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Published: July 28th 2008
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My flight to Los Angeles was the first one to be delayed. I got to wait about an hour in the airport, then board the plane, then get off that plane because one of the warnings wasn't working and then get on another brand new plane and finally get on my way. Fun times. I finally arrived in LA sometime in the afternoon where I met my Great Auntie Wendy for the first time. She was kind enough to pick me up, give me some food and then take me to my hotel in Anaheim all in one afternoon! She also had my new laptop which I'm now typing on delivered to her house and brought it to the airport for me. It's a tablet and it's awesome! Thanks Wendy!
I settled in to the Best Western in Anaheim and went over to downtown Disney in the evening cause I'm cheap and didn't want to pay to get into the actual theme park! It's really just a bunch of shops that are Disney everything about them...even the carpet!
The next morning I had to be down to the reception to check in for the contiki tour by 7am, so
an early morning was needed. I got on the bus, started meeting people as we drove from Anaheim to Las Vegas, Nevada.
On the way we saw Joshua Trees, not that exciting, just trees but they dont grow in very many places at all. The name is a biblical reference as the Mormon's who saw them thought they looked like Joshua praying and thus the name came about.
We arrived in the early afternoon in Vegas and boy was it hot! It was easily 40 degrees celsius that day if not hotter. It was not too far a walk to the MGM Grand Casino so I went and checked that place out all afternoon as it was sooooooooooo good in the air-conditioning. These things are monsters as you can see in the pictures, they line the strip and the casinos and hotels are just huge, unbelievable just how big they are.
That night we had an included dinner at some Italian Restaurant, it wasn't very good but food is food, and I knew there would be much better things to come. That night the over 21s were going to a club and anyone else had a free
night. Before that though we had a 'surprise'. Our tour manager Todd made it out like the bus had broken down and we had to go and wait in the wedding chapel nearby for some cabs to take us back into the city (this was while we were doing a bus tour on our coach through the city). We went into the wedding chapel and it was an elvis one. They called two of the group members up and mock married them. It was so hilarious and we were all getting into the spirit of it! I walked around with Nia and Rachel and looked at a few different hotels and saw the Dancing Fountain outside the Bellagio for the rest of the night. It was simply amazingly spectacular! I love Nia she rocks my blooming world!!!! (Nia wrote that bit, not me lol) Walking through the Bellagio shops seeing things like Gucci, Prada, Cartier, Cloe, Armani and Tiffanys, it made me realise how this place just drips money. A quick cab ride home after the dancing fountains where the cab rider said we could do anything we want like "drink, smoke or have sex", we declined and went to
bed HAHA.
The next day I slept in!!! A free day in Las Vegas, I spent it with Nicole and we went to a variety of different casinos. Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, New York New York, MGM Grand (again). Each one with it's own theme, variety of gambling options and hotels and restaurants. We also went to the M'n'M store where you could customise your M'n'M colours and wording on them even!
In the evening we all went to see a variety show called 'V' where there was a mix of performers from jugglers to magicians and crazy Argentinian guys and drummers. All cool acts! After that show we went to the buffet at the Bellagio. The wait was long but the food was AMAZING...FREAKING AMAZING. This was the most elaborate buffet I have ever seen with just about every different type of food you could imagine and even ones you couldn't. And then there were the desserts, oh my god the desserts. I had four they were so amazing, marbled chocolate coated strawberries and mudcake and creme brulee and so much more! I could spend forever in there. After that we watched the dancing fountains outside the
Bellagio one more time as each time it's different and they dance to a different song. Seven of us decided to take a limo back to the hotel, it was amazing...a limo in vegas, so cliche!
Back to the hotel as the next morning we had to leave by 7:45am to drive to the Grand Canyon, quite a big drive.
The Contiki tour has been great so far, we have a 'day song' which is played every day we're on the bus. Our song is 'Home for a Rest'. The first time we heard it we were looking around thinking it was the most random song we've ever heard, but now we're singing along dancing in the bus to it, it's great fun! Driving days aren't fun, a day on a bus pretty much, broken up with stops at Wal Mart, which I'll tell you more about later but they're awesome. Met lots of great people and I cant wait to get to all these great places we're going.
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James
non-member comment
WOW
I don't care who you are, NOTHING tops crazy Argentinian guys. Nothing.