Have arrived in Vegas. There are few words to describe that first shower after a long haul flight and a mind-numbing amount of hours awake. Feeling like a new woman in a change of clothes, I headed straight for The Venetian and Palazzo. It was interesting catching cabs, talking to the staff like I'm a local, and walking around outside. I don't feel like a tourist here anymore. I've been enough times and know the lay of the land well enough to just hit the ground...

Hands down this is always the least enjoyable part of any trip to America. Crawling through customs hall. That probably applies the world over though, so I won't hold it against America. At least this time the customs guy was friendly and even pretended to be impressed with my itinerary. Possibly more impressed that I could recall its frightening level of detail after 14 economy style hours on a 747, but I'll take it. It's quite an improvement on the absolute gri...