VPC Goes Vegas 2016
03-17-2016
, 11:24 AM
VPC Went Vegas Day 9; A bridge too far
When I wake up Baars sits on the side of the bed. He looks around the room as if he just had about fifteen epiphanies in a row. That can only mean one thing; our boy won!!!
Me: “Dude, good night?”
Baars: “Unreal. Was up X K at Craps”
Me: “NICE!. You know how to play craps?”
Baars: “…No…”
Me: “Right. So you shipped the X K?”
Baars: “…Noooo…”
Baars still ended up pretty big and is muchos excited about the stack of dollars he can light on fire today. Whereas I had a mellow night the boys are all hungover as f*ck. Damvic for instance joins us on the walk to Earl of Sandwich only to order an overpriced bottle of water and walk straight back to Excalibur for more sleep. Iebus changes his plans to join Hugo, Jelzo and me for the Aria daily about five times before he registers.
Hugo – who’s at my table - has a massive start but requires his usual re-entry within the hour. The problem with Loose / Terrible is when you don’t have any momentum it’s mostly just very expensive. I don’t start to good either. I get stubborn with AK when I get check-raised on a super dry 36J board. I peel the turn and we c/c the river only to get shown QJo. I thought villain was capable but I guess I was wrong.
At the table behind me is a dude that won’t stop talking about what hands he would have made if he hadn’t folded J3o UTG +1 after a raise. You know the type. Imagine the horror when I realise I left my headphones in the hotel room. Luckily the dude bust quickly…re-enters…and gets the seat to my direct right. For. F*ck. Sake. I can’t get anything going and re-ship A6d on the button for ~ 20 bigs over an open from my annoying neighbour. He calls with what we can best describe as the top of his range. I bink three diamonds to crack them aces and the dude nearly collapses with tilt. He actually gets angry at the dealer. I honestly think we as a community should neuter these people or better; involuntary euthanize them.
Few hours and a headache later I’m playing my regular 20 bigs when the dude open ships 10BB from the SB. I look down at 45o and….call. I see so much tilt potential here and it’s basically and any two vs. any two spot anyway. Also, see next paragraph for more calling reasons. We whiff against A8. D’oh. I bust not long after on a standard flip and go for a ‘good bye’ walk through Vegas on my own. I had a Red Bull during the grind and that did not go down well. I make my way in the direction of the Venetian but have to give up halfway into the walk. I feel worse than ever before and grab the nearest taxi to Excalibur.
“See, ya”
I talked to Bozzie this morning about how we normally would be heading home today. We were both excited about the extra day but that has changed quickly. You know that feeling when you’re driving your car on an empty freeway and you’re dead tired. Everybody’s been there. You slap your face and crack a window. Your body know it should be alert but you still doze off for a micro second. Your body immediately creates an adrenaline boost and you feel like your heart skips a beat. Image that feeling happening every 300 feet while walking the Strip. That’s how I feel and I decide there and then to go back into the world of doctors and hospitals when I get back home.
Now - two weeks after the trip – the body has calmed down a bit and things are back to being normal. However - after almost three years - normal still isn’t what used to be 100%. I’m on the fence about the whole doctors and hospitals thing. I guess you read in two years what happened ;-). Let’s continue…
Hugo, Wum, Iebus and me agreed to go eat at The Naked Fish again tonight. The food was so good drunk I need to know what it tastes like sober. I lie in bed watching Dumpert movies for the better part of the evening before making my way to the Poker Room meet-up at 22:00 hours. Iebus stone bubbled the Aria daily and is too tired to join us for epic Sushi this evening.
Our taxi driver pulls up at an 0.02 MPH speed. I get into the cab but the smell of the driver is unbearable making me want to get out ASAP. However, a very friendly face greets me so I decide not to be a dick here and just crack a window. Or all windows.
Me; ‘’How you doing, Buddy”
Him; “Good. Second day taxi!”
Me; “Alright... Any accidents on day one?”
Him; “…No?….”
Our man is a political refugee from Ethiopia and after doing the dishes at Monte Carlo for a year he now has a taxi licence. Or bought one. Our man smells like he’s been hunting down endangered species on the savanna this afternoon but has a very friendly demeanour. It takes him a good five minutes to make his way onto the Strip and him checking his Google Maps every 20 seconds kills us about four times but we eventually make our way to The Naked Fish.
After 22:00 hours there’s a happy hour which gets you one special roll, two standard rolls and a beverage for like 20 bucks. They are just giving away the food here. All rolls are pure gold. If anyone thinks Hugo can butcher poker hands you should see the man eat sushi. I don’t think he manged to grab one piece correctly. 24% stays on the plate. 18% ends up somewhere between the plate and the soya cup. 39% remains in the soya cup and about 19% ends up on his shirt. You wouldn’t believe it. I have to ask him if he’s even sure he’s left-handed, at some point.
While waiting for a cab we enjoy an after dinner cigarette when I step to close to a pick-up truck and the alarm sets off. I wasn’t within a three feet area of the damn thing but all hell breaks loose. Our cab pull up and we get the hell out of dodge before some shotgun carrying redneck blows our brains all over the parking lot.
Back in Excalibur Wum explains he knows how to play Craps. Well. Let’s go then. Our $ 200,- buy-in decreases about 10% every minute. Baars is on the other side of the spectrum. He’s singing ‘Keep on smiling’ after every roll while high-fiving everyone and their mothers. I’m starting to doubt Wum’s Craps capabilities but I have no clue about what’s going on so I go and watch Damvic lit his last dollars on fire at the roulette tables.
After about ten minutes I see Wum looking at Hugo while shrugging his shoulders. As expected all Craps dollars are now owned by The Excalibur Hotel & Casino. Baars stopped his ‘Keep on smiling’ routine and is back to his 93% of the time Vegas look; sad and misunderstood. I know things are really bad when the pit boss makes his way over to Baars and says; “The key to this game, sir, is knowing when to walk away from the table”.
The only seat available in the 1-2 game at Excalibur is at the table where Jelzo, Wum and Hugo are playing. I make my way over to MGM and grab a seat at their 1-2 game while enjoying The Slut Parade making their way to Hakkasan. It will be a short session. Playing short-handed there is a life straddle to $ 5,- when someone opens to $ 16,-. My left neighbour has a $ 60,- dollar stack and open shipped that the hand before. I call with JJ hoping my neighbour will shove and potentially giving OR a real headache spot when he calls and I ship. A high variance line but we’ll see. All that doesn’t happen and we see a AJ7 flop. I’ll take it. All the money goes in on a brick turn but I’m drawing to one single out. Come on, Vegas. You’ve been kind to me all week. Why does it have to end like this, hey? No miracles and I quit the game.
A quick stop at The Hard Rock Café to see if I can get my girl an item she wanted before joining the lads at Excalibur. No seats at 1-2 but there is a seat in the 2-6 spread game. Not interested. Wait. Hot chick in seat 8 and seat 9 is open? Alright. I get to witness Hugo dust off his last $ in the 1-2 game in style. He shoves it all-in with a look the that says: “There is not a change in HELL I have the best hand here”. Classic Hugo.
I play in the 2-6 game till about four in the morning ignoring all Wums text messages to score the hot chicks number completely. On my way to the room I put my entire 2-6 profit of $ 20,- on the number 14. It’s time to go big or go home. 17. I guess we’re going home.
When I wake up Baars sits on the side of the bed. He looks around the room as if he just had about fifteen epiphanies in a row. That can only mean one thing; our boy won!!!
Me: “Dude, good night?”
Baars: “Unreal. Was up X K at Craps”
Me: “NICE!. You know how to play craps?”
Baars: “…No…”
Me: “Right. So you shipped the X K?”
Baars: “…Noooo…”
Baars still ended up pretty big and is muchos excited about the stack of dollars he can light on fire today. Whereas I had a mellow night the boys are all hungover as f*ck. Damvic for instance joins us on the walk to Earl of Sandwich only to order an overpriced bottle of water and walk straight back to Excalibur for more sleep. Iebus changes his plans to join Hugo, Jelzo and me for the Aria daily about five times before he registers.
Hugo – who’s at my table - has a massive start but requires his usual re-entry within the hour. The problem with Loose / Terrible is when you don’t have any momentum it’s mostly just very expensive. I don’t start to good either. I get stubborn with AK when I get check-raised on a super dry 36J board. I peel the turn and we c/c the river only to get shown QJo. I thought villain was capable but I guess I was wrong.
At the table behind me is a dude that won’t stop talking about what hands he would have made if he hadn’t folded J3o UTG +1 after a raise. You know the type. Imagine the horror when I realise I left my headphones in the hotel room. Luckily the dude bust quickly…re-enters…and gets the seat to my direct right. For. F*ck. Sake. I can’t get anything going and re-ship A6d on the button for ~ 20 bigs over an open from my annoying neighbour. He calls with what we can best describe as the top of his range. I bink three diamonds to crack them aces and the dude nearly collapses with tilt. He actually gets angry at the dealer. I honestly think we as a community should neuter these people or better; involuntary euthanize them.
Few hours and a headache later I’m playing my regular 20 bigs when the dude open ships 10BB from the SB. I look down at 45o and….call. I see so much tilt potential here and it’s basically and any two vs. any two spot anyway. Also, see next paragraph for more calling reasons. We whiff against A8. D’oh. I bust not long after on a standard flip and go for a ‘good bye’ walk through Vegas on my own. I had a Red Bull during the grind and that did not go down well. I make my way in the direction of the Venetian but have to give up halfway into the walk. I feel worse than ever before and grab the nearest taxi to Excalibur.
“See, ya”
I talked to Bozzie this morning about how we normally would be heading home today. We were both excited about the extra day but that has changed quickly. You know that feeling when you’re driving your car on an empty freeway and you’re dead tired. Everybody’s been there. You slap your face and crack a window. Your body know it should be alert but you still doze off for a micro second. Your body immediately creates an adrenaline boost and you feel like your heart skips a beat. Image that feeling happening every 300 feet while walking the Strip. That’s how I feel and I decide there and then to go back into the world of doctors and hospitals when I get back home.
Now - two weeks after the trip – the body has calmed down a bit and things are back to being normal. However - after almost three years - normal still isn’t what used to be 100%. I’m on the fence about the whole doctors and hospitals thing. I guess you read in two years what happened ;-). Let’s continue…
Hugo, Wum, Iebus and me agreed to go eat at The Naked Fish again tonight. The food was so good drunk I need to know what it tastes like sober. I lie in bed watching Dumpert movies for the better part of the evening before making my way to the Poker Room meet-up at 22:00 hours. Iebus stone bubbled the Aria daily and is too tired to join us for epic Sushi this evening.
Our taxi driver pulls up at an 0.02 MPH speed. I get into the cab but the smell of the driver is unbearable making me want to get out ASAP. However, a very friendly face greets me so I decide not to be a dick here and just crack a window. Or all windows.
Me; ‘’How you doing, Buddy”
Him; “Good. Second day taxi!”
Me; “Alright... Any accidents on day one?”
Him; “…No?….”
Our man is a political refugee from Ethiopia and after doing the dishes at Monte Carlo for a year he now has a taxi licence. Or bought one. Our man smells like he’s been hunting down endangered species on the savanna this afternoon but has a very friendly demeanour. It takes him a good five minutes to make his way onto the Strip and him checking his Google Maps every 20 seconds kills us about four times but we eventually make our way to The Naked Fish.
After 22:00 hours there’s a happy hour which gets you one special roll, two standard rolls and a beverage for like 20 bucks. They are just giving away the food here. All rolls are pure gold. If anyone thinks Hugo can butcher poker hands you should see the man eat sushi. I don’t think he manged to grab one piece correctly. 24% stays on the plate. 18% ends up somewhere between the plate and the soya cup. 39% remains in the soya cup and about 19% ends up on his shirt. You wouldn’t believe it. I have to ask him if he’s even sure he’s left-handed, at some point.
While waiting for a cab we enjoy an after dinner cigarette when I step to close to a pick-up truck and the alarm sets off. I wasn’t within a three feet area of the damn thing but all hell breaks loose. Our cab pull up and we get the hell out of dodge before some shotgun carrying redneck blows our brains all over the parking lot.
Back in Excalibur Wum explains he knows how to play Craps. Well. Let’s go then. Our $ 200,- buy-in decreases about 10% every minute. Baars is on the other side of the spectrum. He’s singing ‘Keep on smiling’ after every roll while high-fiving everyone and their mothers. I’m starting to doubt Wum’s Craps capabilities but I have no clue about what’s going on so I go and watch Damvic lit his last dollars on fire at the roulette tables.
After about ten minutes I see Wum looking at Hugo while shrugging his shoulders. As expected all Craps dollars are now owned by The Excalibur Hotel & Casino. Baars stopped his ‘Keep on smiling’ routine and is back to his 93% of the time Vegas look; sad and misunderstood. I know things are really bad when the pit boss makes his way over to Baars and says; “The key to this game, sir, is knowing when to walk away from the table”.
The only seat available in the 1-2 game at Excalibur is at the table where Jelzo, Wum and Hugo are playing. I make my way over to MGM and grab a seat at their 1-2 game while enjoying The Slut Parade making their way to Hakkasan. It will be a short session. Playing short-handed there is a life straddle to $ 5,- when someone opens to $ 16,-. My left neighbour has a $ 60,- dollar stack and open shipped that the hand before. I call with JJ hoping my neighbour will shove and potentially giving OR a real headache spot when he calls and I ship. A high variance line but we’ll see. All that doesn’t happen and we see a AJ7 flop. I’ll take it. All the money goes in on a brick turn but I’m drawing to one single out. Come on, Vegas. You’ve been kind to me all week. Why does it have to end like this, hey? No miracles and I quit the game.
A quick stop at The Hard Rock Café to see if I can get my girl an item she wanted before joining the lads at Excalibur. No seats at 1-2 but there is a seat in the 2-6 spread game. Not interested. Wait. Hot chick in seat 8 and seat 9 is open? Alright. I get to witness Hugo dust off his last $ in the 1-2 game in style. He shoves it all-in with a look the that says: “There is not a change in HELL I have the best hand here”. Classic Hugo.
I play in the 2-6 game till about four in the morning ignoring all Wums text messages to score the hot chicks number completely. On my way to the room I put my entire 2-6 profit of $ 20,- on the number 14. It’s time to go big or go home. 17. I guess we’re going home.
03-20-2016
, 11:15 AM
VPC Went Vegas Day 10; Eh?
I didn’t put in my earplugs in this night because of Baars ignoring the alarm capabilities. We have an 12:25 flight towards Toronto so a 10:30 taxi seems in order. I check my email before I want to hit the shower and see an email from Expedia that says there is a change in my travel plan.
Wait whut? The Toronto – Amsterdam flight is cancelled and there is a flight booked for Baars and me from Germany’s Frankfurt to Amsterdam. ON SUNDAY!!! I call Bozzie and inform about this trouble in paradise situation. We all booked separately since Expedia only allows groups up to six people.
A call to Expedia – who ever so friendly put me on hold for ~ 15 minutes while using a mobile phone – results in a ‘there is nothing to see here people’ response telling us to just go to the airport. Having checked McCarran departures there is zero change our flight leaves at 12:25 since it’s already on a three hour + delay. Hoping Air Canada somehow found a solution we make our way to the airport only to be told what we already knew; WE ARE F*CKED!
We’ll miss our connecting flight in Toronto and will have to spend the night there. Awesome. This causes several problems. Bozzie is missing his daughter’s birthday. Damvic misses a free dinner party. Wum has to change his Tinder settings to Toronto. Baars has to arrange employees to run the pub an extra day. Jezlo’s leghenne are about to explode. Al that and we have to start this terror off with a 200 minute wait.
Since we’re going to be seeing airplanes and airports for the next ~ 48 hours we grab the nearest cab to get away from this one asap. Wum, Jelzo, Bozzie & Iebus go Outlet Shopping. Baars, Hugo, Damvic and me make our way to the South Point Hotel & Casino. I look at the Delly menu for a while before making the worst possible choice by ordering two slices of salami Pizza that taste like feet. Some 2/4 limit gambling and roulette pass the time before we should be heading back. To Baars this delay feels like a scene from the movie classic ‘Casino’ when the high roller wants to leave Vegas with money in his pocket.
While waiting at the gate in Vegas Baars comes running at us with the biggest smile of the trip. He claims he just won back the money he lost at South Point and then some. I thought these airport slot machines had the worst pay-out in town. Well, it’s not the slot machines that made hour hero a rich man.
Baars: “I bought a limited edition bottle of Frank Sinatra Jack Daniels”
We: “How much was the bottle?”
Baars “Only $ 450,-“
We “So, were is the profit in this – so far, very lovely - story?”
Baars “They are selling these bottles empty for 1K on Ebay”
We “Nice. So, your selling this bottle then?”
Baars “HELLS NO!!!”
We: *ROFL*
The Toronto Flight is pure torture. We’re flying with Air Canada’s El Cheapo Division; Rouge. No in-flight entertainment, a middle seat, 100 degrees and about a million IBM employees talking shop have me on the verge of murder. In Toronto Air Canada handles thing about as smoothly as Steve Harvey handled the Miss Universe competition. With a business as usual look we are told we’re on a mild 22,5 hour layover here. No biggie. Hugo gets sent to Switzerland’s Zurich first the next day on a 16:00 hour flight. Iebus, Damvic and Bozzie are on the 17:00 flight towards Frankfurt and the other four of us will be on the redeye to Frankfurt at 21:30 hours. Absolutely marvellous.
We are send on our way with an address for a hotel and a breakfast voucher worth no less than seven Canadian dollars. It’s balls freezing cold in Toronto and due the lovely weather in Vegas I packed about zero coats. There are some people that run worse however as I see them waiting for the shuttle bus at 15 degrees and gushing winds in flip flops, shorts and sleeveless shirts.
It’s 12:30 AM here in Canada and we’re hungry. We call the hotel to see if we can eat there but the bar closes in 30 minutes. The shuttle arrives every 15 minutes but about 50 people need to make their way to the Crown Plaza so Baars and I miss the first shuttle. We wait inside the airport, grab a bite to eat and charge our phones while using the delly’s pie server trying to break into Baars’s suitcase that somehow refuses to open. The next shuttle drop us off and the boys have ordered us burgers and beers. Well played, guys.
The bar closes at 2AM so it’s bedtime. Baars ****s something up with our TV set which leaves us with just the sound. Jelzo texted soft porn was to be seen on channel 34 so we miss out on that. Bummer. At first I wanted to sleep in but I’m not spending the day hanging in a hotel lobby so I set the alarm for 10 AM. Let go and see what balls freezing Toronto looks like with no coat.
Meanwhile in the Netherlands.
I didn’t put in my earplugs in this night because of Baars ignoring the alarm capabilities. We have an 12:25 flight towards Toronto so a 10:30 taxi seems in order. I check my email before I want to hit the shower and see an email from Expedia that says there is a change in my travel plan.
Wait whut? The Toronto – Amsterdam flight is cancelled and there is a flight booked for Baars and me from Germany’s Frankfurt to Amsterdam. ON SUNDAY!!! I call Bozzie and inform about this trouble in paradise situation. We all booked separately since Expedia only allows groups up to six people.
A call to Expedia – who ever so friendly put me on hold for ~ 15 minutes while using a mobile phone – results in a ‘there is nothing to see here people’ response telling us to just go to the airport. Having checked McCarran departures there is zero change our flight leaves at 12:25 since it’s already on a three hour + delay. Hoping Air Canada somehow found a solution we make our way to the airport only to be told what we already knew; WE ARE F*CKED!
We’ll miss our connecting flight in Toronto and will have to spend the night there. Awesome. This causes several problems. Bozzie is missing his daughter’s birthday. Damvic misses a free dinner party. Wum has to change his Tinder settings to Toronto. Baars has to arrange employees to run the pub an extra day. Jezlo’s leghenne are about to explode. Al that and we have to start this terror off with a 200 minute wait.
Since we’re going to be seeing airplanes and airports for the next ~ 48 hours we grab the nearest cab to get away from this one asap. Wum, Jelzo, Bozzie & Iebus go Outlet Shopping. Baars, Hugo, Damvic and me make our way to the South Point Hotel & Casino. I look at the Delly menu for a while before making the worst possible choice by ordering two slices of salami Pizza that taste like feet. Some 2/4 limit gambling and roulette pass the time before we should be heading back. To Baars this delay feels like a scene from the movie classic ‘Casino’ when the high roller wants to leave Vegas with money in his pocket.
While waiting at the gate in Vegas Baars comes running at us with the biggest smile of the trip. He claims he just won back the money he lost at South Point and then some. I thought these airport slot machines had the worst pay-out in town. Well, it’s not the slot machines that made hour hero a rich man.
Baars: “I bought a limited edition bottle of Frank Sinatra Jack Daniels”
We: “How much was the bottle?”
Baars “Only $ 450,-“
We “So, were is the profit in this – so far, very lovely - story?”
Baars “They are selling these bottles empty for 1K on Ebay”
We “Nice. So, your selling this bottle then?”
Baars “HELLS NO!!!”
We: *ROFL*
The Toronto Flight is pure torture. We’re flying with Air Canada’s El Cheapo Division; Rouge. No in-flight entertainment, a middle seat, 100 degrees and about a million IBM employees talking shop have me on the verge of murder. In Toronto Air Canada handles thing about as smoothly as Steve Harvey handled the Miss Universe competition. With a business as usual look we are told we’re on a mild 22,5 hour layover here. No biggie. Hugo gets sent to Switzerland’s Zurich first the next day on a 16:00 hour flight. Iebus, Damvic and Bozzie are on the 17:00 flight towards Frankfurt and the other four of us will be on the redeye to Frankfurt at 21:30 hours. Absolutely marvellous.
We are send on our way with an address for a hotel and a breakfast voucher worth no less than seven Canadian dollars. It’s balls freezing cold in Toronto and due the lovely weather in Vegas I packed about zero coats. There are some people that run worse however as I see them waiting for the shuttle bus at 15 degrees and gushing winds in flip flops, shorts and sleeveless shirts.
It’s 12:30 AM here in Canada and we’re hungry. We call the hotel to see if we can eat there but the bar closes in 30 minutes. The shuttle arrives every 15 minutes but about 50 people need to make their way to the Crown Plaza so Baars and I miss the first shuttle. We wait inside the airport, grab a bite to eat and charge our phones while using the delly’s pie server trying to break into Baars’s suitcase that somehow refuses to open. The next shuttle drop us off and the boys have ordered us burgers and beers. Well played, guys.
The bar closes at 2AM so it’s bedtime. Baars ****s something up with our TV set which leaves us with just the sound. Jelzo texted soft porn was to be seen on channel 34 so we miss out on that. Bummer. At first I wanted to sleep in but I’m not spending the day hanging in a hotel lobby so I set the alarm for 10 AM. Let go and see what balls freezing Toronto looks like with no coat.
Meanwhile in the Netherlands.
03-21-2016
, 03:27 PM
VPC Went Vegas Day 11; Toronto Trouble
Since Vegas is the only city in the world I can’t sleep in I don’t wake up until 10:45 as Baars ignored my alarm again like a boss. We head down for breakfast to see what seven Canadian bucks get you these days.
F this ****. We skip breakfast and go for lunch downtown. After a quick shower it’s goodbye and save travels to the lads that travel ahead of us before we hop on the airport shuttle looking for Toronto trouble. The Airport Bullet takes us to Kipling station where we try to buy subway tickets but apparently this is a ‘Paid station’ and tickets are valid for the subway as well. Finding Toronto trouble is more easy than expected as we are greeted with the famous Canadian friendliness by some mother ****er that comes walking up to Baars and starts looking for trouble. Pretty sure we could have handled this mental patient but the plan is to stay in Canada as short as possible and not add a few days in prison.
We make our way to the Bundas station because of its indoor shopping mall. The mall is huge and warm. Since I’m running low on coats I’m wearing three T-shirts and a Hoodie. After some window shopping we cross the street towards the Hard Rock Café for lunch. Toronto is incredibly cheap as two Classic Club Sandwiches, drinks and tip leave us with a ~ € 30,- Credit Card dent.
There are two gay guys at the table next to us and by table next to us I mean the same table since you can’t stick your finger in the space between the tables here at Hard Rock. One of the two clearly poked the wrong hole as he was very much suffering from AIDS. Few times in my life have I seen anyone alive look this bad. Like Binions dealer Bruce. Or Fratie on a Monday. The dude walked straight out of a Walking Dead scene. I feel for the guy but have serious trouble eating with the guy present and I have a pretty strong stomach for stuff like that normally. We ask these guys for Toronto No Coat Sightseeing options but they come up with China Town which sounds like three train and five bus rides away. Thanks, but no thanks.
Shoppin’
After lunch we check-out the mall some more before walking in the direction of the CN Tower. I wanted to take the ‘Hop On, Hop off’ bus but online research shows they only sell three day passes at like $ 50,-. Now, if a one day pass would have cost $ 50,- I would have happily paid that. However, not selling day-passes tilts me so the ‘Hop On, Hop off’ bus can go and **** itself. After about 200 feet Baars and I conclude walking outside without a coat is no option. We head back to the Hard Rock and start grinding beers that hit us like freight truck.
As Hugo checks in for his 16:00 flight towards Zurich he asked if there was a possibility to get transferred to the 17:00 Frankfurt flight. Answer; "Sure, plenty of seats on that one". Jelzo and Wum make their way over to the airport ASAP and change their redeye flight to the 17:00 hours one. No way Baars and I can make that flight since we’re grinding beers downtown. We order another one to ease the tilt. Around 18:00 we leave the bar and head back to the hotel.
Freight Truck Beers
The Air Canada check-in machine makes us go thought it’s ten minute instruction procedure only to say it cannot check us in. The arrogant c*nt at the info desk is about as helpful as a chocolate teapot as well. Also, Baars carries around his Jack Daniels Bottle as if it is his first born. I accidently ran into the bottle with my suitcase yesterday and we had resuscitate Baars twice. We can’t fly with the bottle since it’s an open cabinet. We stuff the bottle into our hand baggage after security told us we were allowed to check-in two bags each. I thought that was weird and of course Air Canada wants $ 100,- for the extra bag. The question if they can find it in their hearts to make an acceptation after delaying us about 30 hours is answered with a friendly smile and “No”. So, there we sit stuffing Baars’s dirty boxers in my hand luggage to make room for a $ 450,- bottle of Jack…
The boys send pictures of Airport Sushi that looked pretty good earlier so I grab me some of that as a pre-flight dinner. The 15 restaurants don’t offer anything that Baars likes. He spends the 45 minutes in the shopping area until he made up his mind and gets in a huge line for a burger with less than five minutes of boarding time left...
The inflight entertainment set is about as fast as 1998 internet. I get a movie going after five tries but have to give up soon after since so many screens froze up that the entire system has to be shut down for 30 minutes. Nap time.
Meanwhile in the Netherlands.
Since Vegas is the only city in the world I can’t sleep in I don’t wake up until 10:45 as Baars ignored my alarm again like a boss. We head down for breakfast to see what seven Canadian bucks get you these days.
F this ****. We skip breakfast and go for lunch downtown. After a quick shower it’s goodbye and save travels to the lads that travel ahead of us before we hop on the airport shuttle looking for Toronto trouble. The Airport Bullet takes us to Kipling station where we try to buy subway tickets but apparently this is a ‘Paid station’ and tickets are valid for the subway as well. Finding Toronto trouble is more easy than expected as we are greeted with the famous Canadian friendliness by some mother ****er that comes walking up to Baars and starts looking for trouble. Pretty sure we could have handled this mental patient but the plan is to stay in Canada as short as possible and not add a few days in prison.
We make our way to the Bundas station because of its indoor shopping mall. The mall is huge and warm. Since I’m running low on coats I’m wearing three T-shirts and a Hoodie. After some window shopping we cross the street towards the Hard Rock Café for lunch. Toronto is incredibly cheap as two Classic Club Sandwiches, drinks and tip leave us with a ~ € 30,- Credit Card dent.
There are two gay guys at the table next to us and by table next to us I mean the same table since you can’t stick your finger in the space between the tables here at Hard Rock. One of the two clearly poked the wrong hole as he was very much suffering from AIDS. Few times in my life have I seen anyone alive look this bad. Like Binions dealer Bruce. Or Fratie on a Monday. The dude walked straight out of a Walking Dead scene. I feel for the guy but have serious trouble eating with the guy present and I have a pretty strong stomach for stuff like that normally. We ask these guys for Toronto No Coat Sightseeing options but they come up with China Town which sounds like three train and five bus rides away. Thanks, but no thanks.
Shoppin’
After lunch we check-out the mall some more before walking in the direction of the CN Tower. I wanted to take the ‘Hop On, Hop off’ bus but online research shows they only sell three day passes at like $ 50,-. Now, if a one day pass would have cost $ 50,- I would have happily paid that. However, not selling day-passes tilts me so the ‘Hop On, Hop off’ bus can go and **** itself. After about 200 feet Baars and I conclude walking outside without a coat is no option. We head back to the Hard Rock and start grinding beers that hit us like freight truck.
As Hugo checks in for his 16:00 flight towards Zurich he asked if there was a possibility to get transferred to the 17:00 Frankfurt flight. Answer; "Sure, plenty of seats on that one". Jelzo and Wum make their way over to the airport ASAP and change their redeye flight to the 17:00 hours one. No way Baars and I can make that flight since we’re grinding beers downtown. We order another one to ease the tilt. Around 18:00 we leave the bar and head back to the hotel.
Freight Truck Beers
The Air Canada check-in machine makes us go thought it’s ten minute instruction procedure only to say it cannot check us in. The arrogant c*nt at the info desk is about as helpful as a chocolate teapot as well. Also, Baars carries around his Jack Daniels Bottle as if it is his first born. I accidently ran into the bottle with my suitcase yesterday and we had resuscitate Baars twice. We can’t fly with the bottle since it’s an open cabinet. We stuff the bottle into our hand baggage after security told us we were allowed to check-in two bags each. I thought that was weird and of course Air Canada wants $ 100,- for the extra bag. The question if they can find it in their hearts to make an acceptation after delaying us about 30 hours is answered with a friendly smile and “No”. So, there we sit stuffing Baars’s dirty boxers in my hand luggage to make room for a $ 450,- bottle of Jack…
The boys send pictures of Airport Sushi that looked pretty good earlier so I grab me some of that as a pre-flight dinner. The 15 restaurants don’t offer anything that Baars likes. He spends the 45 minutes in the shopping area until he made up his mind and gets in a huge line for a burger with less than five minutes of boarding time left...
The inflight entertainment set is about as fast as 1998 internet. I get a movie going after five tries but have to give up soon after since so many screens froze up that the entire system has to be shut down for 30 minutes. Nap time.
Meanwhile in the Netherlands.
Last edited by Checkko; 03-21-2016 at 03:36 PM.
03-23-2016
, 10:13 AM
VPC Went Vegas Day 12; End in sight.
Like a miracle Air Canada gets us to Frankfurt alive and well. We all get a discount voucher because the inflight entrainment didn’t work properly. Since I’m not interested even if the discount is 200% I don’t even accept the voucher. We have 50 minutes to make our Amsterdam flight which is quite a challenge since Frankfurt International is humongous and I’m dragging world traveller Baars along with me. I don’t particularly like Germans. Not the people themselves but the language always gets me on tilt. I live 500 meters from the German border so I hear more than my fair share of German and it’s impossible to be friendly in that language. If they apologize for like bumping into you they say “Verzeihung”. Except they say “VERZEIHUNG!!!!” which makes the hairs in neck stand up straight.
One thing you have to give the Germans though; they’re effective as f*ck. They should send the entire personnel from Houston International on a field trip to Frankfurt and see how things are done properly. In less than 20 minutes we went through passport control, customs and about five miles of airport. Impressive. They also manage to get our suitcases on board the Amsterdam flight on time.
Lufthansa brings us to Amsterdam and during this 50 minute flight I’m offered more and better free food & drink options than Air Canada managed in 10+ hours. This c*unt of a trip is about to come to an end. After touchdown we see the boys have found their way home safely. Baars and I have a two hour train ride ahead of us after we’re done waiting for our suitcases. I didn’t buy train tickets at baggage claim since I had a feeling my girlfriend might be waiting on the other side. She wanted to know our arrival time yesterday but I told her not to bother and just go have a nice day. Needless to say she didn’t listen and Baars get to chill in the back of our car instead of dragging suitcases around trains for two+ hours. Nice. We drop off Baars around 17:00 hours and about 48 hours after getting in the Taxi at Excalibur I’m finally home. I don’t even have the energy to bring my suitcase to the attic and just grab my sheets from the bed and throw myself on the couch.
On the couch I start looking back on yet another fantastic Las Vegas trip. Financially is was good trip. I won a bit of money in the tourneys and the cash games didn’t go too bad either. I got set over setted more than I care for but you can’t really complain when a three outer nets you a decent score on the second day. I hardly gamble except for some low stakes roulette and I’m pretty sure I at least broke even on that as well. I spend < 25% off what I had budgeted so that is always good. I managed to get a few things - Hakkasan, Orleans & Naked Fish - off my Vegas Bucket List as well.
Few changes are going to be made for the 2018 trip though. For starters; no more US lay-overs. Next trip is going to be Dusseldorf / Amsterdam to London and a direct flight to Vegas. We got shafted on both ways this time. That isn’t happing again. Second; no more budget hotels, Mirage and upwards from here on. Third; I like that I stayed on this part of the Strip but it’s back to the other side in 2018 for sure. Fourth; we added an extra day to this year’s trip but since I can’t handle Vegas more than five days anyway there is no point in doing that again. This trip took eight vacation days and that is too much. Fifth; sleeping pills that have full grow rhino on the ground in less than 30 seconds.
So, that’s it once again. Another “VPC Went Vegas” series in the books. It was great fun typing it all up and I hope y’all enjoyed reading it. A special thanks to the lads for being perfect Vegas companions as always. Shout out to VPC first timers Wum en Jelzo who needed about five seconds to adjust to the ‘live and let live’ VPC mentality. Next VPC Vegas trip; most likely Jan / Feb 2018.
“Till next time!!!”
As for the Fratie fans. I saved the best for last.
Meanwhile in the Netherlands.
Like a miracle Air Canada gets us to Frankfurt alive and well. We all get a discount voucher because the inflight entrainment didn’t work properly. Since I’m not interested even if the discount is 200% I don’t even accept the voucher. We have 50 minutes to make our Amsterdam flight which is quite a challenge since Frankfurt International is humongous and I’m dragging world traveller Baars along with me. I don’t particularly like Germans. Not the people themselves but the language always gets me on tilt. I live 500 meters from the German border so I hear more than my fair share of German and it’s impossible to be friendly in that language. If they apologize for like bumping into you they say “Verzeihung”. Except they say “VERZEIHUNG!!!!” which makes the hairs in neck stand up straight.
One thing you have to give the Germans though; they’re effective as f*ck. They should send the entire personnel from Houston International on a field trip to Frankfurt and see how things are done properly. In less than 20 minutes we went through passport control, customs and about five miles of airport. Impressive. They also manage to get our suitcases on board the Amsterdam flight on time.
Lufthansa brings us to Amsterdam and during this 50 minute flight I’m offered more and better free food & drink options than Air Canada managed in 10+ hours. This c*unt of a trip is about to come to an end. After touchdown we see the boys have found their way home safely. Baars and I have a two hour train ride ahead of us after we’re done waiting for our suitcases. I didn’t buy train tickets at baggage claim since I had a feeling my girlfriend might be waiting on the other side. She wanted to know our arrival time yesterday but I told her not to bother and just go have a nice day. Needless to say she didn’t listen and Baars get to chill in the back of our car instead of dragging suitcases around trains for two+ hours. Nice. We drop off Baars around 17:00 hours and about 48 hours after getting in the Taxi at Excalibur I’m finally home. I don’t even have the energy to bring my suitcase to the attic and just grab my sheets from the bed and throw myself on the couch.
On the couch I start looking back on yet another fantastic Las Vegas trip. Financially is was good trip. I won a bit of money in the tourneys and the cash games didn’t go too bad either. I got set over setted more than I care for but you can’t really complain when a three outer nets you a decent score on the second day. I hardly gamble except for some low stakes roulette and I’m pretty sure I at least broke even on that as well. I spend < 25% off what I had budgeted so that is always good. I managed to get a few things - Hakkasan, Orleans & Naked Fish - off my Vegas Bucket List as well.
Few changes are going to be made for the 2018 trip though. For starters; no more US lay-overs. Next trip is going to be Dusseldorf / Amsterdam to London and a direct flight to Vegas. We got shafted on both ways this time. That isn’t happing again. Second; no more budget hotels, Mirage and upwards from here on. Third; I like that I stayed on this part of the Strip but it’s back to the other side in 2018 for sure. Fourth; we added an extra day to this year’s trip but since I can’t handle Vegas more than five days anyway there is no point in doing that again. This trip took eight vacation days and that is too much. Fifth; sleeping pills that have full grow rhino on the ground in less than 30 seconds.
So, that’s it once again. Another “VPC Went Vegas” series in the books. It was great fun typing it all up and I hope y’all enjoyed reading it. A special thanks to the lads for being perfect Vegas companions as always. Shout out to VPC first timers Wum en Jelzo who needed about five seconds to adjust to the ‘live and let live’ VPC mentality. Next VPC Vegas trip; most likely Jan / Feb 2018.
“Till next time!!!”
As for the Fratie fans. I saved the best for last.
Meanwhile in the Netherlands.
Last edited by Checkko; 03-23-2016 at 10:21 AM.
