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The MGM
This was where we stayed....with 5,500 rooms its one of the biggest hotels in the world We flew into Vegas just over a week ago. The blogs are a bit delayed at the minute as we had a real problem finding a PC to finish the last one from San Fransisco, so though you got it this week it was from over a week ago. Anyways, to catch up....
We flew into Vegas and straight into 104 degrees of heat. Its the hottest we've had on the entire trip, and so were glad of an air con cab to the hotel. We got a great deal through cheaptickets.com, two return flights from San Fran to Vegas and two nights in the MGM Grand for under £400. The MGM grand was huge, 5,500 rooms and the biggest casino in the world. Anywhere else in the world it would have stood out, but on the Vegas strip it blended in, being opposite a replica of the Manhattan skyline (hotel 'New York, New York'), next door to a Camelot style castle (hotel 'Excalibur') and just down the road from a one third size replica of the Eiffel tower. We had hoped Vegas would be a glitzy, trashy, and neon lighted fun city - it was but just on a
New York, New York
A hotel shaped like the skyline of New York, complete with Statue of Liberty bigger scale than we'd imagined. It was like they'd taken all the rules they apply normally to food ("Make it BIG, and if it dont kill em, give em dessert") and applied it to a city.
Our hotel was really, really lovely. OK, it wasn't personal in any way as it was too big for that, but there were a couple of dozen restaurants, three theatres, a dozen bars, and enough gambling areas to fill half a dozen football pitches. Jo and I had set aside a few quid for gambling - well you had to give it a go in Vegas! Luckily, Jo was able after three days to break even, which was good as my Blackjack system had proved less reliable than it had appeared in my various excel spreadsheets. Having never been to a casino before Jo was a little upset that she hadnt won big, but as i said to her "playing in them for nearly three days and have the money left you started with is a victory in itself, now can you lend me $20?"
We did a Vegas show while we were there (Cirque du soleil - Ka) and like Vegas
Excalibur
King Arthurs court, jousting knights, and a casino.....then again the supermarkets had fruit machines itself it was bigger, bolder and more flashy than any show we'd seen before. The whole stage rotated, lifted, and ended up as a cliff face for the final battle up and down the wall with dozens of acrobats - awesome! We also treated ourselves to a helicopter ride from Vegas to the Grand Canyon (good idea Jason!). Never been in a chopper before, and to be honest was a little nervous when he sat me in the front next to the not-thick-enough door, but after we got into it the ride was awesome, and the views pretty special too. We flew down into the canyon itself and landed for a champagne lunch before flying back.
From Vegas we flew on to Buffalo in the North-East, picking up a hire car for the short drive on to Niagra Falls. It had been an overnight flight to Washington then on, and had pretty much tired us out, but we made the most of the day. We took the Lonely Planets advice and went over the border into Canada to get the better views of the falls. They were really different to how we'd imagined them. They werent as tall as
The Bellagio
Seriously stylish and ofc expensive. Amazing fountain show outside all evening we'd imagined, but were really wide and divided into several flows. You got a bit showered up on the ledges overlooking them where we were, but hundreds of people at a time were paying to go in a boat down into the base of the falls and getting soaked through. I guess they hadnt managed to get hotel rooms with showers.
We drove the next day back into the US and went into New England. We wanted to spend a couple of days driving through there down to Washington. It was a nice area, loads of picture perfect towns and villages and plenty of reminders that this was often considered the starting place for the states, what with the Mayflower, pilgrims and all. There were a lot of Stars and Stripes flying from houses there, and in fact everywhere we went we noticed a really patriotic fervour. Loads of cars had bumper stickers or ribbons in either the Stars and Stripes motiffs or a yellow ribbon for the troops abroad. We'd gone to Freemont street in Vegas where they had covered the street with thousands of lights to make a display overhead the length of seven football pitches like
the Venetian
It was around 10pm when this photo was taken but it was like daylight inside...the Venetian has a huge shopping centre inside with a river complete with gondolas and singing gondoliers a giant TV. One of the nightly shows we saw was a really saccharine sweet stars and stripes style homage to the glory of America. On the one hand the cheers and whoops from the crowd around us during it kind of freaked us out a little bit, but on the other hand there was a small twinge of jealously at seeing people who seem to be able to display their passion for their country more than seemingly just once every four years when the footie world cup is on.....
Anyways, after New England we made our way to the Capital city. This wasnt a simple affair, for we had to spend decidedly far too much time on the american roads, too much time being anytime at all. Why? Well we've seen driving in the dusty roads of India, the downtown madness of Cambodia, or the endless tracks of Oz, but in those five months we didnt see as many idiots on the road as we did in five days in the states. Now to be fair, its probably more that mad driving was just part of everday Asia so didnt seem out of place, whereas going along a
Another huge hotel
We'd deccided to go for a wander along the strip where all these amazing places were.....noone mentioned the road was 22 miles long! seemingly civilised interstate in a modern car with other normal people lulls you into a false sense of security. This gets shattered by the crew-cutted high school drop out in the 4 wheel drive chrome hub capped pick up who thinks he still playing the Playstation racing game he spent the last 48 hours straight on. As he weaves backwards and forwards through four lanes of traffic you wonder if he hears the horns beeping and screeches of tyres from all around him and just doesnt care, or maybe he's just late for the important date with his first cousin. You may notice a slight amount of anger in my typing here. Lets just say one too many close calls with him and those many, many like him left me glad for double air-bags and lax gun regulation.
Washington. Now this was a nice suprise for the pair of us. We'd both imagined it to be a bit down i guess, what with the stories you hear about crime there and the like. In fact, it had a great city centre, far grander than either of us had imagined with huge, well designed stone buildings (not all just glass
Vegas - land of the machines
24/7/365 - These machines never, ever stopped flashing and bleeping, though they did hold back on paying out we found and steel like so many city centres), a great park with Capitol Hill, the Lincoln Memorial and the White House around it, and the Smithsonian. The latter is a collection of excellent museums started by a Brit donating a few million into a trust in the mid 19th century, and this has grown into its excellent modern form. Best thing was the series of museums on the Arts, Science, American History and the like are absolutely free to get in.
Had a bit of a nightmare there, though, as it was the third England soccer game and bad traffic meant I missed the first half. US coverage of the games has been pretty poor, so I could only get it on the radio in Spanish. You really start to miss Radio Five when all you hear for 45 minutes is indecipherable spanish with the odd name thrown in you recognise. Didnt even understand which team had scored the first goal until i found a telly for the second half
Spent a day or so in Washington before coming back up the coast to New York. Running out of time for the minute so Ill leave this till the
Freemont Street
Giant Stars and Stripes flying thru the skies, roaring patriotic music......all it needed was a giant ronald mcdonald next blog later in the week
Love to all !
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