We saved the best for last, which worked out well; otherwise we would have spent the rest of our trip recovering. I don’t think any of us had much of a hangover, but we did sleep into the late morning. Mike went downstairs and returned with three cups of coffee and a newspaper. The coffee was just what the doctor ordered. We eased into our day and took stock of what we still wanted to do while in Las Vegas. We had tickets to Anthony Cools and wanted to go to Coyote Ugly, which would take care of our evening. We felt baked from the intense heat of the past couple days, so we weren’t eager to sit by the pool. The European soccer championship was in the afternoon and since Rob and I had money on the game, we wanted to watch it. A foam party was scheduled in the Monte Carlo pool area starting at noon and lasting until six, which sounded like a lot of fun. We had a pretty big window to catch the party and figured we could stop by when we had some free time. We hadn’t done any souvenir shopping and we were leaving early tomorrow morning, so we decided to do that to get the day going.
We visited the local places, like Gameworks and the M&M store, across the street. We didn’t walk around for long before I started to feel a little light-headed, probably for not having breakfast after an alcohol-fueled night. We made our way over to the MGM Grand to visit the shop next to the lion’s cage. Inside the store, there was a window where people could view a lion cub being fed from a bottle. There was an older couple with a trainer in the room and I assumed they had paid for the experience. I also took the opportunity to redeem my $15 ticket I had from video poker on our first night in town.
The soccer game had an early start time for us on the West Coast, and just in time for lunch. We re-crossed the street to New York, New York and found a place with immediate seating at the Nine Fine Irishmen. Barcelona was well represented in the bar, but the table we sat was in an area where most people were cheering Manchester United. We had lunch and Sam Adams while we watched the game. It became pretty obvious that Man U was out-matched in talent, but the score was tied 1-1 at the half. I knew if Man U had a chance to win the game, the final score would have to be 2-1. When Barcelona scored its second goal, my hopes faded. When Barcelona scored its third goal, they evaporated. At least I waited until the official end of the game before tearing up my ticket. Mike paid for lunch and we headed outside.
