The first time I walked down the Las Vegas Strip, it felt electric — neon lights, fountains dancing to Sinatra, strangers cheering over slot machines. For a moment, it truly felt like freedom. But then I started looking closer. A bride in a wrinkled white dress cried quietly behind a casino. A dealer at the blackjack table smiled mechanically, eyes half-dead from the night shift. On Fremont Street, a man in a Spider-Man costume asked me for a cigarette, then for five dollars. Vegas sells you the fantasy that you can be anyone for a night — rich, lucky, desired. But it never tells you what happens when the sun comes up and the lights turn off. Behind every jackpot, there’s someone who lost rent money. Behind every “what happens in Vegas” laugh, there’s silence on the flight home. Vegas isn’t freedom. It’s a mirror — showing you what you want so badly that you’ll pay to believe it. #Travel #LasVegas