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Published: September 25th 2006
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Oi oi,
I arrived in Vegas on 18th September. I was staying at the USA Hostel on Fremont street, which is about a bus ride away from the main Casino strip. The first thing i did when arriving in Vegas was to book a Grand Canyon tour for the next day.
I was up at 7 the next morning for the long day ahead, we were going to visit the West Rim of the Grand Canyon, also going to the Hoover Dam on the way. As Dams go the the Hoover Dam was purely belter, half way across the bridge over the Dam is a sign saying you are leaving Nevada and entering Arizona. Once in Arizona we had another coupe of hours drive, often over dirt roads until we reached the West Rim of the Canyon (The Canyon is over 1 million acres in all so people tend to go to either the North, South or West of it)
Before looking at the Canyon we were treated to a dancing and singing performance by the Hualapai Indian tribe who own the land we were on. We were also shown around a mock-up village showing how different types
Fire Starter
Volcano show at the Mirage of tepees and huts. After leaving the village we went to our first lookout point at the Canyon, the view was breathtaking: It is essentially just a huge hole in the ground but is so hard to comprehend how HUGE it actually is until you see it.
We had a barbecue lunch at a different part of the Canyon where we could climb to this point that pertruded out of the side of one part of the Canyon. Our final lookout point was where they filmed Kanye West's "Touch the Sky" Video, just thought i'd mention it. The Grand Canyon was rather Grand.
Arrived back at the hostel at 7ish and spent the night having a few Carrow Roads aka Carrow Road Casuals-Casual Beers with these Germans and Americans from my dorm room.
The next day i thought i'd better go down to the Strip seeing as I was in Vegas! Spent the day looking in loads of different Hotels/Casinos, must have covered so many miles: Las Vegas Boulevard is a really long road, and the Strip which contains the best Hotels takes ages to walk down. There was a New York New York which is themed
Vegas by night
With Salsa in the foreground around, you guessed it, New York: complete with a huge Statue of Liberty outside aswell as the Brooklyn Bridge. There is also a huge Eiffel Tower outside another Casino. Excalibur looks like a fictional Castle and is based around King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The Venetian has a river running along the outside of it complete with Gondoliers. The Bellagio, The MGM Grand and the Mirage are just down and out posh. In my opinion the best was Caesars Palace, which obviously has an Ancient Rome feel about it with loads of old style statues. The shopping centre at Ceasars Palace is really cool, as you walk through the narrow streets (your indoors at this point) the ceiling is painted to look like the sky so it feels like your outside (It's so weird when your walking about at 3 in the morning when it's pitch black outside!) Oh, the fake sky changes colour aswell.
As I was waiting for one of the free shows to start outside "Treasure Island" Hotel i randomly bumped into Wilson! Small World! Spent the rest of the night bantering different Casinos with him. We saw the Sirens of Treasure
The Venetian
The river runs throughout the Casino, indoors and out. Island show: this included a Pirate Ship Battle complete with explosions and sinking ships, twas good. Also seen the Volcano erupt outside The Mirage. Unfortunately due to technical difficulties we weren't able to see the Dancing Fountain show outside the Bellagio.
The next day I got up bright and early to go Skydiving. Done it at a site a small way into the Desert outside Vegas, was really good because aswell as being able to see the Strip in the distance i could also see the Hoover Dam from up above. One of the Skydiving instructors kept trying to shit us all up when we arrived at the jump site pretending to be the clumsiest person known to man: tripping over his shoe laces and the like. The jump itself wasn't that scary to be honest, as your strapped to an instructor he just tells you what to do, he does all of the hard work. The rush when you are freefalling after jumping out of the plane is incredible, it only felt like we were freefalling for about 5 seconds before he engaged the parachute but apparenty we were falling for 30 or 40?! The parachute ride to
Inside Caesars Palace
The sky changes colour pretty randomly- sometimes it's light and sometimes it's dark, no matter what time it is. the bottom is really chilled out where you can just admire your surroundings and get ready for the landing. Class in a glass.
Post adrenalin rush for the day i headed back to the hostel to chillout before meeting Will and a few people from his Youth Hostel at night. Wandered around more Casinos before getting to bed at 4ish, was knackered!
All in all then Vegas was sweet, is a bit like Blackpool on Heat, but it doesn't have the beautiful beaches of Blackpool! The Neon Lights probably shade the Blackpool Illuminations mind! And instead of Joe Longthorne it's Celine Dion. I was surprised that when i got there I wasn't as keen to have a bet as i imagined i would be: had a few goes on the slots but nothing serious. The Hotels are all really cool to look around, but i think the time I had in Vegas was just right. My highlights were undoubtedly the Grand Canyon and the Skydive, loved them.
So I leave Vegas with the Shirt still firmly on my back and head to San Diego.
Mike
PS Dunno where the title of this blog comes from,
Statue of Liberty
Outside New York New York Casino not sure if it's song lyrics or what- I know Spready uses it a bit.
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Will's Mum
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'A small world' (as 'they' say)
Great blog again Mike! Did you and Will go to see Celine Dion? I know she's one of Will's favourites! Life is going to be so boring for all of you when you return home! Enjoy the rest of your stay and take care Ann