I’ve been sleeping on the couch for quite a while now. Not that I’m in any kind of trouble with the misses but our couch is slightly tilted and that helps me find better positions to sleep in without being bothered by the physical problems I described in the introduction. On the last night before Vegas I give the bed another shot. I’ve had a couple of beers during a sushi dinner so that should help the falling asleep part. However, no such luck. By 3AM I give up and hit the showers. Baars and I are catching the 05:50 train towards Amsterdam so it’s rise and shine very early anyways.
My girlfriend drops me of at Venlo Train station at 05:40 and I conclude that a one way train ticket towards Amsterdam is pretty much as expensive as flying towards every European capital from any Airport in a 50 mile radius. Ridiculous. Baars doesn’t show up till the very last minute. Regular travelers at this hour might have a déjà vu as they see Baars rushing into the train station this morning. A déjà vu because…. well, let’s start the TR of with a funny story…
I put my phone on silent mode every night when I put the damn thing in the charger. The reason is that various persons in my WhatsApp groups are on vampire schedules and I was done waking up at 3AM because bets had to be settled or the hotness of a random chick had to verified. So when I wake up this Tuesday the 14th I’m hardly shocked that my screen is filled with WA messages. However, three missed calls and 40+ apps is rather much even by VPC standards. All the missed calls are from Baars and all the chatter comes from the Vegas 2014 WA group. Before I call Baars back I check the messages and the first one can best be translated as the following; “WHERE Y’ALL AT????!!!”
Now, with any other person I would have thought of a practical joke but with Baars I’m pretty sure this **** is for real. And it is. Baars is at Venlo train station not one, not two but goddamn three days to early! A $ 35,- train ticket in his hand and very much ready to rumble. I don’t even bother calling him back since it’s 06:30 already. Instead I just hit the snooze button and crack a smile that will last for the rest of the day.
Baars and I are traveling together today since we didn’t want to bother anyone for a early morning five hour roundtrip and the train gives us a great opportunity to start of with a run good Tequila. Our Tequila habit was born two years ago when Iebus and I went out for ‘one drink’ in Baars his pub ‘The Splinter’. We entered at eight and where in bed before midnight due to this godforsaken drink.
The run good Tequila does its job with regard to the train travels. Dutch railroad services are pretty decent but when they have a bad day everything collapses like a Jenga puzzle and you can be stranded for hours. No such bad luck this morning and we stroll into Schiphol Airport at by 8 o’clock with plenty of time for Starbucks as our Chicago flight doesn’t leave until eleven. For the second round of coffee we get hustled into a Spicy Vanilla Late which may very well be the most horrific cup of coffee I’ve had in my entire life.
Since we have plenty of time to spare at Schiphol I try to make my way to the panorama deck which is closed unfortunately. Four days prior to my fathers death we where at Schiphol together picking up my girlfriend from a Tokyo business trip. We spend a least an hour on that deck as it was the first beautiful and sunny day of 2013. My father loved airports and airplanes. So much that he would take the last train out of Venlo in the evening and spend the entire night at Schiphol whenever he had an early morning flight. I remember him nearly plummeting of the parking deck trying to watch the new Emirates A380 take of when we arrived that day. The panorama deck is closed but the coffee shop were we had our last coffee together was open and I take a few moments at the table we last sat at to remember my old man.
Around nine Iebus, Hugo and Bozzie arrive as well and we check in for our nine hour flight towards Chicago. During our mandatory McDonalds breakfast Hugo show his collection of different Clubbin’ sunglasses he collected during our holyday in Kos (Greece) last September. One for every day in Vegas.
The flight towards Chicago is only 75% filled up but still it’s probably one of the worst flights ever. One of the reasons I have a hard time accepting that my physical troubles may be caused mental issues is the fact that my distress is highly affected by my posture. I can feel pretty good all day but when I get into a car for instance, I feel terrible before I’ve reached the highway. I can’t find a decent posture in the plane and that makes me feel rather ****ed up.
I try to pass the time by reading a book called ‘Fighting Spirit’. It’s about a Dutch Football player called Fernando Ricksen who suffers from the deadly muscle decease ALS. The fact that this dude is death - 95% certainty - next year is terrible but no excuse to butcher so many good trees printing this terrible book. The writing style is horrendous and the only thing the book shows is what happens when retarded people get paid way to much. Booze, hookers and drugs. You can do the math. I couldn’t bring myself to finish the book so I switch to a movie. Runner Runner with Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake is about the UB online poker scandal. Now, I don’t know who saw the movie and who was able to finish but this movie is so lol bad that after 20 minutes I decide sitting on the toilet with the lights out would be a much better and more fun way to spend the rest of the flight. For crying out loud.
Highlight of the flight is by far Bozzie who’s trying to get comfortable in an empty row but nearly busts his kneecap getting into position and spends minutes moaning like bald angora rabbit. The last two hours are passed with monopoly on the iPad and sipping 7$ Budweiser cans, much to the dismay of our fellow passengers who don’t seem to realize it’s 5 in the PM for us, not AM. The 90 minute layover in Chicago gives us time for fast-food but not enough time for a decent beer that we enjoyed here during our first trip trough Chicago back in ‘09.
The 4,5 hour flight towards Vegas can be descripted as; HELL. It’s easily 95 F. in the plane and it think I’ve lost about 5 kilo’s on this flight in fluids. Pretty ridiculous and soul crushing because I can already tell that Hakassan and Calvin Harris are out of the window for tonight. No shower is going to fix our broken bodies and souls. It’s my fourth trip to Vegas but never did the traveling get to me this bad. Are we getting to old for this ****?
Our taxi driver makes a run at the Guinness World Record for long hauling despite being told no tunnel. I think it was over $40,- for a ride to Mirage. Since it’s five of us chairing the cab and I’m way to happy the travels have finally come to an end I couldn’t give a flying **** and sprint into the Mirage. No line at the check-in so things proceed quickly until Hugo realizes he left his phone in the cab. GG, sir. Luckily the cap is still in line and Hugo finds his phone rather quickly.
We didn’t go for the $ 20,- trick because any room will feel like a suite compared to a room at our former Vegas home, Imperial Palace. The rooms are pretty good and the view doesn’t hurt the eye’s either. A quick shower and it’s of to the Casino floor. I have no $ on me so I hit the ATM and take a good look at the C-notes that come rollin’ out. The new 100 dollar bills seem like monopoly money to me. And that comes from a guy that’s used to euro’s.
I’m playing the $ 560,- Championship Event in Caesars tomorrow and I didn’t plan on playing any poker this evening because A) I wanted to be ‘hungry’ for poker tomorrow and B) I can’t drop a few buy-ins since that would give me cash problems for the buy-in tomorrow. With that in mind I walk towards the poker room, walk straight to the desk, buy chips en sit down in 1/2NL game and order a Corona. Hugo is joining me very soon and tells me Baars is having trouble getting monies out the ATM. Iebus found a 1/2NL game as well and Bozzie is giving the 3-6 Limit players some of his money tonight.
After about two hours and 7/8 corona’s – we had to put on our A drinking game to keep up with the waitresses - I realize Baars is nowhere to be found. He’s not answering his phone and he didn’t want to lent money from us earlier. Where all a bit cash poor at the start since nobody brought $ along and Baars feels cash poor with anything under 2K in his pocket so I’m assuming he found cash somewhere and is burning it at blackjack.
Iebus and Hugo are stuck big time by midnight and it’s time to move on. Iebus’s last shove just got called by a 70 year old on QT864. The 70 year old tabled A5. Iebus had to muck. I could barely contain myself. We head towards our old residence Imperial Palace / The Quad to check out what has become of the new Linq project and the new O’sheas that reopened a few weeks earlier. O’sheas is packed. I stand at the bar for at least 10 minutes and still didn’t get a chance to order. F*ck it. We move towards Harrahs where Iebus has to make the walk of shame for the first time. On the first night. Just like last year. Aaaaand the years before that.
After a 6 inch Subway at Casino Royale Iebus and Bozzie decide it’s bedtime. Hugo and I head for The Venetian. I don’t plan on playing poker but the room is just so epic. I know a lot of you guys boycott the room because of the online gambling principals of the owners but I don’t have much principals on that matter and I am here to enjoy myself so I jump in to the first available 1/2 game.
Hugo and I get seated at the table near the escalators and that my friends, was an act of god. I just can’t believe how many hot women come rollin’ down those steps. The “hot chick factory” joke is made at least five times but I start to think there almost has to be such a thing at the Venetian . The dealer admits he had to fight three other dealers to get this table for the night. Unreal. Besides hottie watching I watch Hugo burn through a full buy-in in less then 10 minutes without getting to a single showdown. Call pre, call flop, call turn, fold river seems to be Hugo’s game plan for the night and it isn’t a very cheap plan this first evening. I manage to win back the hundo I lost at Mirage breaking me pretty much even for the night. Scratch that, leaving me up about 15 Corona’s for the night. It’s 03:30 and time for bed but we are down to 5 handed and I don’t want to break the game so I play until two guys sit down at 4AM and head for the Mirage. On the way back I take a few seconds to fully enjoy the view and the fact that we’re a back in Vegas again!
I walk along with Hugo to his room to see where the f*ck Baars has been al night. Baars is in bed with his clothes on. Baars was pissed that he couldn’t get cash from either the ATM or at the cage and basically went to bed angry. Anyway. Bedtime.
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