ExposedNYC

New Years tends to come with very high expectations. 1. You dress up in your favorite party dress. 2. You attend a fabulous party. 3. You hope for someone to kiss when the clock strikes midnight. Since deciding to spend New Years in Las Vegas this year, I did my best to manage these expectations, but they ended up exploding like midnight fireworks.

Before I even left, I had a hard time finding a dress. I searched store after store in New York and Seattle, but couldn’t come up with anything I liked. Luckily, one of my dear girlfriends loaned me one of hers that I was known for coveting when we were roommates, with no requirement of returning it any time soon.

As for a great party, I knew I wanted to be on the strip, purely for the entertainment of people watching, but didn’t have hundreds of dollars to waste on a club hosted by a big name celebrity. My main purpose for visiting was to spend time with my girlfriend, I’ll call her “Showgirl”, so I left plans in her hands, stipulating only that I wanted to be drinking a champagne toast at midnight.

I landed on the 30th in time for a good night’s sleep. The next day, we spent a mellow lunch at The Venetian visiting an old friend of mine who bartends there. She tried to convince us to start drinking early, but we stuck with Diet Coke to keep us awake until the magic moment. Then Showgirl left me alone to do some shopping and get dressed while she performed one show, as opposed to her usual two, and made plans to meet up for dinner at 10:00pm.

The one kink in our plan is that I wasn’t staying in a hotel. She lives off the strip, and I was staying in her guest bedroom, but we had to drive in and park early in the afternoon because all of the roads shut down from 5:00pm on. This left me hauling a bag into the casino bathroom to get dressed and applying my make up in the rear view mirror of her car, feeling just a little trashy, but satisfied with my end result.

Showgirl and two of her friends from the show, “Feather” and “Rhinestone”, met me for dinner at an adorable little Italian restaurant in Treasure Island called Francesco’s. Famished and fabulous in our formal-wear, we dove into bread, olive oil, and a bottle of champagne, instantly. We indulged in a decadent meal, multiple cocktails and bottles of champagne, and spent New Years sitting at the table toasting each other in hopes for a fantastic year. Little did we know, our night had just begun.

For now, the rest of what happened in Vegas will have to stay in Vegas, but I promise more details to follow…

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