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Health & Fitness

A Pocket of Surprise in Las Vegas

While Vegas is known for the unconventional, this teenager found something even more so on her trip to Sin City.

Summer means plenty to a teenager, but mostly, it means one very special thing: Sleep.

Unfortunately, during my first week of summer, I didn’t get very much of that. It was more like school, minus the studying and learning part: I took a road trip with my family and our family friends to Disneyland, the Grand Canyon, and Las Vegas.

The reason why I compare it to school (mentioning school during summer? A teenage sin to say the least!) is that we hit as many places in a one-week period as possible. I wasn’t getting much sleep, we were always on the road, and it felt like frantic fun was the norm. Yeah, not too far off from the past nine months.

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One particular incident that really sticks out in my mind is so subtle that most people wouldn’t think of it again, let alone write a column about it. But it really resonated with me.

It was my first time in Las Vegas, and my eyes were wide open in sheer disbelief. The hotels are works of art in and of themselves, and entertainment is everywhere. One night, however, we returned from a particularly late visit to The Venetian and needed to walk a couple blocks to get to our car.

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I figured I would handle the situation as I typically do — make no eye contact, talk to no one, and keep on walking. But this was no San Francisco. I felt less safe as I saw that everyone had an alcoholic beverage in their hands as they sauntered along the sweltering hot Las Vegas Boulevard. And I was uncomfortable with the foreign eyes watching me as I attempted to flee to the safety of my air-conditioned car. It’s hard to explain, but needless to say, I was uncomfortable.

All eleven of us traveling together stopped in our tracks, though, when we heard the musings of an aspiring guitarist. With his “Karma Jar” placed on the floor welcoming any monetary encouragement, he strummed and plucked in an unconventional way.

The young man laid the guitar on his lap and mainly played the neck of the instrument, producing a unique sound and developing a growing crowd around him. For a moment, all of us not only stopped our long trudge to The Cosmopolitan car garage but also ended our fussing over the suddenly strange city. That stranger put us at peace.

It may sound completely cliché in words, but it’s true that his aura reminded me why I love music so much. For a moment, the negative could be set aside, and we renewed our appreciation for the city that is Las Vegas.

The young man will probably never know me, nor will he remember my sister who scrambled to put some change in the Karma Jar. But since getting back from the trip, no one has forgotten the street guitarist who strums better than August Rush. He reminded me what Las Vegas started as — a pioneering idea pitched in hopes of starting something new. Not only is that Las Vegas, but that’s America.

We left the city with a new understanding, fond memories, and hopes that the young man could accomplish his dreams just like everyone else before him.

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