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Published: December 31st 2010
Hello everybody,
This is my second blog from my USA-trip, there is one more to come after this one.
After San Francisco I flew to Los Angeles and spent christmas with Jared and his family, which was great! In the next blog I’ll tell more about my time in L.A with Jared and his family & friends!
The plan was to go to Las Vegas together with Jared, but he couldn’t get days off work so he couldn’t go anymore. I had doubts about going alone and Jared encouraged me to go anyway. Then I thought that I indeed should go and take advantage of the fact that I’m not far from Las Vegas and I don’t know when I’d be back around here. Then I booked my flight, made a reservation at a motel and booked a tour to Grand Canyon. I spent 3 nights in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas is a city in the state of Nevada, with about 2 million people. It’s actually located in a desert. It has a dry climate with very hot summers. Winters can get pretty cold and windy. It’s desert, which means it can be very hot and very
cold here. My last day here was very cold and there was a lot of wind, I hated it! Temperatures dropped to -3° C yesterday for sure!
It’s a world famous city for it’s entertainment, especially gambling! Big, luxurious hotels rise along the Las Vegas Boulevard, also known as “The Strip”. At night all these buildings are completely illuminated and decorated with lights, which surely is an impressive thing to see! The strip is busy, lots of traffic and people which made moving around very difficult at times. I normally took the bus service that runs along the Strip 24 hours a day, tickets costing $7 for 24 hours. The bus sometimes moved slowly due to the amount of traffic. I walked along a great part of the Strip during the day. At night I walked parts of it, visiting some casino’s and playing a little bit. Obviously I lost, hahaha, but not that much because I’m not a gambler at all! Of all the hotels on the strip, I liked Ceasers Palace the best. It’s very impressive and just beautiful from the outside. The volcano show at The Mirage runs every hour from 5 to 11pm and many
people gather there to see it. Same with the music fountain show at the Bellagio, this one is really beautiful especially at night with the lights. It runs every 15 to 20 minutes. While walking on the Strip, many people try to give you cards and flyers with pictures and telephone numbers of girls you can call. “Hot babes directly to you, starting from $50” etc. The only clubs I visited were one at New York New York Hotel and one in the Caesars Palace Casino (both were small clubs). I was in Vegas from a Monday until a Thursday so the nightlife wasn’t as good as it’s supposed to be in the weekend. I liked what I saw though. Jared kind of pushed me, encouraged me to just talk to strangers, just go towards the girls and talk to them, which is something I normally don’t easily do because I’m not a good talker. I dare do to it especially when I had eye contact already with the girl a couple of times, then the step isn’t too big to take. In a bar I approached two girls and just started talking to them and we had a nice
conversation; it didn’t last for too long because they had to leave, but I did it! In the Caesars Palace I danced and spoke to a woman but that was because she was looking at me all the time, so then I had the courage to step to her and dance and talk. Another great place was the Stratosphere Tower, located at the Stratosphere hotel. It’s a tower of 350 meters high with the best views over Las Vegas. The tower has three trill rides on top and a sky jump platform. I paid to do all the three rides, but the one of them was in maintenance, the Big Shot. I ended up doing only the X-Scream and the Insanity which are absolutely great! You need to have courage (and balls, hahaha) to do these rides. X-Scream is a ride where you sit in a wagon on a 10 meter track (I guess it was 10 meters). The track points down, down the city from the top of the tower, and the wagon goes forward with a high speed and then brakes when it approaches the end of the track.....so it feels as if you’re going to fall from
it all. The Insanity is a ride where you sit in a chair and the rides turns you in the air above the city....you keep making big circles in the air, high up!
Here in Vegas I met with a family member of some Bonerian friends of mine. His name is Heinrich Vaseur and works as a dealer in Caesars Palace Casino. I had his number and I called, and one evening I met him at the casino where we talked a little bit. He wanted to take me out to eat somewhere but he didn’t have enough time to do so, but he recommended me places to go. After all I liked Las Vegas, although it’s definitely not a place I would “love” to come back to. It’s great that I’ve seen it and experienced it. But the place is obviously very fake and the many people you see, are fake too ;-) . It’s all too decadent for my taste! One thing is for sure, it’s not a place to travel alone in my opinion! Maybe I should have stayed at a hostel to be able to meet people to go out with etc. But if I ever
come back, I won’t come alone that’s for sure! And if I come back, I’ll come more for the parties but in a different time of the year!
The tour to the Grand Canyon took about 12 hours from pick-up to drop-off. They picked me up at 6:15 and we were back in Vegas around 18:00. The tour first made a stop at the
Hoover Dam. It as built in 1931 on the border between Nevada and Arizona. It provides power to much of Nevada, Arizona and California. Thanks to this dam a.o Las Vegas had a chance to grow as it did. For the 30’s, it was a massive project because such structures had never been built before back then.
The Grand Canyon itself are world famous, it’s one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World! Formed due do erosion by water of the Colorado River a.o throughout millions of years, these canyons stretch for over 400 km. We made two stops, at the Eagle Point and the Guano Point . The area we went was called the “west rim” of the Grand Canyon. Guano Point was by far the best! There is the skywalk too, located
at Eagle Point. It’s a platform with a glass bottom you can walk on and look a few hundred meters down in the canyon. You’re not allowed to bring your camera with you, instead there were photographers of the company that runs the skywalk who take pictures of you and sell one for $30! Yeah right, such a bullshit!!! This made the whole skywalk experience kind of negative to me. It was very cold out there and it even snowed a little bit. It was very wet everywhere. While driving there, the driver told us that me might not even be able to see the canyon as it might be covered by coulds. Thank God that wasn’t the case!!! But it was very cold and there was wind! Here and there you see snow lying on the ground. Grand Canyon was definitely worth visiting!!! It’s just beautiful, breathtaking! The whole Grand Canyon area belongs to a native American-Indian tribe called the Hualapai. We had a great lunch at their ranch!
In the next blog I’ll tell about my experiences in Los Angeles during christmas and new year. For 2011 I wish to be able to continue to travel and
explore this globe because that's what I work for, and to keep doing my job with love and to do it even better with more dedication! I thank God for keep giving me good health, strength and blessings in order to do this all!
A Happy New Year to all of you, may all your good wishes become true in 2011 and God’s blessings! Show love and attention to your people and be good, be yourself and you’ll have a blessed life! Nobody is perfect, but in a world full of evil we should be the better ones among the wrong ones. Like Levi Silvanie sings: “Den un mundu yená ku maldat mi kier ta bon, mi ke t’e kos korekto den esnan robes....en todo kaso mi ke ser mi mes”. This song really touched me a lot, for me it’s the song of the year; great lyrics and a great message to everyone out there!
Elton
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Carmen
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Ohhh wat een heerlijke trip zeg! Ik ben daar zovaak geweest en elke keer is t alsof ik er voor t 1st ben! Cali/Nev/Ari blijven je verrassen mét al hun pracht! Fijn hoor, dat je dit mét ons dit deelt. Ik lees je reistverslagen graag!