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Published: December 18th 2014
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Hi everyone!
The next stage of my trip took place in the USA. Now as many of you know, the USA is far from my top holiday destination, but as this was a round the world trip I decided that I would go there, see everything I wanted and now have no need to return!
Coming in to land over Los Angeles, where a Fijian asked me if this is what Britain looked like (to which I replied "no, its much greener and denser at home") I had arrived the other side of the dateline in yesterday - my second 12th October. Whilst everything had gone to plan on my trip so far, this is where the first problem arose...after doing some casual tourism around Downtown LA in the afternoon I arrived at my hotel in the evening only to discover that the room I had booked for the night had mysteriously been cancelled months ago, without being told and the hotel was now fully booked! - and with a Pink Concert nearby, so were nearly all the others...however after lot of phone calls, the very helpful man on reception had been able to find
me a new room.
The following day I took a coach to Las Vegas, which I had secured in advance for $1.50, with free Internet and power sockets! And this is where my Vegas story begins...only you know the saying "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas"...so sorry, I must keep this to myself 😉
Only joking - In fact I was even told, the saying has changed to "...Goes on the Internet!" and in this case, it certainly has!
Arriving on the first night I went up the tower at the Stratosphere hotel where I was staying to get a night view over the city. The following day I walked up The Strip, going in and out of the hotels, all of which were elaborate with their replicas of Jungles, Ancient Egypt & Rome, Paris, New York and my favourite - Venice (if only because it looked so much like the original, only cleaner), and all
of these hotels had their own amenities - pools, shops, casinos and even McDonalds and Starbucks. In many ways this place was like Dubai, not just because of the huge fountains, but the theme-park idea of building anything you want in the desert.
The day after this was the day I had booked myself an excursion to the Grand Canyon, which because of the Government Shutdown was threatened with closure - but luckily Arizona State was paying to keep it open for the week. The day was very long, taking around 7 hours one way to get to the canyon, and once there there wasn't an awful lot to do - as like Sydney Harbour, its nice and all that, but there's only so many pictures you can take of the same thing - however saying this, it was definitely worth it!
Taking a long lie in the following day I took a little flutter on the roulette in the Casino, winning and coming away with a $10 profit after continuing to play for a while after my win. I then went up the Stratosphere tower again, only in the day (this came free
with my hotel reservation, which, because it was the week, was just £35 per night for a room with capacity for 4 people) viewing the extreme rides at the very top of the tower, before heading down to the strip for the night time shows outside the hotels - pirate ships, fountains and volcanic eruptions!
This is one of the few places in the world where even after 3 days, I could go back and still be entertained. The following day I explored the Downtown area, before taking a coach back to Los Angeles.
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