Every city you go to has some key thing that you remember about it. Something that you notice about that place, and forever after, when you think of the place, it’s the first thing that comes to mind. Sometimes it’s an obvious touristy thing – e.g. Vienna and its practice of putting up statues in the center of immaculate public squares. Other times it’s something quite different, but it sticks in your head – e.g. when I think about Hong Kong, I think red double decker buses. For super-clean Singapore, it’s bed bugs. For Damascus, I recall a somewhat overweight, rather jolly chocolatier. I hope he’s OK now – I suspect he’s not so jolly these days.
Well, for Las Vegas, the memorable thing for me is the novelty glass. That’s right, it’s not the bizarre monuments to money in the desert, No, the thing I noticed early on, and stuck with me during my visit, was the novelty glass. Available in standard half- and full-yard sizes, as well as a range of custom shapes, these seemed to be the default choice of drinking vessel for those just arrived in Las Vegas. Here’s an example I snapped – note he seems to be saying “Here, you take this boring, everyday plastic cup of beer. I’m keeping my special vessel close to my chest.”
The above shot was taken rather late at night, explaining the slight blurriness on the part of either the photographer or the photographee. But this was actually a little unusual – people seemed to purchase these quite early in the day. You can imagine the scene – just arrived in town, checked into town, decide to take a walk out on “the Strip.” The sun’s hammering down on you, you walk past a bar, you’re in Las Vegas, so…”sure, that yard long Margarita sounds like a fantastic idea! Oh and I get to keep the glass? Wow! And you mean I can just walk around from casino to casino, taking my drink with me? No-one cares? Hey guys, let’s make it a weekend to remember – let’s all order ridiculously large drinks in a novelty glass!”
This all sounds like a Good Idea at 10:00am. After all, you’re here to have a good time in Las Vegas, right? And everyone knows, that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas gets posted on Facebook. So you order your big drink, and if it’s extra long, you’ll also get a tie to go around your neck, to hang the vessel off. “Awesome! – let’s have a big swallow…OK, another swallow. Maybe not so big…OK, I’ve had enough sitting around here, let’s walk down to the next casino…”
Hours later, groups of them are walking around, looking somewhat glassy-eyed, the novelty having worn off. At this point, they’re about two thirds of the way through, and the end just doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. The drink has gotten sickly sweet, they’ve had enough, they’re feeling pretty drunk…and you can see them thinking, in the back of their mind “What the **** am I supposed to do with this yard long plastic vessel? Am I doomed to carry this forever? How the hell am I even going to fit it in my luggage? I suppose it’s going ‘straight to the pool room’ when I do get it home.” A bit later on, it seems to get conveniently forgotten about, and discarded. Common sense finally kicks in, and you realize that lugging a large plastic beaker gets really annoying after 8 hours, especially when you still haven’t been able to finish drinking the damn thing.
There’s a lot more to Las Vegas though, and I really did enjoy my visit. I’ll post more later – perhaps on some of the other highlights, such as the haircuts:
