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Published: August 10th 2011
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VEGAS!!!
By Rachael
Wow, well what can be said except we had the time of our lives - definitely one of the most fun places of the whole trip, not surprising really. I didn't really know what to expect from Vegas. Obviously I knew it was the place to go to gamble and party, but I had no idea what the reality would be.
Please note: some details have been ommitted - this is Vegas after all. Also apologies in advance to parents etc that this blog predominantly deals with alcohol-fuelled events.
So most people that go to Vegas stay in big hotels with huge labryinth casinos on the ground floor and with amazing swimming pools where they can laze about during the day. Not us. We rocked into town on the Greyhound bus with our rucksacks and stayed in a pretty rundown hostel at the bottom of the strip (one of approximately 2 hostels in the city) - a bus ride away from the glitzy hotels and casinos of uptown. It was a ramshackle kind of hostel, made up of small bungalows each comprising a different dorm. It
wasn't much to look at but it was one of the best places we've stayed at - extremely sociable, a definite party hostel.
Our first night - aka the night of doom
We arrived in Vegas on a Thursday evening, excited for the night ahead. We decided the first thing to do was to go and buy alcohol. We made the mistake of asking the hostel staff for advice on what to get and they told us we had to get a drink called Jooce - which sounded harmless enough. Actually we now refer to it as the devil. It is a sugary, extremely potent 12% alcohol beverage in a huge can, costs just $3 and is banned in most states. Now I see why...that one drink served us for the whole night with very drunken consequences. Other hostel guests who had been in Vegas for 2 weeks (not sure how they survived) warned us that it was very strong but we didnt take heed of their good advice. Anyway, it was an amazing night even if probably the most drunken of the entire trip. The hostel entertainment for the night was midnight bowling, and before
that a trip to see the caves up a mountain (ok...). So a few hours after our arrival in Vegas we found ourselves packed into the back of the manager's white van with about 20 other travellers and driven to a mountain which we proceeded to climb in our drunken state wearing our flimsy shoes until we came to a pitch black cave. But the views over Vegas were incredible, and not many people can say they have done that!! Once 'safely' back in the van...we proceeded to midnight bowling. I'm not sure Jo or I were quite on top form so sadly I think our amazing bowling skills may have suffered as a result...hilarious. We eventually rolled home at about 4am.
Needless to say the next morning wasn't too fun, and the whole day was a write off which we spent the majority of in our beds. At about 2pm we managed to to drag ourselves out of our beds and our lovely air-conditioned dorm out into the blaze of the Vegas desert sun in order to find food and drink, but soon enough we were back in bed.
That night was Friday
night and our hostel had organised an amazing party limo tour of the strip! We attempted to redeem ourselves and counteract our drunken reputation of the night before, I would say with limited success. Jo :-P The night essentially involved the whole hostel congregating for pre-drinks - a huge barrel of some potent mixture of alcohol, before piling into huge limos where there was loud music and copious amounts of vodka, and ice, to be found! A very fun night.
The next day we made it out of bed at a respectable hour and managed to successfully slip into the Monte Carlo hotel's amazing pool where there was a massive pool party going on which was awesome.
Saturday night - we had bought tickets for a new show in Vegas called Absinthe. When we bought them the guy had to check several times that we weren't offended by inappropriate language. We assured him that we weren't, but at the show we could definitely see why he had asked! I can image conservative Americans innocently going along and then being horrified at the show's content! The show turned out to be amazing, I was laughing
so hard I was crying. It was an ecclectic mix of eccentric acts - burlesque, acrobatics and comedy - all very shocking, breathtaking and-or extremely inappropriate.
Sunday was our last day in Vegas. Actually we had been planning a roadtrip to visit the Grand Canyon which fell through. It turned out to be for the best as it would have been absolute madness to drive for about 10 hours in one day across the blazing desert. Instead we managed to get tickets for a small plane tour over the Grand Canyon for the next morning. We already had our bus tickets for the next morning at 11am, so the only issue was that we were going to have a very early start, getting picked up from a nearby hotel at 4.20am... We were just celebrating the fact that we had managed to get tickets at such late notice when 2 other travellers we had met at Venice Beach walked past, such a coincidence! We arranged to meet at their hotel that night for drinks and gambling since we still hadn't made it to a casino and couldn't leave Sin City without going!
That evening
before we went out I said to Jo, 'OK, so we will just have one or two drinks and stay out for a couple of hours and be in bed by midnight so we can get a bit of sleep before the tour.' Famous last words. Actually no one goes to bed in Vegas by midnight, and the city had other ideas for us that night... Suffice to say we never made it to bed! The evening started off well - on the way to meet our friend's we bought a frozen cocktail each on the street (in Vegas you can drink anywhere anytime - love it!!) and drank them on the way. Once we met our friend's it was onto the vodka, then shots etc. Oops... By the time we made it to the casino we were a bit tipsy (I did succeed in winning $25 however, although I then proceeded to lose it...damn you Vegas!!). Since you get free drinks if you gamble it is easy to imagine how the night went...
A few hours later at 2.30am and even more tipsy, we realised we were being picked up for the tour in a couple
of hours. No sleep for us. We got back to our hostel somehow, changed into our day clothes and headed back out to the hotel we were getting picked up from.
Another couple of hours later we were at the air field feeling very disorientated preparing to take off in a tiny plane holding about 10 people. We had imagined that since this was Vegas other people on our flight would have been up partying all night too. We were therefore very perturbed to find that our plane was full of respectable looking couples and families looking very fresh and awake who had no doubt gone to bed at 7pm the previous evening in preparation. Maybe we should have done so too... It was as the plane was taking off that it dawned on me how small the plane was, and how fragile in the sky and how hight we would be. In fact as we took off I had to close my eyes, I was absolutely terrified!! Not the best start half drunk-hungover and unable to open my eyes...lol. I soon calmed down telling myself not to be ridiculous. When I prised open my eyes I
was breathtaken, the views were indescribably beautiful. IThe sun was just rising in the sky and it was like being on another planet. The rock formations were so crazy and bizarre, it was eery and beautiful at the same time. It was hard to take it all in and I wish it could have lasted longer. I'm really glad we decided to do a plane tour over the Grand Canyon instead of driving as I think you get a much better overall sense of it, although I wish we could have done both. Definitely worth the hype and a fabulous end to our time in Vegas!
After Vegas it was back to LA for a couple of days of recuperation before we flew to Chicago!
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