Viva Las Vegas!

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First of all this blog entry will be pretty much Las Vegas dominated.
The journey here was long blah dee blah and all that jazz. We got the coach down to Los Angeles and had to change bus to Las vegas. We saw the Hollywood sign, big highlight of the day.
Our bus at the Los Angeles greyhound terminal was delayed by an hour. Then there was a scare on the bus that there may have been a gas leak, the driver had to pull over a couple of times, and he nearly aborted the journey untill the whole bus protested including me and sam.
The journey was long, reading and listening to music and looking at the beautiful nevada desert sunset were the highlights.
We got into our motel/hostel just before 12. A couple of people helped uslocate it and gave us their cards/numbers. We got an invite to hang out at the exclusive Hilton Hotel pool by a masseuse named crystal which we obviously declined, because Vegas had soooooooooo much more to offer us!

Anyway to the good stuff....
We left the hostel at 9 30 and walked through the heat which must of atleast been 40 degrees centigrade, it was like walkign through a sauna, I wantd to take my shorts and t shirt off because it was so ridiculously hot made us horribly sweaty. Luckily our hostel wasnt too far from the strip, so it wasnt a huge walk to get to the casinos.
We look at all the major casinos; The stratosphere, Circus Circus, Caesars Palace, Ballagios, MGM, Treasure Island, New york new york, luxor and many other small ones.
On the way we took advantage of the casinos amazzzzzzzzzing attractions. Highlights being, the circus acts at the circus circus casino,the sirens of TI pirate show, the amazing bellagio water foudntain display whichw as my personal favourite, the MGm lions who had incestuous sex infront of our eyes, which sam got a lovely picture of...
We tried to go to the "legendary" coke museum which sam said had a million and one different cokes, but apparently it had closed...EIGHT YEARS AGO!
In all the casinos, they had the most amazing luxrious shops ever, i never thought I'd find a city which had a better selection of nice quality shops than rome, but vegas kicks ass royally!!!
We walkedup and down the strip and had lots of nice food (gelato icecream from bellagios!!!) and had an awesome time looking at the lights in the evening seeing lots of funky people etc, then we walked about 3 miles back to the stratosphere....
Here we did the most scary thing EVER. We went to the top of a building 1300 ft in the air and did three thrill rides at the top of it. Two of them involved beign dangled off the building wiht no support and the other shooting us up a pole amazingly fastinto the sky!! Was terrifying but worth it, and the views of the city from the obversation tower were amazing.
Aftr this me and sam were shattered and walked back to the hostel, on the way we were asked by a random black man if we had any jibber jabba...weobviously said "What?!" then realised he wanted ecstacy pills.
When back at the hostel we watched the most hilarious adverts for about 2 hours up till 2 30 in the morning was hilarious; slim supreme, ronscoe knives!

We started up walking down the strip again only on the other side to see the casinos that side of the strip. But the first thing we did was go to a half price show ticket outlet and book tickets for a show in the evening! We thought we couldnt come to vegas without seeing a show or gambling...I joke.
The show was for the world greatest magic show!!! ....
We walkd down the strip in the sweltering heat going in more casinos, the highlight beign the venitian where they have gondileers going through the buildign takign people around and singing to them, also there was accordian players and people dressed in period dress, it was magical.
Another interesting one we went to was the Paris casino where they have a replica of the Eiffel tower, we had lovely crepes. After more walking down the strip looking at the sights, we had to trek back to our show which started at 7 00 pm. It was at the smaller old school greek isle casino which was more intimate but out the way, we and sam were dehydrated and tired when we got there and all we wanted to do was have a drink.
The Show was entertaining and there was some good magic displayed and some cheesy obvious tricks and some funny jokes, the waitresses were really incompetent and as me and sam were thristy it took and hour when we got there to have a drink!
After the show we walked a mammoth walk all the was 3 and a half miles BACK up the strip again to the New York New York casino to do the Manhattan express rollercoaster. After a long wait we finally got on,it was amazing but the thrills of the stratosphere the day before had prepared us for the thrill it was awesome!
After that we made our way back stopping off at bellagios to watch our third foundtain show! and have another beautiful gelato ice cream., me and sam for a tip for the waiters and wiatresses left a clown face with a fez and bowtie made from coins and cups, we saw them laugh when we left the place!
The song the ballagio fountain played was the perfect way to end our time in las vegas. It was Elvis's Viva Las vegas. Perfect.
We then headed back to our hostel avoiding the drug dealers. Before bed we watched more amazing adverts; "THe H20 MOP, IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!"....
We then went to sleep and woke up today and packed, and we are just about to go play table tennis in 37 degree heat before getting the bus for our 12 hour ride to seqouia!
Update you soon.
Glad you have the internet Rozie, phone me soon.
Hope your having a nice time mum and dad!

Love Jamie (Jay) Mattick

xxxxx

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