Planes, Trains, and Running Shoes

Ahhh the joys of flying as a non-revenue passenger.

This weekend, The Pilot and I decided to get away. We were hoping to go to Geneva. It's been seven long years since I've been to Geneva, and I've been itching to go back and show The Pilot the first place in Europe (well second) I fell in love with.

So, Friday after work, we headed to the airport with our passports in hand, hoping to get to Geneva. The flight was looking pretty full but we were counting on the major delays going on throughout the country to get us two seats on the flight.

It didn't happen. I won't get into how furious I was about the six passengers who leisurely strolled up to the gate in the last five minutes before departure without a care in the world. Who shows up to an international fight FIVE MINUTES before the plane takes off???

When we couldn't get on the Geneva flight, we looked into Rome, Madrid and Zurich. Unfortunately, every single European flight out of Dulles departs within 35 minutes, meaning that we couldn't just hop on the next flight. Dejected, we thought about trying for a 10pm Dublin flight that was oversold by 3 seats, when we saw a near empty flight to Las Vegas that was just starting to board.

"Vegas?" I said to The Pilot.
"Yea! I've never been to Vegas!" The Pilot said to me.
"Let's go to Vegas!" I said.

Ten minutes later, we were on the plane. After an almost two hour delay, we finally took off. Shortly after midnight, we were in Vegas.


I had booked us a hotel shortly before we took off through Expedia...well, I tried to, actually, but since they're app wouldn't let me, I called Mom and she booked it for us. It took us forever to get to our hotel, but by 1am, we were finally at Harrah's. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and walked around the casino a bit before calling it a night. It was 4am EST after all!

Saturday morning, we were up around 9 and made our way over to Paris for breakfast at Mon Ami Gabi. I had a croissant sandwich with eggs, avocado and tomato and The Pilot had a ham and cheese crepe. The food was great and after breakfast, we meandered through Paris and then spent the day meandering in and out of hotels and casinos.


Around noon, we stopped at Caesar's Palace for a couple of drinks before continuing our walk through the hotels and casinos. We really wanted to watch the England v. Italy match so when it came time for lunch, we stopped into Yard House to watch. I had never been to a Yard House but I was super impressed. The Pilot said he didn't think he had ever seen me clean my plate, but the ahi tuna salad I had was heaven!


We finished lunch at the same time that the first half of the match ended. We wanted to relocate to somewhere that had sound, so we made our way to Cabo Wabo for the rest of the game. After England's loss (ugh!), we spent more time walking along the strip. We walked around The Venetian, The Bellagio, Mirage, Planet Hollywood, and all of the big hotels on the strip!


We saw a lot of weddings. (Don't worry, I didn't get any ideas!) I had gone to Vegas 6 years ago (to the day!) for the Olympic Trials but I didn't really have time to see much so it was fun to spend some time exploring the strip and getting to let loose a bit!

Oh hey Andy Warhol!

The last thing The Pilot and I wanted to do was see the fountains at The Bellagio. From 8-midnight, they do the show every 15 minutes, so we stuck around for about half an hour to catch two shows before heading back to our hotel and going to bed.


We decided to catch a 6am flight out on Sunday morning to minimize our chances of getting stuck in Vegas! Luckily, I slept the whole flight and had an easy time adjusting back to East Coast Time. We spent the rest of the day watching World Cup soccer.

It was a great little getaway weekend. I'm bummed we didn't make it to Europe, but I'm happy we got to go somewhere! It was The Pilot's first time in Vegas and we had a lot of fun. Plus, it was great to get away in the middle of all of the business gearing up to the wedding! Side note: Vegas is HOT.