A Night on the Town

...Or, In Which a Potentially Bad Idea Turns into a Really Good One

So, we live in Vegas, right? Blah blah blah, The Strip, yadda yadda. "The Strip," for those who may not precisely know, is a relatively short stretch of Las Vegas Blvd that houses some of the world's most expensive hotels (certainly some of its most ridiculous) as well as providing a venue for the world's most obnoxious tourists. I'm not kidding. It's a playground for otherwise sane people to come and be total a**h****s for a weekend. It should come as no surprise, then, that we do not make our way over to Le Strip very often, preferring to stay in our nice, quiet suburbs. In fact, even to cross over it to get to the other side is a royal nightmare.

Here's a joke for you: Why did the chicken cross The Strip? He didn't. He knew better than to try. He either took 215 around the south end or 515 around the north. He certainly didn't try to cross at Flamingo Road because he didn't want to get stuck between Caesar's Palace and the Bellagio waiting for a hundred clueless pedestrians to stop crossing against traffic.

I digress.

It had been a few months since we'd been to the Strip. The last two times, respectively, were trips to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay on the extreme south end--which in terms of the Strip barely amounts to dipping one's toes. But this time we really set out to do some exploring deep into the heart of darkness. For those of you throwing up your hands, asking, "Why?! Why sell out? Why go at all?" Let me tell you what happens when you live in a tourist town: People come to visit. People want to see what the place is famous for. People want the insider's scoop on where to go and when, what to eat, how much to spend, what to see, etc. It may not be important for some, but for me, it is important to be able to answer these questions. Also, it can be fun to go on recon missions, which is essentially what our night out on the town was. Friday night's destination was the MGM Grand* and M&Ms World.

Once inside, we began to look for somewhere to eat. Eating on the Strip is tricky, especially if you're poor. (We're poor.) There are plenty of delicious places to eat, but they almost uniformly charge through the nose. So we thought we'd look out for something mid-price or hit up one of the many food courts. Minutes later, we stumbled upon this neapolitan pizza place that looked good. It was a little pricy, but not exorbitant, and we were really hungry. After we both got our pizzas and got to the cashier, the guy informed us that our pizzas--and drinks, if we wanted them--were on the house. Whaaaaa....?

After gathering our jaws off the floor, we took our free $30 meal and began eating in exhilarated silence. I couldn't take it anymore, though. I had to know why it was free. In fact, I couldn't believe how many people were getting free food! When I asked, they told me they hadn't officially opened as a restaurant and were training their employees. Mystery solved. But what an incredible case of being in the right place at the right time! The pizza was good, too! Needless to say, Project Pie (for thus it was called) has earned another visit from the Mumfords, and we will happily pay for our meal next time. When we have the money. Ahem.

M&Ms World is a landmark on the Strip. It is four stories of wall-to-wall M&M merchandise, which is fun if you're a tourist, I guess, and are dying to spend your money on kitsch. We were quite charmed, though. It was fun to look around and see all the clever ways M&Ms tries to inject its product into everyday American life. My favorite things were the M&M-shaped beach towels. Oh yeah. I totally want one of those. What we DID end up spending money on was a 1 1/2 pound $20 bag of mixed M's from this Wall O' Deliciousness.

Oh, I'm sorry. Let's try that again. 

THIS Wall O' Deliciousness! ^^

My dad is just a little bit crazy about M&Ms. I think he would have died and gone to Chocolate Heaven if he had been there. Totally worth it. And the best part is, it's 100% kid-friendly, which is a bonafide rarity on the Strip. Riding the high of our success with dinner and the heady rush of a frivolous $20 spent on candy, we even stepped in to watch their little 10-minute 3D movie, which was annoying in all the ways that 3D stuff is annoying, and totally charming at the same time. It was a delight to be surrounded by children and families.

All in all, we had us a grand ol' time. We also went to Coke world. Didn't get anything there. But we want to go back when friends are in town and get the $7 sample tray of sodas from all over the world. We're learning about our town, people! 50%, if not 100%, of people who come to visit us already know more about what to do here in Vegas. But we are learning!

*Had I known Madonna was performing at MGM that night, I would not perhaps have chosen to park there, but all's well that ends well; we did score a spot.