One of the things Vegas is famous for is it’s refusal to let go of its vintage roots.
The Mob Museum, the Neon Museum, Elvi everywhere (P.S.: for those of you not from Vegas; Elvi is the plural of Elvis)…so what better way to continue this great tradition, then by dressing up vintage too.

So where do you go for authentic 60’s through 70’s clothes? 

GLAM FACTORY VINTAGE!

The charm of Glam Factory Vintage begins the second you pull up outside the little yellow with orange trimmed house, with the white  picket fence, and birdfeeder sign out front.  You walk up the green-wooden-railed ramp, and open the front door to a charming mini-home complete with a working 50’s jukebox and, on lucky days, an adorable pug named Mr. Beans.

You walk in and step back in time.  There is an array of fine and authentic clothing from past eras.   You can also find accessorize and other items like an gold accordion, or old telephones.

But the clothes is why you are here.   You quickly realize this isn’t just a second hand store.  The clothes are impeccable, beautiful, and elegant.  Men and women can find outfits that bring back the timeless sexy styles of the past. 

But you are looking for earlier eras.  More 40’s and 50’s.   Well they have that too, right down the street at Sin City Pickers.  Inside Sin City Pickers, a gigantic store full of awesome knickknacks, oddities, and antiques, Glam factory Vintage has another store – this one offering glam from the 40’s and 50’s.   Locates right in the middle of Sin city Pickers (look for the sign or ask for it at the front desk),  Glam factory Vintage here has around 1,000 pieces of fine, vintage wears at any one time.  The clothes here are dressier – offering day dresses form the 40’s to cocktail dress and tuxedos from the 50’s and 60’s.

The owner of both shops, Stephanie Geniza, started collecting vintage clothes at a young age.

“I’ve worn vintage for as long as I can remember. I’ve known since high school that I would have a vintage clothing shop, so I started collecting clothing for my future shop. (20 years +of collecting) It just had to be the right time and a good amount of inventory before I could open the vintage shop of my dreams.”

Glam Factory inside Sin City Pickers opened February 14 of 2012, and Stephanie quickly knew she wanted to open her own shop as well.   She spent the summer fixing up the 1929 building on Colorado St, and 6 months later, on October 27th, opened up the Glam Factory Vintage store.

“But where do all these clothes come from?”, I asked Stephanie.

“I buy all my inventory locally in Las Vegas, so every piece is a piece of old Vegas history. I think it’s really charming and interesting when I find old Las Vegas pieces with a story. Some pieces come from the estates of former show girls, retired Vegas entertainers and the estates of former mob members girlfriends. I think it’s extra cool when old Vegas cocktail dresses and suits get a chance to go out on the town and party again.”

Glam Factory Vintage is THE place in Vegas to find authentic and beautiful vintage clothing. 

Check them out:

Glam Factory Vintage store is located at:
211 E Colorado St, Las Vegas, NV.

The store inside Sin City Pickers is at:
10 W. Wyoming, Las Vegas, NV.

You can find more about Glam Factory Vintage, and see some of their current stock on their Facebook page:  Glam Factory Vintage 

They are open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10am to 6pm

Check Facebook for special openings and events (they are open for First Friday – Vegas’s Art Walk the first Friday of each month).

You can also call them at +1 (702)-443-0131

Where is a good place to shop in Vegas?  I hear that a lot.  Yea, we have malls, that have all the exact same stores you are going to find in every other mall across the USA.

BOOORING!

Want a real Vegas shopping experience?  Head downtown to the corner of Commerce and Wyoming streets, to Sin City Picker.  This vintage/antique/art/gigantic shopping building has everything you never knew you needed.

“But what does it have?”, you ask.

What Doesn’t It Have!?!

To give you an idea, here are photos of some of the things I found the day I visited.

Spider Home Décor.

Victrolas

Cool baby toys

Vintage jewelry

Fur muffs (hand warmers)

Plethora of old cameras and gear

Radioactive glassware

(it glows under backlights due to Uranium added to the glass)

Betty Boop

Botero-esque pieces

Men of all shapes and sizes

Tomato Sauce Can Robots

STAR TREK BABY!

Superheroes

And whatever the hell this is!

So if you like strange, vintage, unusual and awesomely unidentifiable objects, head down to Sin City Pickers on the corner of Commerce and Wyoming Streets in Las Vegas.

Sin City Pickers

10 West Wyoming Street, Las Vegas, 89102
+1 702-366-9166
sincitypickers@att.net

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SinCityPickersLV

Oh yes, fish tacos.  Something everyone always raves about and I usually find weird or wrong.  But not this time.   Hanging out at VegasStreats (a food truck rally-slash-music-fest that happens the second Saturday of every month across the street form the El Cortez on 6th and Fremont Street), I stumbled upon the Quality Food Catering food truck.   The delicious smells wafting from the grill inside stopped me as I walked past the row of trucks, trying to decide what to eat. 

Jorge – the owner of the truck – asked me if I would like to try anything.  The smells making my stomach growl louder, but being unable to pick between the various dishes, I turn to my favourite, and always interesting reply,

“What’s your best taco that isn’t beef?”
“Ah, the fish tacos”, Jorge replies.
“I’ll take one of those without the tarter sauce”

(I can’t eat cow products in the USA)

I hand over a few bucks, and wait anxiously for a fish taco.  Something I know is not usually my favourite, but since I’m told it’s the best, I’m going to go with it.  Plus the smells coming from this truck are intoxicating and the food I see coming forth from the truck window looks like fresh, homemade food from your grandmother’s kitchen.

After a few minutes, Jorge comes over with the most unbelievable, freshest looking fish taco I have ever seen.  

It’s a large piece of non-fishy smelling fish (score 1 for freshness), wrapped in 2 authentic corn taco shells (score 2 for using good taco shells, not some gringo’d up version), and fresh, crispy vegetables (score 3 for fresh crunchy veggies).  I can’t eat this quick enough. My stomach is screaming at me to dig in, but I already know this is about to be the first fish taco I’ve ever liked, nay, loved, and I NEED to get photos of it before I devour this little basket of awesome.

So after my mini photography session where I am obviously in the way of other patrons trying to also eat, I take my first bite. 

This is delicious!  Even without the tarter sauce (which I bet is even more amazing), the fish is as fresh as I guessed, no fishy taste, just clean, flakey, crispy goodness. The veggies crunch, the soft corn tortillas wrap all the ingredients in a layer of earthy flavour.  I added a bit of the  tomatillo sauce on the taco next, which was as fresh as the salsa my dad makes right after he picks tomatillos off the vine in our garden.  That fresh! 

As I’m devouring this amazing fish taco, Jorge brings me over a sample of the filling for the veggie tacos.  A little bite size cup of hot, steamy corn and zucchini.  I have no idea what they do to it, but neither the corn or zucchini taste like plain corn or zucchini.  The zucchini was roasted just right so it wasn’t slimy, and the corn had some other flavour in it that I can’t remotely start to guess at, but it gave the whole thing an earthy, spicy feeling (not actually spicy, but you still had the feeling of spices…I cant explain it, just go try it).   Jorge told me the veggie taco is filled with this amazing mysteriously marinated veggie medley and rice.

Next time I eat at Quality Food , I’m getting the veggie taco!

I highly recommend searching out Quality Food Catering next time you are in Vegas.

Quality Food Catering

email: qfsjmore@yahoo.com

Facebook: Quality Food Catering

Twitter: What A Taco

Website coming soon.

JetBlue is one of my favourite airlines.  They have been since the first time I flew them.  TVs in every seat, tons of leg room, and super friendly and funny staff.   This is why I am so excited that JetBlue now flies to my new home country – Colombia!

Until recently, to come into Colombia on an affordable-ish flight, you had to arrive through Bogota.  But starting Nov, 2nd, 2012 – JetBlue started their new route from JFK Airport in New York direct to Cartagena, Colombia.

No more layovers in cold, rainy Bogota!  No more dealing with airlines that have ridiculous hidden fees.  Now I can fly back and forth from my home in Medellin, Colombia to native country, the USA, through sunny, Caribbean, Cartagena.   Coming here I flew Las Vegas to JFK to Cartagena and LOVED it! 

Upon arriving to the airport, I was well aware that I can’t board the plane with a one way ticket to Colombia.  Even though I have flown in and out of Colombia 4 times already, all on one way tickets, and knew that Colombia does not require you to have a way out of the country to come in (especially when you tell them you are engaged to a Colombian)…but this would be the first flight on a North American airline…so I knew they are probably not aware of how lax Colombian customs actually is, and have to go by the official requirements. (It’s a liability thing.  I understand and am fine with it.) 

As expected, I needed a  return flight.  The employees at the  check counter were extremely nice, even calling their manager to see if there was any way around me having to buy a return ticket I won’t use.   There wasn’t    I was ready for this though, and, over the phone,  bought a flight, I’m not using,  that returned to the USA in 90 days.  Luckily the woman helping me was married to a Dominican, understood my situation, and helped me find the cheapest possible ticket between Colombia and the USA, since I needed one only for show.

After buying the ‘for show’ return flight, the check-in counter hosts again were super friendly in allowing me to move some stuff between checked baggage so I could avoid the overweight baggage fees (as much as possible).  Since I was moving to Colombia, I had 3 checked bags – but on JetBlue, the first checked bag is free!      

One of my checked bags contained knives, big decorative and scary looking knives that I have collected over the years.  It was unsure if the TSA would end up confiscating these or letting them on the plane.  I was aware I may lose these, but what does one of the JetBlue counter hosts do?

He offers to take the contact information for a friend of mine in Las Vegas, that way, if any of my items are not allowed on the plane, this employee said he will personally call my friend to pick up my items so I don’t lose them.   Luckily, all my items made it to Colombia, but the fact that this employee was willing to go beyond his required duties, offering to help me not lose my items, I found amazing and just a sweet thing to do.

Once I was through security and at the boarding gate, I introduced myself to the girl behind the JetBlue counter.  I told her what I do, and that I would like to know if its possible to board the plane, even 3 minutes early, so I can get some photos of the plane, for this post, before it fills with passengers.   She asked me to wait until the plane un-boarded its previous flight,  and the crew had their pre-flight meeting, and she would ask if this is possible.

As soon as the crew completed their tasks, she talked with the pilot.    The pilot came up to me, introduced himself, and told me “OF COURSE”.  A couple of minutes later, a crew member walked me on to the plane before everyone else.

Not only did the JetBlue crew let me take some photos of the plane, they ‘modeled’ for me,  then offered to turn the camera on me and asked me “Want a photo in the overhead compartments?

“Really? YES!” and I took off my shoes, and shimmied up to get this awesome photo.

After, a flight attendant asked me, “Want a photo in the cockpit?”

“THAT’S LEGAL?!?”

Having never flown before 9/11, I thought entering the cockpit was completely off-limits.  But the captain of this plane told me not only am I allowed to do it, I  can even post the photos on my blog and Facebook!  So look at me…I’m “flying” the plane! 

(ok, so the engine may not have even been turned on, and we are parked, and I wasn’t even actually touching the throttle, but it still looks cool!)

After these awesome and silly photos it was flight time.  JetBlue planes are awesome in that every seat has a TV.  The TVs hook up to standard headphones (which I accidentally checked mine).  You can buy headphones too, but you can also bring your own - for free.  They also serve a wide variety of snacks and drinks.  And if you ask for cookies, they give you two.   There is no skimping on snacks here.  After service, if you want anything else, you can just go in the back and ask, or just take them.  They commonly leave a bowl of snacks out for you.

The leg room on JetBlue is the most of any plane I’ve sat in before.  I sat in a regular seat, and in these, even with my camera bag under my seat, I can swing-kick my legs back and forth like a 2-year-old (the appropriate test of a plane’s legroom).  

I love flying JetBlue and try to fly them when possible.  They have some great sales and deals, are above and beyond with the customer service, and their planes are just unbelievably comfortable and modern.   They also don’t charge hidden fees, and carry-ons and your first checked bag is free. 

Yes.

FIRST CHECKED BAG IS FREE!

Their website is also extremely user-friendly and it is very easy to find out extra baggage/overweight fees, and baggage requirements.

One of the best parts about this flight, is the flight between JFK and Cartagena, was pretty empty so I got to stretch out in a whole row to myself!   I slept for most of the flight, and it was awesome.   This is a new route that I have a feeling will become more popular as people realize that JetBlue is the only low-cost carrier that actually IS low-cost (not full of hidden fees). 

I received a discount with JetBlue as part of a collaboration with them (see disclaimer below), but the original cost of my ticket when I booked it was only $408 from Las Vegas to Cartagena (one way).  Prices fluctuate, (as always)  but you can find deals even better than that during their sales.   JetBlue is great, and so is Colombia.   I totally recommend taking a week or two in sunny, tropical Cartagena, and flying super comfy JetBlue down there to do it.

On another note,

Starting June 2013,
JetBlue begins their direct flight between
Fort Lauderdale, Florida and
MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA!

So, if anyone wants to come visit me in Medellin, I highly recommend flying  JetBlue.   I can’t wait to fly this route myself.

CHEERS!

I received a media rate for this trip with JetBlue, but as always all opinions are honest and my own.  Plus, I loved flying with JetBlue before working with them, hence why I approached them. Click on the  JetBlue logo  to visit their website, and click here to see a map of all the awesome destinations they fly.

Everyone knows the lights, and The Strip at night, and the crazy costumed ‘tip’-artistes running around, but Las Vegas is full of amazing views that your beer goggled eyes probably missed.  This is what The Strip looks like long after the hordes of zombie-walking guys and gals have stumbled to their (or someone’s) hotel room for the better half of the day. This is a great time to see the strip calm and peaceful.

These are some photographs the Las Vegas Strip in a light you probably have never seen.  Sunday morning, 6am light.

The Fashion Show Mall

The Cosmo

Treasure Island

The Palazzo

The Venetian

Planet Hollywood

Siegfried and Roy Bronze Statue outside of the Mirage

Up and down The Strip

Even in the early morning, the Strip this empty is a rare occurrence.

Early Sunday morning The Strip is a peaceful and beautiful place to walk around.  More tourists should see it at this hour, but then that would also take away from the beauty the Strip has when not crammed with drunk people running into you.

CHEERS!