7-12-08 p.s we havent had internet hence this being up so late...

7-12-08
We have arrived in LaS vEgAs!! Let me tell you, the drive here took forever. San Diego to Las Vegas took us about 6hrs along massively huge freeways and the scenery consisted of rocks, desert, rocks, shrubs, rocks, cactus, rocks, mountains, rocks, cars, rocks. The car we hired is pretty comfortable to sit in so it wasn’t too bad. But before I get too far ahead of myself let me tell you more about Mexico.

Before we crossed the border Dad had a female driving moment. He tried to reverse park the car about 5 times and each time he ended up with the car in the exact same position. It was HILARIOUS!!! We laughed for ages about it. Now Dad knows what it’s like to be a female and attempt to park a car.
We bought original, Mexican silver (they assured us that it was all legit), heaps of it, for a good price, bargained for 3 belts, a pocket knife and a belt buckle (we got it down from US$160 to $US90) and bargained for some other stuff. We were gonna buy these really cool bags but they were a little expensive. They had made the bags out of squares wrappings. So you could buy a newspaper bag, a chocolate wrapping bag, a lolly wrapper bag. They looked really cool but for US$30 we couldn’t get them. And the guy was really unwilling to bargain with us so we gave it a miss. We ate some really interesting food as well. There were like these thick pancakes that tasted a little like corn (we think they could have been made from maize but we weren’t sure). They weren’t sweet and they were topped with some interesting stuff. Dad got one with onion (normal) and cactus (yes, that’s right, CACTUS!!). He then added some weird spicy thing and that basically rendered it inedible for the rest of us. Mum got the same sort of pancake thing with onion, mushroom and squash flower. It was unbelievably tasty. I loved it. We also bought these weird donut sticks that were pretty interesting to eat, tasty and all that jazz but we didn’t really want seconds of it. Tamika bought Fanta in a glass bottle but didn’t keep the bottle cause that’s just not how it works over there. We were really lucky when ordering food cause some American guy took pity on our inability to speak Spanish so he helped us out and we were able to get what we wanted. We wandered around the main streets of Tijuana. Revolution Ave was CRAZY!! There are shops on one side of the footpath and then there’s market stalls on the other side footpath. It was Dad’s idea of a nightmare. He doesn’t even go to markets back home and here he was stuck with Mum, Tamika and I wandering through market stalls with people yelling at us in a strange language. I would take the hippie markets in Aus at anytime. But I do enjoy the ability to bargain and feel as though you’re getting it cheap. The roads and driving is like any other third world country. For those of you who have visited places like Thailand, Cambodia, possibly Africa anywhere that isn’t well developed then you know what I’m talking about. I like to quote Pirates of the Caribbean here – road rules “are more like guidelines” that they can follow if they want. And the horn is often not used as a way to tell a driver that they just cut you off. It’s a way to say “Look out, I’m coming up beside you”, or “Look, it’s a pedestrian” or “let me through” or “hey, how you going”, “would you like fries with that?”. They use the horns heaps. We have this awesome photo of us in Mexico. We have sombreros on, I’m sitting on a donkey painted to look like a zebra and there is something written on each hat. But I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself.
That pretty much wraps that day up. We were totally exhausted and joined the queue back into the States. It took us over an hour of standing in a line before we got to customs. Mum got asked to empty a bag because she had a piece of fruit in it. It’s always Mum who gets in trouble because she’s so worried about everyone else. Well done Mum!!

Today (7th December) we drove to Las Vegas. It was a really long drive with some OK views. We went a little crazy at times and as soon as I can get internet up for an extended period of time I will post a video on youtube which displays the madness that Tamika experiences. It cracked us up. We also got a little bored while driving and started taking random photos. They are all pretty bad L. Cameron, if your reading this (which I doubt) I have bought you a supersized cup from Maccas. Can you believe that its cheaper to buy a supersized drink then it is to buy a small? 99c for a giant cup! Its HUGE!!! Check it out!
Everything here is HUGE! Crazy

Well we’re about to hit Las Vegas but first Mum and Dad are heading down to the lobby to get a hair dryer (Mum is cannot live without it and is constantly complaining about not having a hair straightener) and ask about what we should do.
I will blog on my return…