Vegas Baby! – Day One…..

I’m actually just at the end of day two as I write this.

But over in the UK you’re in the middle of the night on day 3 and I’ll be getting on a plane soon. Gosh time zones are confusing, which is what my body says when it wakes up at 4am every morning and refuses to go back to sleep.

My first full day in Las Vegas was full of meetings and technology with Lenovo who are the company who have amazingly whisked me over here. I’d been given gift cards to use to buy breakfast so first I headed down to the breakfast buffet. Goodness, what a lot of food. Next time a Premier Inn brags about its amazing buffet breakfast I’m going to laugh in their faces and ask them where the veal brisket is. I was also told I could have complimentary beer and wine at the bar. Seriously, if I was on holiday I’d have been ALL OVER THAT, but I’m not, and I also have a cold, so no booze at 9am for me.

I wandered past an omelette bar, mexican food, brisket, oatmeal, cereals, fruit, pastries sausages, bacon and a variety of other crazy things, remembering the trip advisor review that claimed there “wasn’t much choice”.

I finally settled on eggs benedict, french toast, bacon, maple syrup, and, because I’ve heard of them and wanted to know what they were, Grits.

I still don’t know what Grits are, some sort of corn, but trust me, we’re not missing anything not having them in the UK.

After breakfast it was over to the Venetian for 2 meetings, one with David Roman the CMO at Lenovo where we chatted about marketing strategy, and the other with the Design team where we chatted, not unexpectedly, about design. Then a tour of the Lenovo showcase. There were some amazing products, the smart phones look awesome, with good cameras on both sides, but unfortunately aren’t available in the UK yet. The Horizon was also very cool, a table top computer that feels like it’s out of THE FUTURE, you can see an Instagram video of it in action here.

I still have a rotten cold, so even though it was only lunch time I was flagging a little, but no flagging was allowed as were all whisked off to the CES conference to see exciting technology. I totally stuffed this up. I spent ages in the central hall where I found some very cool vintage style audio, including a bluetooth juke box and some turntables from Crossley.

I could not figure out how to find the other halls where exciting things like robotics, 3D printing and the health technology was. About 30 minutes before we were due to leave I finally found the South Hall and literally legged it round in 10 minutes, in heels, so by the time I got back to the pick up point my poor feet were blistered and sore, it was like walking on glass!

Still, CES was pretty amazing, and huge! I spoke to a nice lady about a Panasonic hairdryer that uses nanoe technology to smooth your hair. I asked what nanoe technology was and she couldn’t tell me, but she could point to the hole it came out of. I suspect nanoe technology might be a bit of made-up-ology, but still, it might work! I also found some huge washing machines that are blatantly not made for UK houses.

Me and my aching feet had expected to have a few moments back in the hotel to refresh and revive (and take some paracetamol for my stinking cold) before the evening, but it was not to be as we were whisked straight to Table 10 at The Palazzo for dinner with lots of Lenovo Big Wigs. I was sat next to the global head of Social Media, who was Scottish and KNOWS WHERE NORWICH IS!

Then I was served, a salad, some shrimp with a rosemary “biscuit” which is a weird American thing, and a steak the size of my head with macaroni and cheese, which I bravely scoffed all of, followed by at least 3/4 of my chocolate dessert thingy.

Then my aching feets and pounding head toddled off to a party with Microsoft. I had 2 Manhattans, one of which I threw all over myself as I gesture too much when I talk and knocked my glass, leading to the head of design edging away from the crazy lady. Sigh, I won’t be having input on any lady technology from Lenovo then.

I took some time to take a cocktail selfie of me and my poor, almost make up free after 12 hours face, then toddled myself off to bed. Pausing only to feed $30 into a slot machine with a unicorn on it as it reminded me of Betsy Hatter and I was a little homesick.

Yes, that’s right folks, I ended my first full day in Vegas in my pyjamas by 10pm, watching the Big Bang Theory and drinking over priced whisky from the mini bar. I felt almost guilty, but it was pretty nice to take my shoes off and chill out!

I feel I should be filling these posts with interesting travel tips, advice, and facts and figures, but, well, I don’t have any, so you’ll have to put up with me just shouting LOOK WHERE I AM!

So, if you made it this far, I shall leave you with a few more photos before I toddle off to prepare myself for tonights party!