Hi all

Just arrived in sunny Vegas after a brilliant week in New York.

As soon as we arrived in New York we headed for the Empire State building & got a ticket to the top - awesome views!

Carried on further up to Central Park for a stroll in the 'quieter' part of New York away from the busy streets. Ricky Gervais walked past our bench just after we sat down! We even got a blast of his trademark laugh - quality! We walked further into the park & ended up on the set of Ugly Betty! Saw all the cast including Lindsay Lohan!

On the subject of celebs we walked upto Times Square which is just as amazing in the day as it is at night & Valentino Rossi was having photos taken right in front of us - which Hannah was well pleased about! How show biz are we!?

On the one day of rain we had we decided to take a ferry cruise from Battery Park - good planning eh! Shopped whilst the 'monsoon' was going on & took the ferry from Pier 17 near Wall Street & The World Trade Centre sight. Went under the Brooklyn & Manhattan bridges & saw Liberty island & got within a mile of the statue of Liberty - which was quality. The Manhatton sky line from the east river is really something to see.

Checked out the World Trade Centre sight which is now under heavy redevelpment which is good to see.

Took a walk to Macy's - largest department store in the world - could have spent a fortune but resisted given the fact we have 3 months to go!

Quite proud that we didnt need to get a single New York taxi as we walked everywhere & saw every building & landmark we wanted to on foot - finished up with a lovely meal at Lasagna Italian in Chelsea which was the area we stayed in & couldn't recomend it more - only 20 blocks from the main attractions. The Empire state building was always visible from our lodge & it lookedamazing when lit up in red white & blue!

Spent the whole of Friday travelling to Vegas & glad to have finally arrived - our hotel is Excalibur - which needless to say is a castle! -It has 4 pools which we intend to check out tomorrow after our Grand Canyon trip!

Spent the day checking out all the flash casinos including MGM, Cesar's Palace etc but our favourite by far is the Bellagio - saw a waterfall show to the tune of Titanic today!

Just seen our first Vegas show - 'Tournament of the Kings' at our hotel - it was great our knight came 3rd!

Our room has a strip view & Vegas at night is mind blowing - gotta have an early night tonight as we get picked up for our Canyon tour at 6:30am tomorrow!

On that note we'll leave it at that for now - we leave Vegas on Wednesday for our Clafornia highlights trip, so we will post another blog as soon as we find another internet cafe, hopefully in San Francisco

Take care

Love

Gaz & Hannah

xxx