10-12-08 (Wednesday)
So, this will be posted late because Dad used up all the time we had left on the internet. I will now give you a description of what we have all been up to in Las Vegas, the city of ultimate sin. We arrived here without fuss, thanks to Gazza (the really unattractive name we have given to our really attractive GPS). We are staying at the El Cortez which, we have come to believe, is the casino for old people in downtown Las Vegas. The room is like twice the size of anything we have stayed in so far. We don’t have to step all over each other to the bathroom and there’s enough room between the beds and the T.V to do a couple of star jumps (f we were that way inclined). It’s pretty good. Dad is continually telling us that we have to come up with some rules, but I think the rest of the family is pretty happy to just continue doing what we’ve been doing so far – keep you clothes in your bag and in your little confined area of space.
The first day we got here (Sunday) we chilled in our overly big room and then headed down to Fremont Street to experience
what they call “The Fremont Street Experience”. It was pretty cool. Apparently all the old facades from “The Strip” have been moved into Fremont Street as the buildings are all updated so we really got this old school Las Vegas experience. They also have this incredibly huge T.V screen and if you listen to what the Americans tell you they reckon it’s the biggest one in the world. It was pretty big. Every hour they have this light show thing going on and it’s pretty amazing. There will be video of it up on youtube asap. It’s like a 100m screen with music and video. CRAZY sensory overload. We had deepfried oreos and twinkies which was kinda feral but seeing as we’re in America we decided to try out all their feral concoctions. All you could really taste was deep fried batter. Yummmmy. We then headed down to The Strip for a bit just to check it out. I was pretty exhausted from a day of sitting in the car and just wanted to go home to bed but we all soldiered on with some whinging involved. Can I just say here that Las Vegas doesn’t have the same tacky lights that Dad told us it would have. They have gotten rid of most of the lights and replaced them with video screens and stuff so the tacky, over-the-top-ness that we were expecting wasn’t there. It was still pretty impressive though. We headed home on the bus (which takes forever) and crashed.
Monday was also a day of fun. We walked up most of The Strip (something that I don’t think a lot of people can boast of doing seeing as most of them are pretty drunk and are too busy playing the pokies) and were harassed by little fat men trying to give us cards with pictures and phone numbers on them. I wouldn’t recommend walking up The Strip if you are not into being harassed everytime you pause to look at a building, or wait for the lights to go green. We went to M&M world which was 4 stories of purely M&M related stuff. It was pretty cool. T-shirts, mugs, cups, jumpers, toys, key rings, movies (it was 3d and pretty dodge compared to what we’d seen at Universal Studios) and a whole lot of chocolate. It
was soo goooooood. We found the sales rack and went a little crazy. Tamika and Mum bought a t-shirt each and I got these wicked pajama pants and we got a Christmas decoration and then a free gift for spending too much money. We then crossed over into Coca-Cola World which was only 2 levels of Coke related stuff. BUT they did have these smelly shirts that smelt like drinks. It was pretty cool. They also had a pretty poor imitation Bundy bear. I don’t think they meant to copy Bundaberg but they did, only the Coke bear is way creepier. We then wandered back down the Strip. Did you know that one of the Casinos had a lion display? Like real live lions in the Casino. We didn’t even have to travel to a zoo. Crazy. It cost $9 million to set up and we don’t even wanna know how much it costs to maintain. We then headed down to another casino (called the Flamingo) and checked out their Flamingo collection along with other exotic birds. Yes, that’s right, they had flamingos and we got to see them. They were all asleep but that that’s beside the point. Their exotic birds consisted of Ibis’ (yeah, that’s right, those ugly birds at the beach that steal your chips and stuff), black swans, ducks (yeah DUCKS – exotic? I think not) and some other bird that was actually pretty cool. We then headed to the Cirque du Soliel (unsure about spelling) which was AMAZING!!! totally cool. There were clowns, acrobats, muscle men, pole climbers, trapeze artists, awesome costumes. It was awesome. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wishes to feel insignificant in strength, flexibility or clothing selection. We then headed home to the casino…took forever.
Tuesday
Today we totally slept in. Tamika and I went and watched Twilight (yeah, that’s right, we totally saw it before anyone of you guys living in Australia) and it was pretty good. The movie had a delayed start cause there was something wrong with the movie. An hour we waited. How hard is it to press the play button? So we didn’t start touring till 5pm. We ate lunch/brekky/dinner at the hotel at around 3ish. The food here is pretty cheap considering the size you get. Like a $7.50
Caesar salad is HUGE!! It totally beat me. I could only eat half of it before having to give it away. I tried root beer (which was something I’ve always wanted to do). It’s just sarsparella under a different name. Liquid liquorice. I’m never getting it again. They lie on the movies…it doesn’t taste any good. We then caught the bus to Tuesday night’s show. It was a variety show with a whole heap of different acts. There was comedy, amazing magic (he used birds I tell you), awesome juggling, the TV guy and lots of laughs. There were a heap of Aussies in the audience and one of them started the Aussie Aussie Aussie chant. It totally confused the host for the night…he wasn’t expecting it at all and he was just like “what the?”. We then jumped on the bus and did a full loop. It takes forever to do a full loop. Like 2 hrs cause the bus has to stop at like EVERY stop along the strip. But it was a nice drive. We also checked out the local free shows which were cool and I ran into Captain Jack Sparrow. He was pretty cute, smelt like rum, smoke, rum and alcohol. I wouldn’t date him…ever…he smelt terrible.
So, this will be posted late because Dad used up all the time we had left on the internet. I will now give you a description of what we have all been up to in Las Vegas, the city of ultimate sin. We arrived here without fuss, thanks to Gazza (the really unattractive name we have given to our really attractive GPS). We are staying at the El Cortez which, we have come to believe, is the casino for old people in downtown Las Vegas. The room is like twice the size of anything we have stayed in so far. We don’t have to step all over each other to the bathroom and there’s enough room between the beds and the T.V to do a couple of star jumps (f we were that way inclined). It’s pretty good. Dad is continually telling us that we have to come up with some rules, but I think the rest of the family is pretty happy to just continue doing what we’ve been doing so far – keep you clothes in your bag and in your little confined area of space.
The first day we got here (Sunday) we chilled in our overly big room and then headed down to Fremont Street to experience
what they call “The Fremont Street Experience”. It was pretty cool. Apparently all the old facades from “The Strip” have been moved into Fremont Street as the buildings are all updated so we really got this old school Las Vegas experience. They also have this incredibly huge T.V screen and if you listen to what the Americans tell you they reckon it’s the biggest one in the world. It was pretty big. Every hour they have this light show thing going on and it’s pretty amazing. There will be video of it up on youtube asap. It’s like a 100m screen with music and video. CRAZY sensory overload. We had deepfried oreos and twinkies which was kinda feral but seeing as we’re in America we decided to try out all their feral concoctions. All you could really taste was deep fried batter. Yummmmy. We then headed down to The Strip for a bit just to check it out. I was pretty exhausted from a day of sitting in the car and just wanted to go home to bed but we all soldiered on with some whinging involved. Can I just say here that Las Vegas doesn’t have the same tacky lights that Dad told us it would have. They have gotten rid of most of the lights and replaced them with video screens and stuff so the tacky, over-the-top-ness that we were expecting wasn’t there. It was still pretty impressive though. We headed home on the bus (which takes forever) and crashed.Monday was also a day of fun. We walked up most of The Strip (something that I don’t think a lot of people can boast of doing seeing as most of them are pretty drunk and are too busy playing the pokies) and were harassed by little fat men trying to give us cards with pictures and phone numbers on them. I wouldn’t recommend walking up The Strip if you are not into being harassed everytime you pause to look at a building, or wait for the lights to go green. We went to M&M world which was 4 stories of purely M&M related stuff. It was pretty cool. T-shirts, mugs, cups, jumpers, toys, key rings, movies (it was 3d and pretty dodge compared to what we’d seen at Universal Studios) and a whole lot of chocolate. It
was soo goooooood. We found the sales rack and went a little crazy. Tamika and Mum bought a t-shirt each and I got these wicked pajama pants and we got a Christmas decoration and then a free gift for spending too much money. We then crossed over into Coca-Cola World which was only 2 levels of Coke related stuff. BUT they did have these smelly shirts that smelt like drinks. It was pretty cool. They also had a pretty poor imitation Bundy bear. I don’t think they meant to copy Bundaberg but they did, only the Coke bear is way creepier. We then wandered back down the Strip. Did you know that one of the Casinos had a lion display? Like real live lions in the Casino. We didn’t even have to travel to a zoo. Crazy. It cost $9 million to set up and we don’t even wanna know how much it costs to maintain. We then headed down to another casino (called the Flamingo) and checked out their Flamingo collection along with other exotic birds. Yes, that’s right, they had flamingos and we got to see them. They were all asleep but that that’s beside the point. Their exotic birds consisted of Ibis’ (yeah, that’s right, those ugly birds at the beach that steal your chips and stuff), black swans, ducks (yeah DUCKS – exotic? I think not) and some other bird that was actually pretty cool. We then headed to the Cirque du Soliel (unsure about spelling) which was AMAZING!!! totally cool. There were clowns, acrobats, muscle men, pole climbers, trapeze artists, awesome costumes. It was awesome. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wishes to feel insignificant in strength, flexibility or clothing selection. We then headed home to the casino…took forever.Tuesday
Today we totally slept in. Tamika and I went and watched Twilight (yeah, that’s right, we totally saw it before anyone of you guys living in Australia) and it was pretty good. The movie had a delayed start cause there was something wrong with the movie. An hour we waited. How hard is it to press the play button? So we didn’t start touring till 5pm. We ate lunch/brekky/dinner at the hotel at around 3ish. The food here is pretty cheap considering the size you get. Like a $7.50
Caesar salad is HUGE!! It totally beat me. I could only eat half of it before having to give it away. I tried root beer (which was something I’ve always wanted to do). It’s just sarsparella under a different name. Liquid liquorice. I’m never getting it again. They lie on the movies…it doesn’t taste any good. We then caught the bus to Tuesday night’s show. It was a variety show with a whole heap of different acts. There was comedy, amazing magic (he used birds I tell you), awesome juggling, the TV guy and lots of laughs. There were a heap of Aussies in the audience and one of them started the Aussie Aussie Aussie chant. It totally confused the host for the night…he wasn’t expecting it at all and he was just like “what the?”. We then jumped on the bus and did a full loop. It takes forever to do a full loop. Like 2 hrs cause the bus has to stop at like EVERY stop along the strip. But it was a nice drive. We also checked out the local free shows which were cool and I ran into Captain Jack Sparrow. He was pretty cute, smelt like rum, smoke, rum and alcohol. I wouldn’t date him…ever…he smelt terrible.Wednesday
So today we did LOTS of shopping. We went to the local factory outlet which is basically a more expensive, more glorified version of a DFO. Kind of disappointing really. But we found this store called Hot Topic and it was awesome. Like, it has shirts from movies and tv programs. Tamika went wild on the Twilight stand. I found an Invader Zim stand which was pretty cool. I didn’t get anything from Invader Zim but I now have a Gryffindor tank top and a “Team Jacob” Twilight shirt. Tamika bought a “Team Edward” jumper. Now we have an excuse to fight like vampires and werewolves J. If anyone wants anything maybe check their website out (http://www.hottopic.com/) and if we find another one I’ll get it for you…maybe…if you pay me back. We also discovered the cheap Disney store. 80% off and it was cool. We bought a couple of t-shirts and jumpers and stuff. We then headed back into town ate at this buffet. There was soooo much food. And it was all gooood. We were all pretty starving and it was nice to be able to sit down and stuff our faces. Ice-cream, cake, ice-cream, moose, ice-cream, chocolate. We also had a few veggies and stuff. It was really good. Tamika, Mum and I then went to Madame Tussauds. Wax museum. We met some cool wax people, got married to George Clooney, shot hoops with Zac Effron, chatted with Oprah, danced with Beyonce, kissed Johnny Depp and chilled out with George Bush (after the people in front of us kicked him in the unmentionables). We then had to look for Dad who had moved the car around and we got a little stressed. We found him and headed home. Tamika and I went and saw Madagascar 2 which is pretty funny. We then headed home after the movie and had an “early” night.
Thursday
We left Vegas today. Thank goodness. We were all getting pretty sick of the smoke and little men handing out calling cards for “Hot Babes”. We travelled for ages in the car. The scenery went from dirt with a few rocks, to rocks with a little dirt to mountainous rocks, to brown rocks, to rocks and dirt to rocks, dirt and an excuse for greenery to more greenery to trees to pine trees. Now it’s green and really quite cold. We drove along Route 66 for a while and the towns along it hold on to their “historic” roots. They actually seem to collect old cars and rednecks and hicks. They don’t update their town, there are Christmas decorations EVERYWHERE to the point where it over-the-top. Whatever, you know, if that’s what they wanna do and have everyone think they are retarded then so be it.
We went to Hoover Dam today. It’s a pretty impressive piece of manmade infrastructure. Huge, deep and lots of concrete. Crazy. One side of the dam is in Nevada (and all touristy) and the other side is in Arizona (not at all touristy). It’s pretty cool.
We arrived at the Grand Canyon just before sunset. It’s really beautiful. And huge. And Dad’s fear of heights kicked in and he was freaking out. We have some nice photos but it got dark pretty quick. And there was snow and ice all over the place. Not blanketing the ground but enough to tell you that it’s gonna be cold. And it was. Freezing almost. And tomorrows forecast is -5 to 12 degrees Celsius. That’s kinda cold. But it’s gonna be a fun couple of days. Helicopter ride tomorrow and then heading to the warmer climate of Phoenix, Arizona. The fact that we are currently in Arizona means nothing. I’m hoping its warmer in Phoenix (note to all those Twilight fans, yes, it is the same place that Bella comes face-to-face with death and becoming a vampire).
Well that just about gets you all up to date with our happenings…will post later when I have something interesting to say.
So today we did LOTS of shopping. We went to the local factory outlet which is basically a more expensive, more glorified version of a DFO. Kind of disappointing really. But we found this store called Hot Topic and it was awesome. Like, it has shirts from movies and tv programs. Tamika went wild on the Twilight stand. I found an Invader Zim stand which was pretty cool. I didn’t get anything from Invader Zim but I now have a Gryffindor tank top and a “Team Jacob” Twilight shirt. Tamika bought a “Team Edward” jumper. Now we have an excuse to fight like vampires and werewolves J. If anyone wants anything maybe check their website out (http://www.hottopic.com/) and if we find another one I’ll get it for you…maybe…if you pay me back. We also discovered the cheap Disney store. 80% off and it was cool. We bought a couple of t-shirts and jumpers and stuff. We then headed back into town ate at this buffet. There was soooo much food. And it was all gooood. We were all pretty starving and it was nice to be able to sit down and stuff our faces. Ice-cream, cake, ice-cream, moose, ice-cream, chocolate. We also had a few veggies and stuff. It was really good. Tamika, Mum and I then went to Madame Tussauds. Wax museum. We met some cool wax people, got married to George Clooney, shot hoops with Zac Effron, chatted with Oprah, danced with Beyonce, kissed Johnny Depp and chilled out with George Bush (after the people in front of us kicked him in the unmentionables). We then had to look for Dad who had moved the car around and we got a little stressed. We found him and headed home. Tamika and I went and saw Madagascar 2 which is pretty funny. We then headed home after the movie and had an “early” night.
Thursday
We left Vegas today. Thank goodness. We were all getting pretty sick of the smoke and little men handing out calling cards for “Hot Babes”. We travelled for ages in the car. The scenery went from dirt with a few rocks, to rocks with a little dirt to mountainous rocks, to brown rocks, to rocks and dirt to rocks, dirt and an excuse for greenery to more greenery to trees to pine trees. Now it’s green and really quite cold. We drove along Route 66 for a while and the towns along it hold on to their “historic” roots. They actually seem to collect old cars and rednecks and hicks. They don’t update their town, there are Christmas decorations EVERYWHERE to the point where it over-the-top. Whatever, you know, if that’s what they wanna do and have everyone think they are retarded then so be it.
We went to Hoover Dam today. It’s a pretty impressive piece of manmade infrastructure. Huge, deep and lots of concrete. Crazy. One side of the dam is in Nevada (and all touristy) and the other side is in Arizona (not at all touristy). It’s pretty cool.
We arrived at the Grand Canyon just before sunset. It’s really beautiful. And huge. And Dad’s fear of heights kicked in and he was freaking out. We have some nice photos but it got dark pretty quick. And there was snow and ice all over the place. Not blanketing the ground but enough to tell you that it’s gonna be cold. And it was. Freezing almost. And tomorrows forecast is -5 to 12 degrees Celsius. That’s kinda cold. But it’s gonna be a fun couple of days. Helicopter ride tomorrow and then heading to the warmer climate of Phoenix, Arizona. The fact that we are currently in Arizona means nothing. I’m hoping its warmer in Phoenix (note to all those Twilight fans, yes, it is the same place that Bella comes face-to-face with death and becoming a vampire).
Well that just about gets you all up to date with our happenings…will post later when I have something interesting to say.
1 comment:
That is one mind-blowing Caesar salad. You could have fed the whole of Zimbabwe for a year just on the left overs!
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