The correct answer to the question "medium or large?" is "small". I must remember this. In a country dominated by fast food joints, this is their way of making sure they squeeze an extra dollar or two out of you for a few more fries (chips). Since drink refills are free, that is literally all you're paying for. Anyway, with that lesson learned again, let's talk travel.

I had one full day in Vegas, and I packed it with a lot of things. I actually arrived at midnight on the 12th from LA, courtesy of a lift from a friendly homeopathic medical "expert" who had some interesting ideas about Osama Bin Laden's death, the rise of Hitler, and the apparent ineffectiveness of modern medicine. I kept my mouth shut about that last one. In fact I'll go as far as to say homeopathy works, but only because of the placebo effect. If I convinced you that M&M's would cure you, they'd have the same effect. So I got door to door service and sat doing my laundry until about 3am and chatting with hostel guests, again about Osama's "death".

After five hours sleep I grabbed breakfast, packed and went to town via chapels and a dubious 7-Eleven. Vegas is insane in its decadence and it's almost impossible to walk anywhere without ending up in a casino. I started at the Las Vegas sign and worked my way up through the strip, stopping in a few casinos to get a feel of the place. I got myself a complimentary drink at a bar in the Cosmopolitan while playing video poker while I waited for dark.

When darkness came, I went to the Bellagio to catch the fountain show, then to the Mirage for the volcano show, wandered around the insanely impressive Venetian - complete with a reproduction of daytime Venice inside - and went back to the hostel. They were having a party and I joined in. Eventually we all headed to a local karaoke bar which I didn't intend to go to, and we all drank PBR's. These are bottled lagers with a playing card value under the top. If you correctly guess the suit, the beer was free. If you guessed the suit AND value then you got a free bucket of beer! We stayed for a while and for the last drink I guessed it right and ended up with a bucket of beer to finish! For free! By this time it was past 3am and some people were going to a casino. I suggested going to Sahara and we spent some time there while I spent 20 bucks on blackjack. By the time we returned it was coming up to 5am and I had to be be up around 6:15am to catch the Green Tortoise bus to start my canyon trip. I got about 50 minutes sleep and was up again. Coffee required...