Party” where we had access to 5 bars/lounges/clubs with a free drink at each.  Of course we put off the purchasing the tickets till about an hour before it was to begin and of course it was sold out.  It was 8 p.m. on New Years Ever and we had absolutely no plans!  After we ate at Hubert Keller’s “Burger bar,” we decided that we would start out in this lounge in the middle of the casino, EyeCandy, and we ended up staying there till 5 a.m.  It was basically a bar with a dance floor, but it was awesome.  But as stated earlier, I spotted all of my friends working up a pretty serious sweat.  While I went to sleep around 4, they cooled off with craps till 8 a.m.  Oddly enough, New Years was the worst of the 4 nights there.    

Day 3    

I actually felt great this morning, but some of my friends were undoubtedly hurting.  Today was to be the obligatory “suit-evening” where we visited arguably the best chef in the country’s restaurant, Thomas Keller’s Bouchon, followed by visiting the ”Wynn’s” hottest lounge, Blush.    

Yes, Easley went to Cascia Hall.

  I thought Keller’s place was great, but some of my friends disagreed… likely because for $792, you expect your taste buds to explode – at least when your 22.  Either way, we headed to this lounge in the Wynn, Blush, and it was, of course, awesome (another time we picked up free access from the street).  The Wynn is arguably the coolest Casino in Vegas and the places inside have to equal its proclaimed status.  It was here that we met some fellow Okies, as well as partying next to the infamous Perez Hilton.     

The club in the Wynn is called Tryst and it was absurd.  I thought there was no way we were going to get in (which is why we headed to Blush), but since the Okies we met knew the people, we walked right in.  The club was, to be expected, ultra-packed, but even more impressive than the energy of the club was the club itself.  A half-moon shape with a dance floor both in and outside … all connected to a 50 foot waterfall.  I was blown away by this place.  Another 4 am return for me, another round of craps for my friends.    

Day 4    

Up until this day, the trip had been excellent.  However, this night made the trip the best I have ever had – hands down.  To start, I stumbled upon Bobby Flay’s “Mesa Grill” in Caesar’s and it was incredible – and cheap.  I wanted to check out Caesars mostly because of “The Hangover” , but it is also pretty highly rated etc…  It just sucked because the three that went had to walk for about 45 minutes – the Strip makes things look closer than they really are.  Regardless, my friends finally decided to ‘use our hook-up, the VIP coordinator at Mandalay Bay, to go to the newest club in town, Vanity, which only opened two nights before.  She told us that we have to show up around 9:30 to get in like we desire – of course, we didn’t show up till 10:15 and of course the line for the “VIP” line was 1 1/2 hours.  Procrastination ALMOST ruining the night seemed to be the story of the trip.  Either way, this club turned out to be one of the coolest things I have ever done.  In addition to it just being awesome, I was partying, literally, with Puff Daddy (or is it P. Diddy or just Diddy?), Nelly, and Floyd Mayweather – we were literally dancing right next to them.  It was awesome.  I had to roll out a little early for my flight was leaving Vegas at 6:30 and they have a mandatory check-in of two hours.  That made for an interesting airport experience.  I found out later that, after 3 nights of not really making any money playin craps, my friend Toys turned $20 into $1000 – he didn’t walk away from his heater

Things I learned in Vegas    

Cash gets you whatever you want – honestly    

Despite what Allan said, street people can be real “straight shooters”    

A lot like high schoolers in Mexico, people come to Vegas with a particular mindset usually relinquishing all former inhibitions   

All Vegas Clubs are required to have stupid-ass names 

Believe the Vegas Hype 

High School friends will rival any group of people you will ever meet

My apologizes on the lack of updating the blog for I spent the last week in Iceland on vacation.  It was a phenomenal vacation and I wanted to share some of the experience with you.  This is rather long, but hopefully I can keep you engaged………….

People have been asking, even native Icelanders, why I was traveling to this remote island in the arctic circle.  I still haven’t been able to figure it out exactly.  All I know is that the people and the place for some reason caught my interest some time back and I always wanted to go… so I did.

I traveled with a very close friend of mine, Abdullah, who is Jordanian.  What I didn’t know was that his Uncle married an Icelandic woman and has lived in Iceland with his family for something like 20 years.  These people made my trip.

I could not have scripted these people better if I had wanted to.  Though his uncle was not there, his Aunt is arguably the greatest host I have ever been around.  She was aggressive in her desire to show us the intricacies of Iceland, but completely understood that after a night of Icelandic partying (more on this), we needed some sleep.  Nevertheless, she took us out, had us over, showed us around… the works.  I wish I would have manned up more though and sacrificed sleep for sites, but live and learn I guess.

My boy has three cousins, 1 guy and 2 girls.  The guy cousin was out-of-town, but the two girls were there.  They were so dope it is almost hard to describe.  Both were beautiful and very sweet – my kryptonite.   They were also both smart and great conversationalist, even though english was the second language - rare combinations fo sho.  It was very stimulating and fun for me to be able to speak to these people about America, listen to their views, and explain some of the finer points of the States.  This family made my trip exponentially better and allowed me to experience “real Iceland.”  Having that kind of hook-up in a foreign country is extremely rare, but incredibly satisfying.

If you have any interest in the global economy, then Iceland I know has been on your radar.  Majoring in Economics has caused me to have studied Iceland quite-a-bit, but like most things, it is always more powerful when you experience it first hands.  To make a long story short, Iceland’s Krona was highly overvalued relative to the dollar in 2007.  Nevertheless, shortly after America starting blowing in ’08, speculators starting dumping the Krona on the international market causing the value to fall.  The Icelandic Banks did not have enough reserves to buy the Krona, so the Krona’s value fell… and fell… and fell. 

From what I gathered from my Icelandic family, the biggest issue that has affected the Icelandic person has been the inflationary effects on peoples savings – standard really when rapid inflation happens.  But I stated that I thought that average life (market life I guess you could say) seems active and they explained that, for the most part, it was.  However (and this was the most interesting), I saw many high-end Mercedes and even Range Rovers with Taxi Cab lights.  Apparently these faux-high-rollers got hit hard when, as the Icelanders say, “Game Over” happened.  They explained that, in a city (Reykjavik) of roughly 150,000 people, including infant and elder, Iceland imported 25,000 brand new Range Rovers in 2007 (I think).  Pretty incredible.  In downtown Reykjavik, there stood this massive building that seemed as if construction was taking place on the site.  It is to be Europe’s biggest Opera House.  However, after Iceland blew up, work has not taken place since.  Here are a few pictures.  They told me its the bad symbol of Iceland’s economic downturn.

Benz Cab

Opera House

 To concentrate on some more cheerful things concerning Iceland, I wanted to bring to your attention their partying.  Good Lord.  These people put any one of my crazy experiences to shame on a weekend basis.  I say this because they only really party on Friday and Saturday (sometimes Thursday) while drinking virtually nothing during the week.  But on Friday and Saturday, the scene is nuts.  Dinners run till midnight and partying doesnt really start until 2 or 2:30.  Everyone shows up already buzzed because liquor is expensive.  Icelanders goal is, and I was told this a couple of different times, is to get completely smashed by the end of the night – no buzz, no “kind-of drunk” – completely blitzed.  It made for some interesting events as I am sure you can imagine.  One really strange aspect of their nightlife was the amount of pushing that took place within the bar/club – yes, actual pushing.  Americans politely (most of the time) bump with their shoulders to maneuver a packed bar.  Icelanders literally put their hands on and push you.  The first time it happened to me I almost went ballistic, but they explained that that is how its done and its nothing hostile.  It was hard to get used to nonetheless.  Random Factoid – The partying is dope there that it has caused Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth to spend the last couple New Years in Iceland.

The people of Iceland were awesome.  I am not a world traveler, but any time I meet Europeans that can speak English fluently, the conversation seems to be soooo much better.  They seem to engage you, stimulate your mind, and leave you wanting more.  Has anyone else noticed this?  I know Baby feels the same.  Iceland was no different.  My boyz Aunt at dinner, a middle-aged grandmother who had her entire family at the table, went from intelligently explaining her issues with American Foreign Policy to discussing a time when she attempted to take her husband to a gentleman’s club, but refused to go in when they were going to charge her double and not even charge her husband!  She had a few choice words with the stripper and rolled out.  This was all without skipping a beat.  This type of conversation DOES NOT HAPPEN IN AMERICA.  At least not from my experience.  I am young man and I still find myself pussyfooting around in conversations with adults, even ones that I am close to.

To close, the women of Iceland…  Beautiful

… and wild