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LAS VEGAS - The key to enjoying Vegas is understanding the desert city is all about the three Bs: bucks, bods and just plain big.
That becomes obvious almost as soon as you touch down at the airport. One of the first things you're likely to see as you enter the terminal, for example, is a bank of slot machines.
While waiting for your luggage you just might spy the airport's gym, which is open 24 hours a day, because you just never know when you might want to work on your ``buffness'' while you wait for a flight or a friend.
The ``big'' comes a little while later, when you take the short hop from the airport to the middle of the sprawling ``strip'' where the major casinos are located. Then it's all around you: big buildings, big billboards, big traffic jams . . . just big.
That's when it really hits you: Las Vegas has all the refined subtlety of a cattle stampede, but it does look and smell a lot better.
Life is centered round the casinos, of course, whether you're a gambler or not. The hotel you stay at will likely have a casino, and nearly everything that happens in the hotels is funneled through the casinos, so most people will succumb to the urge to gamble.
Don't know the first thing about slot machines, dice or card games? You're still not safe. Anyone (age 21 and up) can get caught up in the bright lights, constant noise, and perpetual 24/7 activity, and wander over to one of the gaming tables and wager a little money on War.
That's right. War. Remember the card game you learned when you were, oh, about 7. Each person gets one card. The highest card wins. Done.
Yep, you can even wager on the War in Vegas. No one is safe.
Money is still what fuels the city. Bucks spent, bucks saved, bucks wagered, bucks lost.
There are plenty of ways to make or lose money at the casinos, of course. The lavish, sometimes surreal, shopping malls linked to most casinos also just scream out for your cold hard cash (or MasterCard, or Visa, or whatever).
Nearly every resort offers its own version of the sprawling buffet to help people save a few bucks here and there. Or you can hunker down at any of the dozens of upscale eateries in the city and really go through some serious money in just a couple hours (and love every minute of it).
And then there's sex. Vegas probably won't be hosting a resident production of ``Up With People'' anytime soon. There are topless revues and girly shows scattered across the strip.
And it's almost impossible for any male to walk down a sidewalk for any length of time without dozens of people, it seems, trying to press business cards into his hand that feature various exotic women willing to share various exotic activities with him (even if you're already escorting your wife, as I was).
Another thing to remember during any Sin City visit: Just check that sense of refinement and restraint at the airport.
That advice even applies to clothing. The big-bucks ties in the high-dollar men's shops would get you stoned by the fashion police on Newbury Street.
Everything about the city is so over-the-top, so completely off the scale that you need to remember to just laugh at the spectacle and surging tackiness of it all. Let it wash over you and enjoy the bath.
For example, the night my wife and I took in the admittedly spectacular water show in front of the Bellagio resort, we viewed it from the top of the Paris' 50-story Eiffel Tower across the street. To do that, we had to walk in front of the Arc de Triomphe.
Earlier in the day we dined near a reproduction of the Caesar Forum's Trevi Fountains, walked by a facsimile of Michelangelo's David, took a tour through a reconstruction of King Tut's tomb at the Luxor and, of course, traipsed across the Venetian's Bridge of Sighs to watch folks take a gondola ride.
Oh, there's more. A volcano erupts in front of the Mirage several times an hour every night. Using the tram at the Luxor means walking in front of a colorful (and big, of course) copy of the Sphinx. Enter the Venetian and the ceiling is crammed with gilded, rococo-framed copies of masterworks.
I don't think we walked more than 10 blocks to do all that, and I left out a lot of things in between.
It's insane and so American. We've taken most of the world's great art and cultural icons and plopped them near malls and casinos and Armani stores.
In fact, a trip to Vegas makes you realize why so much of the world is genuinely puzzled by Americans. They wouldn't dream of trying to re-create those things, especially putting them together for our personal viewing pleasure.
Plus you can just see a few veteran Vegas fans making their way over the great pond to Europe, seeing the original masterpieces and thinking, ``They're so much better in Vegas. They look newer and cleaner, and they're much easier to get to.''
And indeed they are.
Vegas of course also means fine cuisine and some excellent hotels, some with glamorous spas.
Now that's real civilization.

- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 2:17 PM