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Published: August 6th 2007
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"The" Sign
It is in the middle of a median strip. Our friend drove over in the middle of traffic to let us jump out. Getting off the plane..
Slot Machines Everywhere...... Yes ...... In the airport terminal.....
have a bit of a gamble while waiting for your plane!!
So there are bright blinging lights everywhere in Las Vegas, even in the Airport. Most Airport's are out of town but the Las Vegas Airport is right near the strip. You can often see about 5 or more bright lights in a row in the sky - Planes lining up to land on the runway!!
A couple of hours earlier we were at the St Louis Airport. This was the first Airport that we came across that had shoeshine stalls. It was very interesting to us and so we got a shoe shine. At first we were worried it would seem a little racist as all the shoe shiners were African American. There were about 4 men at the stall we chose and no customers so they lavished all their attention on us. Once they found out we were Australian they spent the rest of the time trying out crazy australian accents for us and asking about what it is like back home. They were some cool dudes, and very entertaining.
Houses
Our friends Huge townhouse. No one has grass in Vegas (unless you are very rich) All yards are brown gravel Once again we were met by friends which is always a relief when going to a new place. Our friend had lived in Australia 7 years previously so it had been a while since we had seen eachother. Each of us now married with children. It is funny how easy you forget that it is hot outside. We stepped out of the Airport at around 9pm and the hot dry air was a shock. She lived only a few minutes drive from the Stip in a lovely townhouse and had a spare bedroom for us. This trip we have been spoilt - living in luxury. We headed home where milk and m&m cookies were waiting. One thing about Americans is they sure know how to make cookies... mmmmm.
The next two days we spent the day exploring The Strip and all it has to offer!!
Out of all that was on offer of course first stop was "The Star Trek Experience" which would be a once in a lifetime opportunity for my husband. It was fairly expensive, so I was going to forego seeing it, but he didn't want to go alone so I went
Star Trek
Yes, we paid an exorbitant amount to go into the Star Trek Experience aswell. It was pretty good, but definately too short for the cost ($40 each) as it only went for about an hour or two. After we had lunch in the Star Trek cafe which was pretty cool as the waiters were dressed up like Star Trek characters/aliens etc. There was also a space ship on the ceiling and the place was lit up with lots of neon lights.
We caught the monorail that goes between many of the Casino's because it was too hot to walk. Along the footpath's they have mist sprayers. They spray out a fine mist of water which is meant to help cool you down. It was so hot that they were being evaporated before it got to you. We stood under these for a while hoping to cool down. However the Airconditioning was wonderully cool in the Casino's. We looked around but most of the casino's stunk really bad from the mixture of moist airconditioning and cigarette smoke, so we avoided the gambling areas and just looked at the family friendly things.
We went to m&m world which just basically sells ALOT of m&m brand goods. It was four levels and
Eiffel Tower
Lots of "themed" places in Las Vegas you could get anything you imagine there. It had a bit of a tour about how they are made etc, basically a thing for kids with colours and characters etc. They best thing was a wall full of every colour of m&m's like a rainbow and you could buy them by colour. I think it had colours that m&m's arent normally, but they were more expensive than buying a normal packet so we didn't get any. Las Vegas was the first big place we had really been on this holiday and we went looking for souveniers. We didn't end up getting anything except for a CSI shirt that my sister had asked for. The souveniers were exactly the same type stuff that you would get at the Gold Coast except they had Las Vegas written on them. I am sure if we had had more time we would have found something worth buying but pretty much everything was tacky.
Later that night when it was cooler we went back to see the famous Bellagio dancing fountains. The water shoots up in time to music, it was really cool. However it was hard to get a good spot because
Mist sprayers
It was extremely hot in Vegas. These are mist sprayers to cool you down. Unfortunately it was so hot, the pretty much evoporated straight away of all the tourists. We were squished in amongst all these people and we tried hard not to lose our friends 4 year old son. It is hard to enjoy something when it is unbearable hot and you are sweating in a crowd of people. The fountains do something different each time with a 15 minute break in between. We stayed for 2 rounds then headed over to Excalabur which had games and toys and lots of things for children. We tried to win a stuffed Dragon for our daughter but failed 😞
We had organised to go swimming twice but in the end we ran out of time, though we would have loved a dip in a pool! We ate out Mexican with our friends ... mmmm Mexican is always good. We were going to rent a car and drive back to Salt Lake City to catch our flight but our friend insisted on driving us the 7 hours!! She asked her boss for the next day off and he said yes! So once again Chaffeur driven around America. We headed off with her and her son into the red rocks of Nevada and Utah. We stopped
M&M World
mmmmm yummy what more can I say? at Panda Express for dinner in St George. It was yummy. We met up with another acquaintance who had also lived in Brisbane and caught up with whats been happening since. We then drove on through the night and arrived at our friends brothers house at Midnight and jumped into bed in the basement at a persons house whom we just met.
We had a great time in Las Vegas but probably because our friends looked after us so much. There is lots to do in Vegas but it is all very expensive. Being the end of our holiday we didn't have too much money left, so we missed out on all that. I would have loved to have seen Cirque de Solei show "O" which is done all over water! There were also lots of billboards for all the stars that were in town. Every Casino had a different singer or show on each night. I thought Vegas would be cheaper as I had heard you could get hotel rooms for a dollar etc (which I am sure you can, but we didn't see any). The shows were all around $60- 100 per ticket so a little
out of our price range.
The next day we visited a few shops and bookstores in Salt Lake City and then on to the airport. We thought we were 2 hours earlier than we needed to be (A typo meant that the plane wasn't leaving at 1pm, but rather 11am) but we were actually right on time, unfortuneatly in this age of increased security 20 mins is not enough time to check in and get on your plane. We had a 3 hour lay over in Los Angeles, so if we could catch the next flight we could still make it to Australia.
Stay tuned for an interesting turn of events, crying, begging and pleading at the Los Angeles Airport!
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Jane
non-member comment
Catching UP
Ok Vegas looked interesting - I like the little details like the mist spray thing etc. Looking forward to the drama a LA airport! ;)