In 2002, when seven strangers took over an entire floor of The Palms Casino Hotel in Las Vegas, it made for one of the most memorable seasons of The Real World, and one that wholeheartedly embraced the city’s nickname of Sin City.

Arissa Hill was one of the seven strangers we would end up getting to know.

Currently, Hill resides in Boston, working as a chef. She also runs a food blog and is putting together a cookbook focused on eating healthy and organic without busting one’s budget. In addition to her culinary exploits, Hill recently re-signed with Maggie Inc., the modeling agency that sent her on the path to Vegas.

Though she happily admits she’s “definitely not the same person” she was during her time on The Real World, Hill notes, “There are elements of that girl in me now.

“My curiosity is the same, and my desire to have really dope experiences, it’s still there, it’s still prevalent, and it’s still passionate.”

Myspace caught up with Hill to find out more about her experiences on The Real World — including a crazy night that wasn’t seen by viewers — and why she did one, and only one, Real World/Road Rules Challenge.

MTV Classic has been airing marathons of early seasons of The Real World. You know they're going to get to Vegas. When they do, what are you most looking forward to seeing again, and least looking forward to seeing again? (Since the interview, MTV Classic actually did air this season.)

I have only ever watched maybe three episodes of my original season, and after three, that was enough. I didn’t need to see any more. I’ve never really gone back and revisited it in any real sense.

What I do get excited about is the nostalgia that it brings back. When they play a marathon, it’s kind of like a gentle reminder, like, You did this. I get to go back to those feelings, which is really cool. It was a cool experience.

Knowing what you know now, if you could go back, and give advice to yourself on the day you arrived at the hotel suite, what would you say?

I would probably tell myself to have fun a lot earlier. Funny enough, even though it doesn’t look like it, for the first two months I really didn’t do anything. There were the first three nights, and after those three nights I was so into being a good girlfriend I would sit in the house and read books. I would have probably really let loose a lot earlier.

Would you have broken up with your boyfriend before going on the show?

Oh absolutely. I would have gone there single as all hell. I would have been like, “Listen little girl, you’re about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, have nothing holding you back.”

Did being in those particular accommodations change the way you view hot tubs forever?

(Hot tubs) and pools. I don’t think they could print enough money for me to step into a hotel pool, or Jacuzzi. Never again.

Did you bring home a souvenir from the house that maybe MTV didn’t know you came home with?

I got an eight ball. I got an eight ball from the pool table.

I’m glad you said “from the pool table.” That’s an important part of that sentence.

[laughs] Yes.

Oh, and we had the whole floor (for the show), I think it was the 28th floor of The Palms. Maybe three rooms were the control room, but there were these other rooms they had just walled off.

Something that you didn’t see was that maybe about three weeks before we vacated, one night at four or five in the morning, we were being reckless, and I discovered the walled up room, and broke into it. I pulled off this thing and ended up getting into a suite that had been walled off completely. It was a full, complete, walled off, suite.

I remember Irulan and I climbed through the hole, and we went into the suite. We came out with bathrobes and toiletries. So I did take a sweep from a room that I discovered in our wall on the 28th floor.

You must have been like, “We totally could’ve had private bedrooms!”

I was so upset, because I was like, if I had found this earlier you guys would have never ever found me.

You are now really into healthy living, which a lot of people who watched the show may find interesting, because you were shown smoking A LOT. When did you trade cigarettes for organic food?

I only smoked cigarettes for like two years. It’s crazy, because once I got to California, that was when the lightbulb went on, and everything became extremely organic. I wanted to just put the best things in my body, and it’s paid off tenfold, because I feel great. It literally changed everything for me, so yeah, to look back and see myself smoking, not only smoking cigarettes, but smoking fucking Newports. Ugh.

That hallway must have smelled awful.

Still, years later, it’s embedded. Alton was smoking Marlboros. Irulan was smoking. All of us were smoking, and not one of us smoke now.

I liked the fact that there was never a fight about the smokers having to smoke outside of the living area.

Nobody was trying to pretend that cigarette smoke wasn’t the most disgusting thing ever. We all knew it was absolutely atrocious, and disgusting, and rude.

How did anybody deal with me then? I don’t want people near me when they smell like smoke, so I can’t even fathom how I had one friend, or how I even went on one date.

Five years after the show aired you did a seven episode Reunited special. If that offer were to be presented to you today, would you want to see everyone again?

I always want to see everyone. They’re the only people on this planet that truly know what that experience was like that we lived together, so I always want to see them, and I’m gonna always want to know how they’re doing, because I’m gonna have that connection with them for the rest of my life.

You also competed in a Real World/Road Rules Challenge. You just did one, though, you didn't make a career out of it like some folks have. What made you want to do it, and what made you only want to do it once?

The idea of going and playing games in sometimes exotic locations was inviting, and appealing. Then the reality of it was atrocious.

They asked us, “What is every single one of your fears?” They heard them, and they placed me in front of all of them.

On the one hand I was glad I faced every single one of my fears, whether I was successful at it or not is another story. However, I wouldn’t make a career out of it, because something that I just discussed with Melissa Beck, who did The Real World in New Orleans, the idea of trying to melt ice with your body for 18 minutes for a lifetime of clothes from Abercrombie, or eating bugs for a Tempur-Pedic mattress is not a viable career option after a certain age. You have to look at your life and say OK, what am I doing? Am I letting somebody make me look like an asshole?

At that point it may be time to log on to LinkedIn.

You know, let me just go back to the real world and just get a fucking job.

A regular job can have its drawbacks, but it’s still better than eating bugs.

Seriously. I was terrified of bugs, but I was presented with a challenge where I either had to eat the bugs, or get into the glass coffin with the bugs. The prize was a Tempur-Pedic mattress.

I was terrified, but I got in that coffin, and was in there for like three and a half hours. (Viewers) get such an extreme, edited version.

I did that challenge with Mark Long, and we decided to get out at the same time, because he was like, “Arissa, I want to get out of this so bad, but if I get out of here before you my life will be ruined as far as being a man, so if we could just make the decision to get out at the same time that would be great.”

Three hours was not a good time to choose. Three minutes would’ve been a much better time.

But we had to give them a chance to chew up all of those bugs and spit them in a cylinder, which, when I think about it, is literally one of the most disgusting sentences I’ve ever uttered.

Tell me this ruined the Tempur-Pedic mattress for you.

You know, I now refuse all Tempur-Pedic.