Days 9 & 10: Viva Las Vegas!

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We've been in Vegas for 2 days so far, tomorrow we are going to the Grand Canyon and we leave first thing Sunday so I guess we have seen and done as much as we can whilst we're here.

Yesterday, after catching up on lost sleep from the overnight bus here, we set off down ''The Strip''. It's really the hottest place I've ever been but luckily there are plenty of casinos with air conditioning just calling for you to go in and cool down! We went to New York New York Hotel which has a statue of Liberty outside and is made to look like the NY skyline with the major difference being the massive roller-coaster weaving in and out of the buildings ... very cool! In the MGM hotel we got an all you can eat buffet and we really did eat as much as we could, for desert I had chocolate ice cream topped with vanilla ice cream topped with sprinkles, oreo cookies, m&ms and chocolate chips =D The waitress thought it was hilarious but I can't decide if I should be proud of myself or ashamed! I think I'll say proud. After this we saw the lion enclosure. It has a glass walkway and the lions were playing with their handlers on top so we really them up close and personal! At this point we decided it was time for a drink so we went to a little bar opposite the Belaggio Hotel and underneath the ''Eiffel Tower'' and hydrated with some iced cocktails - margaritas and strawberry daquari! In Vegas happy hours are randomly throughout the day and last for at least 2-3 hours so there's always cheap drinks available. After our Dutch courage we decided to hit the roulette tables. This was definitely a highlight for us as we both won! Liz started with $10 and left with $39 and I started with $20 and left with $69! We made some friends on the table and saw 1 very nice guy lose the best part of $800 ... nightmare! After some more wandering around and photo taking we went back to our hostel - Sin City Hostel on Las Vegas Boulevard - where we convinced some of the guys there to come out with us. We'd got some vouchers for free entry into a few clubs and intended to get as much free stuff as possible! The drinks in Vegas are really expensive BUT if you're a girl you can pretty much blag free stuff everywhere. We got free drinks until 1am and entry into another club reduced from $20 each to $20 for 4 people. It's easily done! So the night was VERY successful overall.
After a pretty heavy night we spent most of today recovering. We wandered around the strip and went to see the famous water display at the Belaggio which was absolutely beautiful!
Tomorrow we're going to the Grand Canyon at 6am so we're having an early night tonight (that's a better excuse than we're still hungover from yesterday I think!). Hope you enjoyed this blog post.

Nosheen and Liz

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