Vegas so far...

Well, to sum it up, except for the weather and seeing some awesome friends, I am looking forward to going home on Friday.
I have been to Vegas once before, but only for a day, so I never saw any of the night life and now I have an entire week to experience it.
And I have been bored since Sunday.
The trip so far:
Saturday we arrived around 9pm Vegas time, I was dead tired since I had taken some ibuprofen with benadryl in it for the flight...so after dropping off our stuff I walked Mark to the Venetian where his brother recommended the poker room and then after watching him play for 30 minutes (during which time he did not get a single hand that he actually bet on) I left and went to bed around 11. Mark came home around 2am, he had won $150.
Sunday morning we explored more of the strip: saw Flamingo's habitat, MGM, Excalibur, Mandalay Bay, The Luxor, and New York New York in 2 hours. Mark was pretty dead from two hours of walking, so we grabbed some mexican for lunch and then he went to play poker for another 6 hours at MGM (I studied in the hotel room and read my novel). Then that evening Allison (my internmate from last year) and her boyfriend Charlie met up with us and we wandered around Caeser's Palace (did Caeser really live there? lol) drinking beer and grabbed dinner at Margaritaville.
Monday we wandered the strip some more for another two hours- saw Mirage, Caeser's Palace, the Venetian Shops, Treasure Island, and the Bellagio. Then Mark dissappeared again to play poker, so he was gone for another 6-7 hours at Caeser's Palace playing poker while I studied and read my novel. Then he wanted an early night so at 8:30 when he came back we had a bottle of wine and a gross dinner in the hotel (which I didn't eat...as read below).
So far today (Tuesday) we went to Paris for breakfast since I knew Mark would like the bakeries and french shops (all I had was a bagel for breakfast- they didn't have peanut butter or jelly for, only cream cheese and butter- SO NOT VEGAN FRIENDLY, but Mark got a tasty crepe). We went to the Bellagio Fine Art museum- they had several artists I like, including keith harring, lichtenstein, renoir, degas, and barbara kruger, but all the pieces by those artists were very odd and not typical of those artists. And the museum it self was $15 per person yet was only one room so saw it all in 15 minutes (paid a dollar a minute). And by 11am Mark is already in the poker room at the bellagio, so I am in the hotel goofing around online until my 24 hours I paid for online expires, and then will study and read until tonight when he's done, probably 7-8pm like always. The only nice thing is with all the money he has made I don't have to pay for any meals (which I could barely afford anyways since everything in vegas is so over priced).

Overall the meal options for vegans is SLIM. I had an avocado and black bean burrito on Sunday for lunch (which was probably the best meal yet) and then a vegan boca burger for dinner that night (which was boring). Then on Monday I actually didn't really eat much (long story, Mark got a weird brunch and there were no vegan options there, I searched after he left for poker and found nothing so I ate a granola bar from a corner store, and then Mark grabbed us dinner after poker but he stopped at 4 places, all with no vegan options, until he found this Mexican place that made wraps- he tried to improvise by having them make a different burrito off the menu for me, but the combination of spanish rice, romaine lettuce, black beans, guacomole and hummus was actually rather gross, so I only ate two bites).

In general Vegas just seems to embody all the negative sides of humanity (in my opinion)- gambling, smoking, drinking, and loose women. I am ready to go home, but still have 3 more days here. At least the weather is gorgeous and I have run in shorts and a tshirt every morning. And the nice thing was Mark agrees even though he is gone for over half of every day playing poker. The first night out there were several casinos with women wearing bikinis dancing in cages behind the gamblers in full view of the strip- I was looking at them with disgust expecting Mark to say something about "How cool or how much he loved Vegas" but instead he said "Wow, that is horrible. It is so degrading, it's like the women are just sexy backdrops, pieces of meat, not really people. It's quite disgusting." So glad we have the same opinion on that.

Well, tomorrow is the one day of the trip that's mine- we are renting a car and going to the grand canyon!