Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 12

We woke up sort of lateish - but Ant didn't have the best of nights' sleep. The bed was pretty soft (which Ant hates). It was a little hard to see out of our pyramid window - it was covered by some Cirque De Sol ad on the outside of the pyramid (sort of like those ads on the windows of buses where you can sorta see through them but not completely). Our room overlook the airport (!) - but alas the room was double glazed so you really didn't hear any of the airport noise apart from the occasional helicopter flight over the hotel.

The TV here in Vegas felt a little less CNN/News channels and more "Nick trashy channels" like MTV which was showing a marathon of "Parental Control" - a dating show where the parents of a kid (who can't stand their partner) interviews a panel of potential dates - selects them and then their kid goes out on a date with both the Mother and Father's selection. At the end of the show they make a choice of whether they stick with their current boyfriend/girlfriend or dump them and go out with one of the dates selected by their parents. I have not seen an episode yet where they dump their extant boyfriend/girlfriend for one that their parents' selected - but you never know...

We headed downstairs for some breakfast... We both felt like something "light" so we chose Starbucks (!!) (felt like we chose the lesser of two evils - didn't want the golden arches). I had some weird oatmeal in a box thing - where the woman had drowned the oats in some horrible skinny milk thing. It all felt a little expensive for $4USD and the coffee was about the same price (although it was surprisingly half-OK!).

Everything in Vegas is at "tourist prices" - nowhere near as cheap as anywhere else we had been to thus far on the trip. The Luxor hotel prices for things were even more expensive than outside of the hotel (eg: in a normal store on the strip). A price of Pepsi out of the vending machine was $3US which makes it way more expensive than what you would pay back in Australia.

I had Ant take a picture of me fake-playing the "Alien" Slot Machine... as in Sigourney Weaver/chest-bursting/"Get away from her you beeetch!" variety. I'm not so sure how lucky punters are supposed to feel playing an "Alien" Slot Machine - given that most people that appear in the movie get horribly killed or impregnated or both...?

We didn't have a plan (in terms of tourist stuff to do) - only just to further explore the Strip, the Casinos and the shops... We walked out of the main entrance of the Pyramid to get a better feel of the hotel. There is a giant fibreglass sphinx out the front as well as a little walkway filled with egyptian fibreglass cat sculpture thingies - where I sat down on top of one and had Ant take my picture.

We wandered past the Excalibur to the front of NY NY - where they had this tack-o-rama tribute to the "heroes of 9/11" out the front the casino... choice. Also - there was supposed to be some sort of river/water feature but the hotel had a sign saying "there is an extreme drought and the NY NY Hotel is proudly upholding water restrictions..." or something. Maybe if there was an extreme drought - it could be time to switch over from the double non-saving water shower heads and the toilets which flush about 28 L's per flush... And the cars here in the States (not sure if I've written about this before?) but they make my Medium Pulsar look like a micro car over here. Everyone drives around in big (and I mean huge) SUVs - and you start to get a good idea why the American economy is going down with everyone driving these gas guzzlers... We did see the odd hybrid car in LA and San Diego - but they had to be the smallest cars on the road in the States.

Anyhows - we checked out the Monte Carlo - which continued in the fibreglass tradition of the Luxor with old Greek statutes adorning the staircase to the casino. (Not sure if ancient greek statues are in the real Monte Carlo??! What's a bit of facts that get in the way of statues). Maybe the casino floor was a bit classier than the luxor - but it was still classier with a K.

We walked down the strip, past the mammoth construction site to the Bellagio Hotel which was very big and f##K off. It seemed more "classier" than any of the casinos we had seen - but it was still pretty gaudy and tacky - complete with this glass house / observatory complete with those water features which shoot over foot paths (maybe they got a bulk discount with the Westin Bonaventure?) and tacky glass features on the ceiling. What the Bellagio Hotel is famous for is their big lake out the front ("the Bellagio Hotel is proud in ignoring water restrictions in these extreme drought conditions"...) and the water show (which happens every hour and you might have seen it in the opening credits of CSI - I think?! Not that I watch that crap anyway...). The lake thingy wasn't immediately obvious when we walked into the Casino because we entered through this side entrance thingy - where the lake wasn't visible. We walked through a reech beeech shopping mall where everything was decked out in marble and stuff and lots of Channel Stores and the like.

My phone kept going off (I have global roaming on) and then my mum tried to call me saying that she was worried because I hadn't blogged or texted her. It's OK - I'll be sending her a bill for the $58 2 minute phone call when I get back to Australia...! Until next time...