what happens in AC, stays in AC (unless you write about some of it).

Last Wednesday, I hopped in the car with my best friend Meagan, and we drove down to Harrah's in Atlantic City, NJ. We were excited beyond words the whole ride down, and even more thrilled that our two friends Katherine and Nicole were about two hours behind us. We booked a room two weeks prior in the harbor tower, one of the older ones of the four existing, but still awesome. It had two queen size beds and a couch, perfect for the four of us, plus our friend Alyssa was meeting us down there on Thursday night and she is the perfect hotel couch sized person.

We explored the main floor for a bit while we waited for Katherine and Nicole to get there, and made our first purchases at the Pandora store. We both bought the exclusive (to AC and Vegas) dice charm, which is something I was on the fence about because I don't wear my bracelet all too often anymore, but I knew that I only had room for one more charm and when I worked with Pandora product I always thought how fun it would be to have that one, so I caved. It's really adorable and will remind me of my trip for sure.

After the girls got to the room, we went down grab a quick something for dinner before trying our luck at the slots and getting ready to go out that night. I am not much of a gambler because I don't make that much money, so I put five dollars into a slot machine and on the first night I lost all but 20 cents. Katherine did the same and ended up breaking even. It was the luck of the Irish apparently.

That first night we decided to check out 'The Pool after dark', which is the hotel's indoor pool turned into a night club with fancy lights, several bars, an outdoor rooftop bar, and of course, the giant pool. Wednesday night was a little meh. We had high hopes, and it turned out that the main crowd at the pool on a Wednesday were guys that wanted to come up behind you and pelvic thrust a bit. No. So we had fun, but we prayed that the next two nights would consist of more dancing and less Malibu bay-breezes.

The second day, me and Meagan went on a little excursion of our own, to be written about in another post, but if you follow me on instagram or twitter, you can probably guess what I'm talking about. Then we met K & N at the Pier Shops in Caesar's Palace. Holy moley that hotel is large and in charge. It was pretty overwhelming just following the signs to get to the shops. While we were on the second floor we noticed the beach right below us and a sandcastle building contest, so we walked along the boardwalk to the beach to check it out.

We only saw the very beginning stages of the building process for the World Championship Sand Sculpting competition 2013, but the artists had created this awesome sculpture together that people could see when they first walk down to the beach, and to take pictures in front of. That was one of the coolest things because apparently this competition is a really big deal, and we didn't even know it existed, let alone that it would be down there when we were. After that, we headed back to the hotel, got beautified, and went to an amazing dinner at Dos Caminos, the hotels tequila bar and Mexican restaurant.

We started the night off with a giant bowl of guacamole, a basket of fresh home made tortilla chips, and tequila-based drinks. I got a pomegranate blueberry margarita that was out of this world. Everyone's food looked delicious; I got chipotle brisket enchiladas that came with a really spicy sauce over them, which was sooooooo good. I didn't even have time to think about taking a picture of them because I dug right in as soon as they were put in front of me. After a few drinks and plenty of toasts to a so-far awesome vacay, we went back to the casino to try our luck again.

By the end of it all, my total loss in AC was $9.99, Nicole's was $5.00, and Katherine's was $10.65. It took a long time to explain Kath's losses to everyone because she kept going up and down on the machines, though never going over her original bets. She kept thinking she was up when she wasn't, ripped one of her vouchers out of the Mermaid's Gold machine into two pieces (above), and then finally decided that she would put a quarter into the Emerald City machine (even though I explicitly reminded her that the machines only take bills) and broke it. That was the last time we gambled. She cashed her voucher for 25 cents and I kept mine for a penny because I thought it would be really patronizing to have a penny shoot at me out of a machine.

Alyssa arrived at around 9:45, so we pumped her full of tequila while she got ready, and we took obligatory photos in the room before catching a cab to the Tropicana to check out their nightclub 'Providence'. I think that Thursday night was definitely the most fun just because we danced the entire time, which is all I want in a night out really. We stayed up late in the hotel room eating guacamole & tostitos and reminiscing, which is the best part about a vacation - not having to go home to separate houses after going out.

On Friday we went to lunch at the little cafe in our hotel and ate delicious sandwiches. Since the weather was kind of crappy, again, we decided to head to the Tanger Outlets down by where the club was the night before, and do a little bit of shopping. I bought a few goodies for my hair and got a free iced tea from starbucks because the barista was practicing making drinks. Awesome. By then it had turned out to be a pretty nice day, so it was beautiful out while we kept walking around the shops. We went to dinner at the hotel, which was delish (all of the food we ate was so good), and we had jello shots for dessert to kick off our night, as you do in AC.

We decided as a group to go back to the pool party after dark that night because we got handed free passes. At this point we were all feeling a little lighter in the wallets, so it definitely is the reason we were so easily swayed, but it turned out that the Friday night crowd was much better. There was still a lot of pelvic thrusting, but there was much more dancing, so it was worth freezing our bodies every time a weird guy approached us from behind to be able to continue dancing to fun music together on our last night. On our walk back to the room from the pool we found an advertisement for the Emerald City machine, and this happened:

On Saturday morning we packed up all of our things, cleaned our disgustingly messy room, and checked out of the hotel. After a bit of breakfast we went up to the rooftop sun deck for some rays before leaving for good, which was a great choice. Before getting in the car we decided to get some gelato from the cafe we went to for brunch every day, because after three days of getting free samples but being too full to enjoy it, we were hungry for it.

All in all, Atlantic City was what I pictured and more. We didn't have the best weather, but we spent our time well and feel like we did all we wanted to, which is the most important. It was nice to have some quality time with some of my besties and get away from Long Island for a minute. A great kick-off to getting things on my summer bucket list crossed off.