My family and I went to Vegas this past weekend to celebrate my 21st birthday. It was my first time, so I had no idea what to expect. I knew it was a wild city full of drinking, gambling and partying, but experiencing it firsthand was something I'll never forget.

We stayed at hotel called, Bellagio, which is located in the center of The Strip. All of the hotels in Vegas are so different than any other hotels that I've been to. As expected, every hotel has a huge casino inside, but I was surprised to see that every hotel also includes a variety of restaurants and shops. The luxury hotels have the high end stores. The Bellagio is rated one of the best hotels in Vegas, so it has stores like, Tiffany, Gucci, Chanel, Fendi, Louis Vuitton and Prada. It was fun to window shop, but we didn't buy anything.

The food was phenomenal. My favorite meals were Italian and Chinese. We went to Rao's Italian the first night we got into town and I was excited because Italian is my favorite type of food. I chose the most basic menu item, spaghetti and meatballs, but it was far from basic. I was looking forward to Tao, the Chinese restaurant that has a nightclub upstairs. If you eat at the restaurant, you get into the nightclub for free. We went on a Saturday night, and the nightclub was definitely not as crazy as we thought it would be. I think because the restaurant is so expensive, the nightclub attracts an older crowd.

I would highly recommend seeing a show while in Vegas because that was one of my favorite activities. We saw an incredible show called, Absinthe. The performers were insanely talented; a lot of them were even on America's Got Talent.

The trip was a blast, but it was incredibly exhausting because we were out until 2 a.m. every night. Traveling is great, but I'm happy to be home and back into a regular routine.