In 2006, I spent a couple of hours at the Las Vegas airport, and I recall someone telling me that the outside temp was 112 that day. Last Saturday, I spent a longer amount of time in Vegas, and, thankfully, the temp was only in the 70s. This time, I wanted to drive down “the strip” and look around inside The Venetian. While cruising Las Vegas Blvd, I waited at long stoplights as lots of people crossed the road. Dominating the scene were casino hotels—some at least thirty stories tall—including Caeser’s Palace with its Roman look, the Paris Hotel and Casino, and New York New York. Here was the world in miniature—or at least the Western world. Quite a contrast from the open desert region I had come from only minutes before. I parked (for free) in the garage of The Venetian. The front of this casino hotel looks like the Ducal Palace in St. Mark’s Square, and there is what must be an almost exact scale model of the Rialto Bridge, but this one has moving sidewalks in the middle instead of shops. The bridge crosses a pool of water where there are actual gondolas and gondoliers. More gondola rides are available inside, too. In one sense, it’s a “best of” Venice. The ceilings along the canal are curved and painted to resemble a fair sky in Italy with a few white clouds. The ceiling of St. Mark’s Square is done the same way. Here you can eat “outdoors” indoors and watch street performers and cap off a meal with gelato purchased from the central stand. There are less Venetian-looking places as well: convention halls, theatres, restaurants, shops, and the casino. I found myself wondering about the objective of building a look-alike but fake Venice (or Paris, New York, Rome) for a casino crowd? Across from the Venetian is The Mirage, and I thought that this is actually what The Venetian is as well—a mirage of the real city. However, if I went to the authentic Venice, I would be able to visit the Ducal palace, but I would not find it being used for its original purpose, for it is now a museum. In some way, this seems to be another sort of mirage. The concept of mirage can be extended to the casino as well. For some, gambling may be an inconsequential hobby, but it can be a mirage of hope, too—a type that doesn’t always pay off as frequently as one might like.
The casino resorts really are something to see, and certainly Vegas is more than just gambling and entertainment, but I felt sad looking about the luxuriousness of this city (it’s visibly clean, seems to run smoothly, and promotes comfort and consumerism—understandable objectives to increase tourism) compared to others in the U.S. So much planning and care must be given to make this city (one based at least conceptually on entertainment) thrive, while other cities that Vegas visitors are “escaping” from might thrive more if the same amount of care were shown to them. On Sat. night, I stayed at the Tuscany Suites and Casino in a room that could have been a studio apartment—it even had a range for cooking. I paid the same price for it ($50, not including the $10 resort fee) as I did for the Super 8 I stayed at in Bakersfield, California the night before. Also, for dinner I paid $8.75 for a good buffet at a casino near the Hoover Dam—only slightly more than my $7.99 3-piece chicken tender meal at Popeye’s that I’d had for lunch. (The buffet ad was thankfully not a mirage, and my mom can be glad that I got some vegetables and fruit with it.)
I am not the kind of person The Venetian or the Tuscany, or other casino hotels, probably wants to see coming—who finds the deal for a night’s stay or a buffet, enjoys looking around the casino instead of placing a bet, pays only for a slice of pizza in exchange for free parking, uses the coupon for a free beverage that comes with checking into the hotel but doesn't buy any more, and utilizes a hotel's free Internet in public places but doesn't pay $13 to connect in his room. However, even though the “Italian” casino hotels weren’t built with a person like me in mind, I still enjoyed experiencing a nostalgic sense of Venice, my actual remembrance of which--it having been three years since I was last there--is surely to some degree, by now, a mirage.
No comments:
Post a Comment