VEGAS BABY! Okay, here goes.... Vegas....We only saw one day time in the 5 days we were in Vegas hee hee....and that was on the first day when we were all refreshed from San Diego! Vegas heat is like nothing we have experienced before, there's little sun but it's unbelievably hot, with no humidity!! Very random, but quite easy to deal with. We stayed in the USA hostel in a very dodgy area about 10 blocks from the beginning of the Vegas strip, a.k.a Las Vegas Blvd (which runs 4-5miles)! But it was soooo cheap (tenner a night) we couldn't go wrong! The strip in the daytime is no where near as impressive as it is on a night, in fact it looks worse than ocean beach drive in San Diego only with far taller buildings. Now up until this point our experience of the states was that it has all front but no back, meaning it looks amazing on the surface but when you actually get past the front your usually disappointed....it has the potential to be the best in the world but doesn't quite make it most of the time! So we went to Vegas with high expectations and for once they were met :) YAY. We hit the strip every night (as y'all expected!!) usually around 11pm, arriving home at 8am ;-) 'cos that's what Vegas is about baby...prolonged drinking during the early hours then sleeping all day, having a load of crappy american junk food for tea then starting the trend all over again, opposing your natural body clock! Very tiring at the end of the week when your trying to get back to a normal routine! We still havn't recovered now and it's been about 10 days :) Anyways the first night we opted against the pub crawl with a bunch of people from the hostel who didn't seem to wanna drink much *fuff* and decided to head straight to the strip to hit it big style. We met a group of random lads at the hostel whilst hustling people for money on the hostel pool table :) hee hee.... they were called frency, ozzy steve, irish steve and ozzy leyton! All canny lads that gave us free beer :) which is always enticing...it was a cheaper taxi to the strip too ;) to be honest we drank a lot, didn't really gamble at all, but just had a very prolonged drinking session (didn't spend too much either 'cos the lads kept buying us drinks 'cos they thought we were hilarious, as well as trying to hit on us but getting shot down 'cos they wern't our type of guys :P ! We ended the night/morning by eating subway 'cos we all know Ali loves her subways. It all seems very surreal walking out of a club to realise that the sun has already risen and it's 8am hee hee We slept most of the day, then headed to Ceasars Palace around 5pm (still quite shaky!) to check in.....oooouuu Maureen is so not cheap in Vegas hee hee. We decided to treat ourselves to one night in the luxury Ceasars Palace right at the heart of the Vegas strip. The hotel room was amazing, with two queen sized beds :) wide screen TV, sofa (you know the works) and a bathroom that was bigger than my whole bedroom at home! (very worthwhile). That night we put our macy's dresses to use and met the same lads in Ceasars for another night of drinking and dancing; we also had a dable at roulette and black jack with the lads but sucked and resorted to the 25 cent slot machines :p but we got bored of them pretty quickly and decided to spend our money on alcohol instead. That night we went to the famous p**** cat dolls lounge. The next morning we were picked up in a limo from ceasars (how exciting this was hee hee....we felt like celebs!) to go to our helicopter day tour to the grand canyon :) this was by far the best experience so far, and the only experience that has over awed us (sp??). You can't photograph the grand canyon in any form to capture its grandure....it was simply awesome. I don't think even my video camera does it justace. It was so relaxing having dinner on picnic tables near the edge of the canyon; me and Ali were actually speachless for the first time :p hee hee. Our third night was started drinking at 7pm, and i mean hard core drinking with jager bommers??!! If y'all know what they are....dunno how to describe them but they are really strong....and we were getting them free all night because we won the pub quiz YAY. We went out with a couple of canadian's called Josh and Raz....ending up in a club in the mgm grand and once again getting back to the hostel in the early hours. Our last night was legendary, we started drinking once again at 7pm, Ali was hustling the lads in the hostel for money on the pool table!! (she actually gained the status of the best woman pool player the hostel has ever seen! hee hee). 40 of us went on a hummer limo from the hostel, cruised the strip for 30 mins while drinking champagne, then went to two clubs; Coyote Ugly and The famous house of Blues!! We managed to rock the kazba english style by getting onto the small stage twice (not just once!!) to dirty dance as Coyote's do....while being drowned with free vodka!! Yeah baby yeah! Much to the delight of everyone from the hostel! (they love us english birds over here). Ali actually got onto the stage in the House of Blues with the band....they must have thought she was a groupie hee hee...and we also managed to get into the VIP section (blaggin' it), although i don't quite remember how! We met a really nice english lad called Dan, who is the only northern person we've met so far :) and he's from Darlo :) yay **waves** (hi chicken, hope your having fun with the waves in San Diego!! *J*) So we had a really nice night, arriving back at the hostel for 4am, and having to check out immediately to make our greyhound bus to Dallas Texas!! Now a 33 hour bus ride is not the most pleasant when you've got a hangover (Ali had a bit of a stonker hee hee but i was ok 'cos i switched onto red bull at 2am!) but it is legendary all the same! We were very sad to leave Vegas, but the journey must continue! Big shouts out to all those we met in Vegas, especially Dan, Josh, Raz, Ozzy steve, Irish steve, frenchy, leyton, coleen and moses! When we get home we'll tell y'all about our very strange room mate called Michelle :p (we can't tell you everything now can we!!) ********** Jane and Ali ************ PS....the photo is not as random as you might think, it's Ali tanning herself in the hostel back yard :P hee hee (she is sat next to me and it was actually her joke!