U.S.A. Part 4 - Las Vegas and Texas

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Viva Las Vegas

With all the landmarks of Las Vegas it was easy to spot it through the plane window. Seeing this oasis of sin in the middle of the desert I couldn't help but be filled with excitement and anticipation. As soon as I stepped out of the air-conditioned airport I was hit by a wave of heat. It is disgustingly hot. I hit happy hour with my host before we did a lap of the main. I got dropped downtown which is the old section of Vegas. The casinos here are cheaper and less extravagant. After checking this area out I went to the more recent section of the strip and got a closer look at the all famous casinos.

I spent saturday afternoon lazing in the pool. Saturday night I hit the town. I planned on gambling at several casinos in short stints, but once I got going I found it hard to leave. So my Vegas gambling experience consisted only of Circus, Circus. I spent the night at the blackjack table. I could have walked away $100 up, but ended up losing about $80. But considering I had about 15 free drinks in that time, I don't feel too bad about it. In Vegas the casinos supply you with free drinks to keep you gambling. Las Vegas is 24 hours. The casinos never stop and you can drink on the street. There are people walking around with yard glasses filled with cocktails. My saturday night finished about 9am.

Being extremely hungover on sunday I didn't do too much. Watching The Simpsons movie was about all I could handle.

The next stop on my world tour was Houston, Texas. I didn't research this part of my trip at all before I booked my ticket. The reason I chose Houston was that it is the closest major city to the Texas coast, which I was keen to see. If I had of had better knowledge of the city I might have chosen to go to Austin instead.

Texas was even hotter and more humid than Las Vegas. I don't know how people live there. Everywhere is air-conditioned and because it is so hot outside the air-conditioning is freezing. People have their houses air-conditioned aswell so there is no fresh air anywhere.

Houston is very spread out which made travelling around on public transport a hassle. It took a long time to get anywhere. For some reason Houston is a cultural centre for Museums. I spent 2 days checking out the Museum of Fine Arts. It has a great variety of artworks. I also braved the heat and cruised around the parklands of Houston.
Towards the end of the week I had a fun night with a bunch of people watching some pre season football over a few beers. I followed that up by starting drinking at 9:30am the next day with one of my couch surfing hosts. We busted out the lilos and spent the morning drinking in the pool. In the afternoon I played my first game of frisbee golf. It's almost as hard as real golf.

We spent the weekend down in Galveston, the closest coastal town to Houston. It's a cool little town with an old-fashioned feel. Although the sea water is a dirty brown colour, it was sweet relief to get in the ocean and out of the heat. We ended up having a pretty big night. I was drinking a local Texan beer which tastes much better than most American beer.

Although a week was probably too long to spend around Houston, I had a lot of fun in my last few days there.

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Comments

[Tyrone]

Bright light city
Las Vegas sounds interesting. How were the loose slots?

[Scalesy]

It's only taken 5 months
G'Day mate, being a long time. I'm soooo frigin jealous. Big news mate, won't post it but will email soon. Stay safe, take care.