Vegas itself is the strangest place, it centres around the strip and even one block back, there are patches of wasteland. It's a city that is constantly being knocked down and rebuilt and which derives its entire livelihood from hotels and gambling. The people in the casinos are excellent; there's a stereotypical gambler, late 60s, Hawaiian shirt, cap, still at the slot machines in the morning... It's weird that people can smoke inside too, and unlike anywhere else in America, you can freely drink on the street. That aspect makes us feel right at home!
Anyway, we got ready in our room. I even let Kitty do my make up (woah) and we met the rest of the crew at the front entrance of the hotel at 9 o clock. In true Vegas style, Greg pulled up in a white huma limo waving a bottle of champagne and away we were! The tunes were blaring out, champagne, vodka and beer were being freely passed around and we were rolling down Las Vegas Boulevard! More importantly, we were drinking out of red cups!!! It was pretty surreal to say the least, but so much fun! We stopped a couple of times and got out, firstly to take a picture with the 'Welcome to Las Vegas' sign and secondly at the Fremont Street Experience. This was really cool, it has a huuuuge TV screen on the roof of a 'mall', which is epic when it's lit up at night! Whatever they were showing involved a lot of Queen blaring out so we all thoroughly enjoyed drunkenly singing along!
The limo eventually dropped us off at the Bellagio where we were headed to watch the water show, like they do at the end of Oceans 11. We had a wander around the Bellagio casino and I was kind of expecting George Clooney or Brad Pitt to casually stroll round the corner. Alas, this did not happen.
The water show was really cool but once it was over it was time to go our separate ways. We thanked Greg for everything he had done over the past week and I think he was sorry to say goodbye to us as we brought the life and soul (and obviously the banter) to the tour, which carries on without us now for another week.
Greg had sent the two Norwegian boys off to a strip club since they were under 21 and you only have to be 18 in Vegas to get into a strip club (logical obviously...) and the rest of us ventured into the Cosmopolitan hotel to check out the club there called Marquee. The Cosmopolitan hotel was extravagant to say the least, with chandeliers everywhere and a live jazz band. Our group probably looked utterly ridiculous waltzing in there, but we were still drunk from the limo and thus didn't care!
The queue for the club in the Cosmopolitan was ridiculous and the boys had to be wearing proper shoes and shirts and stuff so we headed off to find somewhere else without a dress code, somehow managing to lose Polly, Peter and Andrea on the way.
This left me, Kitty, Andre, Robin, Ann, Trine, Jenny and Maria. We had heard that the club at Harrah's casino had no dress code so headed in that direction. The amount of people in Vegas at night is fascinating, it's impossible to imagine where they all come from but the streets are literally packed full! On the way to find Harrah's, we ended up getting talked into going into the club at Paris, on the condition that the boys were allowed in wearing what they were wearing and that they got in for free (girls get in for free anyway in Vegas waheyy). The club seemed quite nice but was far too packed, I literally had strange girls bump 'n' grinding on me, and we all know how angry that makes me! It was crazy hot as well so Kitty and I, Ann and Trine made our way out to get some air and somehow lost all the others.
So there we were in the Paris casino, which is underneath the fake Eiffel tower, and is a replica of parts of Paris, with streets and lampposts. The ceiling is painted like a blue sky, very surreal. It is also home to Gordon Ramsey's restaurant, 'Steak', which was the epitome of swanky!
Kitty and Ann decided to try out the one dollar slot machines and Kitty was more than excited at winning 4 dollars. I was worried I was going to find her still downstairs in the morning, pushing dollar bills into the machine and sporting a Hawaiian shirt!
By this time we were all getting tired, having been up since half four. Talking of which, Robin keeps telling us off for saying half four instead of half PAST four (or whatever hour), and says that we are destroying our own language. Too funny.
Anyway, tired as we were, we began a mission of walking down the strip back towards the Stratosphere, looking for somewhere to hail a taxi. Eventually we realised the easiest way would be to go inside a casino to the valet. Where did we end up hailing a taxi? Only Harrah's, the place we had failed to find a few hours previously. Oh the irony!
Next to the Stratosphere was a cafe called iHop, which Greg had told us was open 24 hours, so the four of us headed there for a 3am breakfast! Why not, we're in Vegas! We had the most lovely old man waiter, he was too cute and smiling to himself the entire time we were there, what a guy! Whilst we were sat waiting for our food, we saw Andre outside getting some food and banged on the window to get him to come in and join us! He had also lost everyone and remembered iHop as a place to get food, an excellent coincidence.
Finally, we made our way to bed, after having an emotional goodbye session in the hallway. Ann and Trine have been lovely and funny all week so we've told them they are always welcome to come and stay with us in England if they come back! We both got a big hug from Andre too, he told
us we had been like his two little sisters on the trip and that if we ever wanted to go to Australia, we would
always be able to stay with him and he would show us around. He's been loads of fun this week too, and I'm sure the group won't be the same for the rest of the tour without the three of us!
This was of course, a brief summary of events, as some things aren't public blog appropriate, so what happens in Vegas really does stay in Vegas ;)
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