Cisco Live 2022 Vegas

From Dubai, I went straight to Las Vegas for the Cisco Live 2022.
Well, not straight; it was pretty torturing. I spent eight hours in a plane to London, two hours overlay in Heathrow, and another eleven hours towards Las Vegas.
I arrived Friday evening and was so done with the world.

As I expected the trip to be anything but pleasant, I rewarded myself with a nice hotel for the first two days.
This was my dinner. No, it’s not a burger with pasta; that’s cheese!

The room was extra-ordinary stylish, too:

On Saturday, I walked around a bit, but the area was a wasteland; not much to see here:

In the end, I bought a few beers, found a place in the shadow close to the pool, and enjoyed the afternoon.

On Sunday, I changed hotel as we booked a block in Mandalay Bay.

One important rule when attending exhibitions is to get your badge as soon as possible to prevent queues, so that’s what I did even before I checked in:

For lunchtime, I met with some colleagues and we went into an Irish pub. Now get this; they served an almost authentic Full Irish Breakfast:

After lunch, I invested two dollars into a slot machine, unfortunately without any ROI.

I wasn’t prepared for how expensive everything is in this city.
This cocktail here, something blue with something white and vodka, was 22 dollars:

We walked around for a bit.
The Mandalay Bay hotel is a city in itself; it’s enormous.
On one side, the exhibition halls are attached, and the other side ends in a tunnel.
Of course, it’s not a random tunnel; it’s a mall.
And on the other side, you end up in a different hotel called Luxor.

But in reality you end in Egypt:

On the following morning, the conference started.
We had a claw machine at our booth.
Funny, I thought. Until I realized that each time someone plays it, it plays a melody. Each. Single. Time.

And apparently, it magically forced every single attendee to play:

A rookie mistake happened on day two:

My colleague Chrystal and I had a speaking slot on stage. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have, but at least it’s “behind the scenes”:

On the final day of the exhibition, I managed to get breakfast:

And our claw machine was empty:

But good news: We served Mimosas:

I tried to dress up as a duck to get more drinks. It worked well:

I took another short walk on Friday as my plane was scheduled for the evening.

One of my best friends asked me to get Harley Davidson dealer shirts for him and his partner, so I walked to a shop not too far away:

And on my way back, I discovered one of the other things Vegas is famous for:

It was an exciting trip, but I was exhausted as it was nonstop traveling for me.

I’m not sure if I will make it back to Vegas, but it’s a place worth visiting!

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