Leaving Las Vegas!

Our last few days in Vegas were spent racking up enough points on our players cards to get 4 free breakfasts, 5 free buffets, 4 free Starbucks and the resort fees comped off our hotel bill!!!!We also went to another show, Cirque du Soleil's Viva Elvis.For those of you who haven't heard of them, Cirque du Soleil is acrobatics and comedy set to music.It originated in Canada and they now have 20 different shows all over the world - I think I've seen about 6 of them, my favourite being Love which is based on the Beatles music - I have seen that twice.

I am a massive fan of both Cirque and Elvis so was quite looking forward to the show.Unfortunately I was disappointed in most of it.Cirque is famed for it's acrobatics of which there was little in this show with only 1 routine really standing out.I also intensely disliked the way the cast members sang some of the Elvis songs, or did a duet with Elvis.Cirque's Beatles show (Love) is a tribute to their music but to me, the Elvis show was a parody - particularly when all the cast appeared in plastic Elvis hair and masks!!!!

We left Vegas on Wednesday for the 6.5 hour drive back to Los Angeles.Another new experience on Thursday morning was a visit to the local coin operated Laundromat to do all the laundry we had accumulated in LA - Quite an experience!!! In the afternoon we visited the Farmers Market in Downtown LA.The Farmers Market was established in 1934 when local farmers parked their trucks in an open field to sell their produce to local residents.Today it is billed as the "best grocery store in Los Angeles" with 100s of stalls selling fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, bakery goods and sweets.There are also market restaurants selling every kind of food you can imagine.After a quick walk around the market we headed for Griffith Observatory for the best views of downtown LA and the Hollywood sign.

Friday was our last full day and as our flight wasn't until 9.15 pm, we had plenty of time to pack up and try and get our 3 x 23kg bags down to 2!!!Fortunately, the hotel we have been staying in for the last 2 days have agreed to keep a bag for us (free of charge) until we get back here in April.Decisions had to be made - did we really need scarves, hats and gloves for the New Zealand and Australia summers - could I leave behind that extra pair of shoes and pyjamas L

We were finally ready to leave and saying goodbye to our extra bag (hopefully not forever), we headed to Burbank and the Warner Bros studios.Warner Brothers are famous for producing TV series such as ER, The West Wing and their most popular and famous - Friends. They are also responsible for the production of the Harry Potter series of films - the highest grossing film series ever.We had been here once before about 10 years ago but as with most things in America, it had changed and grown.This is a real working studio and the tour takes you (in an oversized golf cart) around the front (inside) and back (outside) lots.The best part of the whole tour was a visit to a replica of the set from Friends which has been retired and restored especially for the tour.The studio also has an entire floor of its museum devoted to Harry Potter.I got to sit under the hat which determines which house students were put into at Hogwarts - I got into Gryffendoor (Harry's House!!) We also got to have our photo taken against a "green screen" which inserted us into a scene from Harry Potter. After the 2.5 hour tour, we decided to head back to the Farmers Market to eat at one of the many restaurant stalls we had seen the day before.

We have a 12.5 hour flight tonight to Auckland which neither of us is looking forward to but tomorrow we wake up to a whole new world (well… continent)