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Published: November 24th 2006
Going over the International Date Line meant we arrived in Los Angeles..
before we technically left Auckland, which gave us a great "Back to the Future" moment.
The hostel in LA was luckily just between Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards, so we just wandered around the walk of fame, Manns Chinese Theatre (where we went to see Borat the movie) and up to the Hollywood sign before spending a day in Universal Studios.
There was a funny moment one morning when Thomas told me he had woken in the middle of the night to hear 2 people talking about hiding a gun....until we remembered signs reminding us of road closures due to a movie being filmed outside the hostel from 2am to 7am that week. Must keep an eye out for "Smooth" whenever it gets out!
Las Vegas....well... we couldn't have picked a WORSE weekend to arrive in Las Vegas. Not only was it "convention weekend" with about 20 different conventions on, not only was it Veterans weekend with a national holiday on the Friday...BUT ALSO, the bleedin' Rolling Stones were playing a "one-weekend-only" tour which meant that every single hotel on the strip was booked out (or it only
had the $550 per night room available)...so we spent our weekend relegated to Fremont Street, resulting in a soul-destroying 45min bus journey to the strip every day!
No harm, we were there to enjoy ourselves (and to catch the UFC event on in the Hard Rock Hotel) and we made the most of the buffets, with dinner at the Bellagio and brunch at Wynn's (with unlimited champagne!) taking the edge off the inevitable losses at gambling. No luck at blackjack, I actually won some on the slot machines....but not enough to cover previous losses so the accountant in me knew when to fold 'em and leave the tables!
The most fun of the weekend was the weighins at the UFC event, (the towel-covered nude weigh-in's to ensure making weight being my favourite part of it!) and we saw plenty of the lads, including big John McCarthy, Dana White, Joe Rogan and Bruce Buffer. With the busy weekend, couldn't get a trip to the Grand Canyon, so made do with a quick trip round the Outlet Malls which gave us a quick retail fix, before rounding off the weekend with an evening in (where else) the Irish pub in
New York, New York casino where the singer in the band was from Bohola in Mayo, and we met up with a couple from San Francisco who knew some of my Geesala neighbours....you just can't go anywhere!
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