Kelly's World

Up early, today we were spending the entire day with Sam and Amber touring the streets of Vegas. They were staying at Circus Circus, so Mat and I decided we’d go have breakfast there with Sam & Amber, rather than waste time at our hotel. The food at Circus Circus followed the same trend as the rest of the USA; it was a massive serving that neither of us could finish (yet somehow we hadn’t learnt to only order one for the two of us). Following breakfast, we headed upstairs and prepared some drinks (aka poured Bourbon into some pepsi bottles we could take with us),  finalised a rough plan for the day, then left. One thing to note, in Las Vegas it’s completely legal to walk the streets with open bottles of alcohol – awesome.

The coolest thing about Vegas Casinos is they all have something distinctly unique about them. They need to; there’s just so much competition they have to be able to draw tourists to their hotel. Back at home in Australia, you’ll be hard pressed to find more than one casino per city (I dont know of any that have more than one…?) and the ones I’ve been to (Jupiters, Treasury and Reef) they’re all quite boring. As the name implies, Circus Circus is circus and carnival themed. It even has its own “adventuredome” inside with rides, along with an actual Circus show. Where the pokies (or slot machines, as called in the US) are, there’s a section that looks like a carousel. The best part was that it actually rotates, just like a carousel would! Very cool.

Walking down the street, I was immediately struck by the heat. It was quite different to back home, where we’re more used to a humid, sticky heat. Here, it was just incredibly dry. It was a totally different culture too, evidenced by the magazine stands on the side of the road. I’d first seen these back in San Francisco, where you could pop in some coins, and help yourself to the daily news. But in Vegas, it wasn’t news. It was gay porn.

It’s hard to keep track of what casinos we visited during the day, so here’s what we managed to accomplish:

• The Sahara – we went on the rollercoaster (very fun, though not as good as Dreamworld), and saw a guy start on a challenge to eat a 6 pound (2.7kg) burrito. If he eats it all within the time limit he gets it for free, if he fails he pays for the meal.
• The Stratosphere, multiple times – we attempted to go upstairs for the rides a couple of times over the day but due to the high winds the main one we wanted to go on, the X-Scream, was closed. We decided we wouldn’t go up in the end, but enjoyed looking around at the casino
• The monorail – mono means one, rail means rail! We managed to convince Sam & Amber to jump on the monorail, and rode in air conditioned comfort from one end of the strip to the other
• Walking the strip – while the monorail took us in one direction, we eventually had to walk it back, and we walked for AGES. I got sunburnt, but thanks to my earlier purchase of sunscreen back in LA the damage was minimal. Unlike my heat rash caused by wearing shorts with the wrong material…that bloody hurt!
• MGM Grand – best known for its Lion Habitat. I also purchased a massive Pina Colada from there, and carried that around with me during the day.
• New York New York – our first taste of Vegas craziness; a slots machine competition. Basically, there was two rows of people sitting on slot machines, pressing max bet max rows as fast as they could. Person with the most points at the end wins. I’ve never seen anything like this back in Australia. I find the pokies to be brain numbing at best, so the idea of a competition just made me giggle. We also saw insanely large toffee apples, and rode on another rollercoaster.

She's having the time of her life

• Hooters Casino – purely because we were curious to see if the pictures from TV were real. We wanted to know if the girls actually got around in orange shorts and little tops, and yes, yes they do. Sam made sure to mention that he wasn’t impressed with the women though, as he’d expected major cleavage and felt they were severely lacking. Amber and I ended up joining up with the Hooters club (I still proudly carry my card in my wallet) while the guys played on the tables for a bit. We also stopped for a bite for lunch, where we saw a guy celebrating his birthday get serenaded by a group of Hooters girls. Tough day for him. I also bought a hooters cocktail, so I got to bring the cup home with me – score!
• The strip by night – very very pretty. All the flashing lights etc, it’s a photographers heaven (I don’t want to know what the power bills for the casinos are though).
• Bellagio fountains – everything I wanted and more. So SO beautiful to see, and I was quite awestruck by them. One of the highlights in Vegas for me.
• The Mirage Volcano Show – I hadn’t actually heard of this one until I arrived in Vegas. It was very cool, lots of bursts of fire over the lake, along with one big volcano. Whilst impressive, I still favoured the Bellagio Fountains

For one day, we certainly achieved a lot and had tons of fun doing it. Amber and Sam were flying back home to the UK early the next morning, so rather than pull an all nighter they bid us good night just after midnight (which still left them with barely any sleep time as it was). It was so great to see them, and had been one of the things I was most looking forward to doing in the US. My dear friends that I hadn’t seen in ages, I actually cried when they told me they were coming over to see us. They’re still in the UK now, and I can’t wait to see them when they eventually return to Australia.

It felt strange to spend an entire day without the family too (after one whole week of living in each other’s hair). The next day we were meant to be going out to Hoover Dam, but since Mat and I felt we’d barely even see 1/4 of what Vegas had to offer, we decided we would forego the Hoover Dam trip to spend another day in Vegas. Imagine Mat’s disappointment, he was being forced to spend another day in his ultimate paradise. What a shame. So after saying goodnight to Sam and Amber, we headed straight for our bed to ensure we’d have enough energy for what the next day would bring.

No related posts.