Viva Las Vegas
Las Vegas (Circus Circus Hotel) - 36° 8'13.04"N 115° 9'47.88"W
I flew into Vegas last Thursday evening and made my way from the airport to my hotel (Circus Circus). On the way to the hotel I drove passed huge and fancy looking buildings like the Luxor, the Wynn, Caesars Palace, the Belaggio........I was excited to see what my hotel was going to look like!
It was crap.
It looked like something that Blackpool would be embarrassed by. Built way back at the start of the Vegas boom and not changed much since! But I got it cheap and I was only here for a few days so I got on with it.
Quick shower and a change of clothes and I headed off to the New York New York to find my mate Kieran.
The hotels and casinos are just as impressive on the inside as they are on the outside. Not only that.........but if you gamble...........you drink for free!
I should point out here that I didn't blow the scholarship money with the high rollers at the poker table! I took a seat at the 5 Cents slot machine, put a dollar in, caught the eye of the dinks waitress and ordered a beer for free! Makes perfect economical sense to me! Obviously, tips rule supreme in Vegas, more so than the rest of the country where they're still the practiced norm. This was something of a tough one for Kieran to get to grips with though, especially coming from Huddersfield, and on more than one occasion when politely reminded by a waitress or bar man that they operate on tips, I'm pretty sure that I heard Kieran mutter something about what "not to do with broken glass".
Later that evening Kieran and I met up with a young lady called Brittaney, who was the daughter of Anna and Rod, the host family that I had just stayed with in Salt Lake city. She and her friends, all students at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, very kindly showed us around.
The next day, we headed to the Stratosphere. It's a big tower at the northern end of the strip and from the top you can see all of vegas. There's also theme park rides at the top.
Two of the rides dangle you out over the edge of the tower so that you're looking I don't know how many hundred feet straight down at the street below! We were asked if we wanted to ride them..........Kieran gave the guy another tip.
Instead, we chose to have a go on the third ride, which fires you straight up in the air to the highest point of the tower, before you free fall back down again. Bearing in mind that you're already a long way up and you can't see anything but the streets of Las Vegas hundreds of feet below you, I don't mind admitting that I thought I was going to die!
On Saturday we had an early start, got picked up by a minibus from our hotels and driven to the airfield to board a helicopter. The helicopter flew us out across the desert to the Hoover Dam, over the mountains and down into the Grand Canyon. The canyon is unbelievable as I'm sure you can imagine, especially from the inside of a helicopter.
Grand Canyon - 36° 9'31.68"N 112°16'14.59"W
We spent the rest of the day walking round Vegas again, before meeting up with Brittaney and co later on for another night out.
All in all, Vegas is awesome. Very loud, large, tacky, brash and over the top.........but it is in America after all, and if you can be prepared to have a good time without letting that kind of thing bother you then it's definitely the place to go!
On Sunday I caught a flight to Los Angeles.
M
I flew into Vegas last Thursday evening and made my way from the airport to my hotel (Circus Circus). On the way to the hotel I drove passed huge and fancy looking buildings like the Luxor, the Wynn, Caesars Palace, the Belaggio........I was excited to see what my hotel was going to look like!
It was crap.
It looked like something that Blackpool would be embarrassed by. Built way back at the start of the Vegas boom and not changed much since! But I got it cheap and I was only here for a few days so I got on with it.
Quick shower and a change of clothes and I headed off to the New York New York to find my mate Kieran.
The hotels and casinos are just as impressive on the inside as they are on the outside. Not only that.........but if you gamble...........you drink for free!
I should point out here that I didn't blow the scholarship money with the high rollers at the poker table! I took a seat at the 5 Cents slot machine, put a dollar in, caught the eye of the dinks waitress and ordered a beer for free! Makes perfect economical sense to me! Obviously, tips rule supreme in Vegas, more so than the rest of the country where they're still the practiced norm. This was something of a tough one for Kieran to get to grips with though, especially coming from Huddersfield, and on more than one occasion when politely reminded by a waitress or bar man that they operate on tips, I'm pretty sure that I heard Kieran mutter something about what "not to do with broken glass".
Later that evening Kieran and I met up with a young lady called Brittaney, who was the daughter of Anna and Rod, the host family that I had just stayed with in Salt Lake city. She and her friends, all students at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, very kindly showed us around.
The next day, we headed to the Stratosphere. It's a big tower at the northern end of the strip and from the top you can see all of vegas. There's also theme park rides at the top.
Two of the rides dangle you out over the edge of the tower so that you're looking I don't know how many hundred feet straight down at the street below! We were asked if we wanted to ride them..........Kieran gave the guy another tip.
Instead, we chose to have a go on the third ride, which fires you straight up in the air to the highest point of the tower, before you free fall back down again. Bearing in mind that you're already a long way up and you can't see anything but the streets of Las Vegas hundreds of feet below you, I don't mind admitting that I thought I was going to die!
On Saturday we had an early start, got picked up by a minibus from our hotels and driven to the airfield to board a helicopter. The helicopter flew us out across the desert to the Hoover Dam, over the mountains and down into the Grand Canyon. The canyon is unbelievable as I'm sure you can imagine, especially from the inside of a helicopter.
Grand Canyon - 36° 9'31.68"N 112°16'14.59"W
We spent the rest of the day walking round Vegas again, before meeting up with Brittaney and co later on for another night out.
All in all, Vegas is awesome. Very loud, large, tacky, brash and over the top.........but it is in America after all, and if you can be prepared to have a good time without letting that kind of thing bother you then it's definitely the place to go!
On Sunday I caught a flight to Los Angeles.
M
posted by Wallace at
6:44 PM
1 Comments:
To those of you that have tried to leave comments on this post........my Mum and both my Grandmothers are reading this!
I'll answer your questions when I get back! - promise
M
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Wallace, at 5:29 PM
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