Vegas baby!!

So bye bye to the tranquility of the Grand Canyon and hello to the maddness and awesomeness that is Las Vegas.  We were ready to party celebrity style. Jack had already made arrangements for us to go to  some of the hottest clubs on the strip.

The bus was slightly more awake than it usually is. Everyone was excited.  To get us in the mood we had some aqua and s club 7 playing haha(surprisingly not our playlist). A few people wern't to keen but it was definately our sort of party music, ha!

It was time to get our kicks at route 66 for our first small stop. We stopped there for a little while for some snaps. It was quite a cute area but the heat was intense and it was only 10.30am. Back on the bus and we set off for lunch. Played a few rounds of cards.  Not as lucky as the first time but didn't lose. That was Jay's doing...he sucks at cards haha.  

We stopped at a walmart, on the lookout for some straighteners. We have been in desperate need of some since Liz's broke in Thailand. We got some back when Soph arrived to join us but they have also decided not to work! Nightmare haha! Got a pair for $18 cheap as! We were now prepared for Vegas! Woooo!!! It was time to head back on the party bus and head to Sin City!  

Drove passed the Hoover Dam as we crossed the border into the state of Nirvada.  Vegas was in sight and we were ready to go wild!

We checked in to The Harras...it was luxury.  Our hotel was actually on the main strip opposite Caesers palace and the Bellagio. Amaaaazzzziiiinnggg.  We all got some drinks before heading up to our rooms to get all dolled up.  It was the first time we got to get our gladrags on in 5weeks.  

There are NO rules there...You can just walk the streets with alcohol. It's awesome.  6.45 and we were ready for the night ahead. First...some food at an Italian. On our way there we stopped outside the Las Vegas sign to have a group photo.  Expected it to be bigger than it was. We got our pics done and then off for grub. The food was ok, but it was the first place in America that didn't serve enough bloody food. There were two pizzas between 12 on our table and a bowl of pasta....that was it.

Next stop was the wedding chapel. Jack had told us that he'd previously got married on a drunken night and that his wedding picture was in the chapel we were attending.  Little did we know that it was all a lie. At the start of the tour we had all put our names down for a surprise, which could happen at any point of the trip. We got in the chapel and were told to take our seats. The next thing we know elvis(obviously not the real one) walks through the door, singing.  He stands at the front and calls Jay and Anitas name...he was  going to perform a wedding ceremony for them.  They even got marriage certificates. Shows how easy it is to get married in
Vegas. There was even a drive through chapel. Quick marriage to get straight to the honeymoon.  The whole thing was so much fun...we were all in hysterics.  It was an awesome surprise, well worth $10 and it put us in a great mood to go out.

Before hitting the club we went to see the largest screen in the world on Freemont street...it was buzzing there.  Loads of people waiting to watch the music tribute to Queen on the big screen, which was wicked.  The screen was the ceiling of the whole arcade, HUGE! (well it would be being the largest screen). There was also a band on stage singing 80's music, it was great for a pre dancing session! I spotted a guy in the crowd(not sure if he was a tramp or something) but he looked so much like Sam. We pointed the dude out to Sam and he went and had a snap shot with him.  The guys face was a picture he had no idea what was going on.

Back on the bus ready to set off to the Cathouse to get our groove on! The bus had literally morphed into a party bus...the music was blasting, everyone was off their chairs dancing down the aisle. It was brill!

All of us girls got free entry and VIP at the Cathouse.  Not only that we had an open vodka bar for an hour! Hell yeah!! Amazing!! It was a bit sexist but hey I wasn't complaining... glad to be a girl!! Haha. We got the drinks in and a Shisha before getting the dance moves out. Sam was pulling out some crazy ass dance moves. He was loving it! I probably would have been like that if I was 18 and got in to a club in the US.  The bushy beard adds the age on for him though haha. Randomly met a group of lads from Essex which were pretty cool, chatted for a while before leaving.  Len and Liz had left a few minutes before and somehow managed to get lost. Me Soph and drunken sam were waiting outside for a while after I'd searched the whole casino for them. It's surprisingly very easy to get lost in one of the hotels. They are gigantic.  They strolled out a bit later(soph had found them). They said that they decided while they were lost to do a bit of gambling...actually won $5 which paid for their Mcdonalds on the way home! Great Night all round.

We all woke up early to do some exploring. After our free breakfast we hit the strip.  First stop...Paris, got to see the Eiffel tower and the arc de triumph.  Went to see the casino. I've never seen so many slot machines in my life. They are everywhere.  Men were placing big bets on the poker table...it was 10am.  So surreal.

From Paris to New York in 10 minutes...pretty impressive right?   Got a great view of the Statue of Liberty and then walked across the Brooklyn bridge. More people walk over this bridge in Vegas than the actual Brooklyn bridge. Crazy, I know! The hotels are just insane. I can't describe how big they are! Just half of the ground floor is like a town centre. The ceilings are painted like the sky and they make it look as if you're walking down a street with shops, restaurants and bars.  One of the hotels even has it's own fire station! We got to see MGM hotel which was supposed to have a lion in the entrance...there were no lions, maybe we were just too early to see them. We also stopped at the Cosmopolitan as we started walking back up the strip. It had a gigantic chandelier which stretched down through three floors. There was a nightclub through the middle of it, which was pretty cool.  

The Bellagio was next on our check list of hotels. Very swish. It had beautiful gardens running through the middle of it.  Can't imagine the price per night there. I'm sure that's where most of the celebs stay, well there or Caesars palace, which was our next stop, right next door.  The hotel where The Hangover and the Vegas episodes of Friends were filmed. Excited!! It was an awesome hotel to be fair.  They even had a mini coliseum.  I can't get over how much money is put into Vegas.  I wish I had that much money!! One guy has three hotels there...THREE, one being the Bellagio! That is one stupidly rich man.

We chilled at the pool in Caesars Palace as it was free to do so, and way better than our pool. We needed some chill time as the heat was getting a bit much. It was on it's way to hitting 43 degrees celsius. So the pool was nice place to cool down before continuing down the strip.

Next was the Venetian, this whole hotel was Venice themed. It had a replica of St marks square. It had river flowing through it with gondolas on it. Surprisingly a lot nicer than the real deal. Venice is a lot dirtier than Vegas's version. I'd felt like I'd travelled to many different places in one day. It was amazing!

Going into that many hotels got a bit repetitive as all had pretty similar things just had different themes. There were more along the strip but we decided to go straight to the last hotel on our list...The Stratosphere. Oh yes the one with the rides on top of it.  We caught the bus there as the strip is deceivingly long, and we were on a time schedule. We were definately heading into the rougher part of Vegas.  Weird random people were getting on the bus.  Two of which started speaking to Soph.  I think she just attracts them. Its like a moth to a flame. It's happened on numerous occasions on this trip.  Soooo funny. One guy was talking to her about the weather and then as he got off stroked her head and said nice to see you. Strange man Haha.

We arrived at The Stratosphere and the nerves kicked in. I had previously agreed to go on one of the rides with Liz.  But seeing how high it was, I had instant regret in saying it.  There was a bungie from 108 floors high....the other rides were even higher.  I went ahead and bought our tickets for the ride, so did Liz, Soph and Jay.  That was it, committed. Eeeek!  Our ears were popping going up in the lift. We reached the observation deck before getting another lift to go even higher.  I had difficulty looking out the window of in observation room it was so high. But up we went again, to the top of the hotel. We chose Xtreme as the ride to go on and when I saw it I was having major second thoughts.  There's like a small carriage which is tilted and rolls off the building, you are then held there for about 30 until it just drops and you are literally hanging 114 floors above the ground.  Who ever invented this ride is a complete nutcase.  I managed to get passed the doors and in the queue for the ride. I was shaking so much. Liz is usually the daredevil and even she was scared.  She couldn't go through with the ride. Me and Soph were left trying to decide whether to go through with it.  Our turn came around as we were debating on what to do.  I've never been so scared in my life. My whole body was shaking. As soon as I was sat on it I wanted to get off, but it was too late, I was locked in and the ride began. Liz and Len were watching from the observation dec taking photos, majority being me with my hands in my head or screaming!  I couldn't believe we were hanging of the side of one of the tallest hotels in Vegas. Had a
Major sigh of relief getting off, still shaking though...but felt good once I'd calmed down as I had conquered a fear.  I'm glad I did it now. With all the screaming my pictures were horrendous... There was just sheer terror on my face.  I didn't want anyone to have the picture...but
Who went and bloody bought one...Jay! Not impressed haha.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped off at the largest souvenir shop in the world.  Wasn't too exciting in there if I'm honest. But got my postcard and a few little bits to send home. We got a nice little meals at a steakhouse before heading off to get ready for another night on the town.

Walking round there were loads of promoters around trying to get us into their club.  Caesars palace had Bruno Mars and Avril Lavigne playing there, we couldn't attend as we'd already booked to go to the variety show.  Gutted!! We also knew Lauren Conrad was in Vegas after some twitter stalking...we were pretty much on the lookout for celebs all day... No luck though. Boo.

Time for the Las Vegas variety show.  Pretty excited I was just praying that it was nothing like Thailand's wonderful show that we fell asleep in after 10minutes. After the first 10 seconds we were confident it was going to be great. Our host was awesome he juggled bowling pins, hats and even juggled ping pong balls with his mouth. He also played fur de lis throwing balls at the piano...insane. There was drumming, balancing acts, a gymnast(who was extremely skinny and could do some messed up things...so flexible). One of the acts got four volunteers on stage, one being a guy from our tour. They all got given a mask...the scariest clown mask was one of them.  They basically had to do what the guy was telling them, it was soooo funny as the guy from our tour couldn't hear or see properly with the mask on so when he was supposed to do an action he just sat there looking straight ahead. Was such a fun show to watch, it put us in great spirits for our limo ride down the strip.

There were 3 limos waiting for us as we left the show.  One hummer and two giant limos.  We got in one of the  giant limos, we were handed bottles of champagne as we got in.  We were riding in style down the Vegas strip. We had the music blasting, popped the champagne and started dancing.  Our pre party was in the limo...45minutes in luxury transport before getting to the Palms hotel.  Danielle was debating on whether to try getting in. She's only 19 but she'd had some drinks in the limo and wanted to chance it.  She took her sisters drivers licence and got in without any problems.  Woooo.  All girls got VIP again and two free drinks.  Being a girl definitely has it's advantages.

We got in the lift at the Palms which took us to Moon(the rooftop club). It was pretty full when we got there but the atmosphere was amaaazzziing.  The views from the balconies were incredible...you could see all of Vegas lit up.  It was just beautiful. We chilled outside with a drink for a bit taking in the views before heading to the dance floor to get our groove on.  The music was pretty cool, everyone was dancing.  A bunch of British guys had a booth next to where we were dancing, a few got chatting to them so we all started dancing on the platform of their booth.  The boys were told to get down. Only girls on the platforms, haha.

It's so sexist here, even the bar staff pouring drinks, the girls will get like two full shots of alcohol poured and the boys just had a quick pour of alcohol. It's crazy.

Len wasn't feeling to good so left around 2am with Anita and Bel, but we carried on partying. Me and Liz kept going upstairs to check for celebs in VIP...there were none though. I think they were all at Caesars palace!! Damn!  We still had a majorly brill night.

We went to head off home at about 4am but as we were leaving the club a red headed girl dressed as red riding hood took me, Liz and Soph off into a lift.  We were being taken to a suite where a band was filming a music video.  Crazy!!  When we got to the room it looked pretty trashed(I think that's the sort of effect they were going for), lamps knocked over, empty glasses and cups on the floor, even a pile of flour (supposed to be coke). Crazy!! There were people dancing, there was a pole in the middle of the room, loaddddssss of alcohol(which we could take advantage of) red riding hood and a wolf, a man wearing a dress and a bit later on a Midget appears from no where. Picture this... a midget in a towel, pole dancing and then riding a child's car around the room. He eventually fell off it face straight to the floor, he was still in a towel so you can imagine what we saw! Haha.   It was just hilarious! They started filming     was just the most surreal experience of my life. Only in Vegas eh!

The three of us got a bit bored after seeing the same shots filmed over and over again.  Riding hood running around being chased by the wolf, then the midget came out dressed as a blonde Elvis and I was sat next to a guy just chilling in a dress.  We all
looked at each other and when the people in charge went to reset the scene we legged it...took us a little while as we were locked in but we got out and ran to the lifts. We escaped with two condoms(not sure where Liz got them haha) and a disposable camera which we finished using.  Let's just say we can't wait to see the photos when they are developed.  Epic end to the night. Soooo random and it's not a story people would believe easily. But it seriously happened and we have evidence haha.

Time was getting on a bit, almost 5.00am and as we had to be on the bus at 7.45am it was definitely time for us to get back.  We were wandering through the casino for a while trying to find our way out. Liz was running through waving the condoms...I couldn't breathe, I was laughing so hard. She was hilarious. We managed to get out and get a taxi back.  We had to wake Len up because there was a mix up with keys but we got to bed about 6am. At least we had an hour to sleep haha. This has to be one of the best nights out I have ever had. Vegas...that's where anything can happen!

Las Vegas is one of the best places ever! We had an awesome couple of days. I now have the Vegas blues. Booo!

Not to worry I will be returning there in the future.  I've told the girls to start saving...it will be the venue or my hen party. I just need to find a man haha.  

Onto Bass Lake for a couple of days now for some chill-out time.  I think we all need to recharge our batteries ready for San Fran.

Speak to y'all soon.  

Muchos love

J.L xxxxx