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Next we crossed the walkway from the New York, New York over Las Vegas Boulevard (The Strip) to the MGM Grand. The Grand resembles a huge plus sign from the air, with tall narrow wings extending from a center. The wing extending towards the front of the hotel tapers down to the ground in the extreme front with the other three wings maintaining a uniform height. The most distinctive feature of this hotel shows only at night when the entire building is bathed in green light. There's an exhibit of lions inside The Grand. We'll try to go see them tomorrow.
Finally we made our way down to the street level so that we could enter the M&M's store. The store has three floors of M&M bric-a-brac and candy. Huge canisters of M&M's line the wall in the back of the store, each with a different color. There must have been twenty different colors of M&M's. Ann thought of buying maroon and gold and sending them to a few fellow Redskins fans. They didn't have burgundy but the maroon was a close approximation. The store also sold various ice creams flavored with candy bars produced by the Mars corporation.
Connected to the M&M's store was a Coca-Cola "store". The Coca-Cola store was partially a museum and partially a gift shop. We took a tour and learned about the history of the soft drink company. They had copies of the original bottling agreements. Their museum was filled with Coca-Cola memorabilia, including vending machines, signs, and gasoline pumps. A theater continuously played all the Coca-Cola commercials ever aired on television (or so they claimed - I didn't verify this). A soda jerk demonstrated the mixing of syrup and carbonated water and gave a lively presentation. Finally the tour included soda fountains with thirty Coca-Cola soft drinks sold around the world. A Japanese soda contained beta-carotene and a Korean soda contained ginger beer. Each taste proved interesting. The tour finally gave way to a two-floor gift shop.
We continued our walk up The Strip a little ways, deftly avoiding those who wanted to shove literature in our faces. We didn't get far before we turned around and went back to our hotel. It had been a long day.
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