Las Vegas

(24/7/15 - 26/7/15) Welcome to the land of fake celebrities, "free" drinks, delicious food in giant portions, amazingly hot weather, bright lights, money stealing slot machines, and Black Jack, Black Jack, Black Jack!!! 

Let me start by bragging about our hotel - and I will seriously tell this story to anyone who will listen - the New York New York hotel is A-MAZE-BALLZ. YES, that Z was required. Our room was huge, the bed was like a giant marshmallow cloud covered in deliciously fresh, high quality linen, and the view was right over the strip: check it out!

The hotel has its own pool, with bar, a roller coaster, a huge casino which offers free drinks to its players, a shopping mall, and a village YES a village of restaurants. What I mean is... The restaurants were set up into little streets- it was like being on a miniature movie set!  

Our hotel also had its own Starbucks, an arcade for kids, and a Cirque du Soleil  theatre! Mmmmm hmmmm, so really... We didn't need to leave our hotel at all if we didn't want to! Never the less, we did venture out a couple of times to check out the strip - but it was pretty hot (around the 41 mark most days) so walking the strip took its toll pretty quickly. 

Just so you know, most of this post is going to be about food: we ate SO much good food in Vegas... and the portions were NOT small. We had to try out Te Hard Rock Cafe - Brian would love this place. They had soooooo much Elvis stuff on display! The burgers were great too, and because everyone works for tips everyone is super super friendly and attentive, which makes dining so much more enjoyable. 

We walked down to see the Bellagio hotel, and made a plan to come back in the evening to see the fountain show (for anyone who has seen the Oceans 11 movie!!!) After walking the strip for a while we were pretty hot and tired, so we went back to our hotel and headed to the pool! The pool was great, the perfect temperature, and had its own bar so we could enjoy drinks and swims as much as we liked! 

We decided that this was the perfect opportunity to unwind and relax after such a huge trip, so we did a lot of relaxing by the pool, a bit of drinking, and plenty of dining! One thing we decided to go for was the Zumanity show performed by Cirque du Soleil. What an awesome show - and different to the previous CdS shows I have seen! Seriously sexy and sensational - very glad we went! 

(Zumanity photos from Google) 

We walked down to Planet Hollywood and had a look at the Miracle Mile shops - Urban outfitters was my favourite store; lots of cool stuff in there - and we spent some more time by the pool! We decided against going to the Geand Canyon for a few reasons; it was going to take an entire day to get there and back, it was ridiculously hot, and it was way out of our price range... So, we didn't tick that one off our bucket list, but I'm honestly not too sorry about that. We decided to check out a Gordon Ramsey burger place, which we weren't disappointed by at all, and luckily we didn't have to wait in line for very long because it was only the two of us (many other groups of three or more were told they'd have to wait for up to two hours!) 

Mmmmm Parmesan Truffle Fries......

We headed over to the Bellagio to get a good view of the fountain show! It was very pretty, and much bigger than I expected! After that we walked back to the hotel and had some drinks and played some more Black Jack. 

We spent our final day lounging in the hotel, eating amazing food, and lying by the pool (well, I was by the pool getting a leg burn and Michael was inside playing more Black Jack haha). For our final night we had an early dinner (as we were leaving the hotel at 3AM the next morning - eeeeek!) and OH MAN the Mexican meal we had - I already loved Mexican food, but I now realise that Australia doesn't even know what real Mexican food is!!!!! Uuuggghhhhhhh so good (hey, I told you this post was mostly about food didn't I?!) 

So, after dinner we went to look in a few cute shops and bought a few little souvenirs, had a couple of "final night" drinks, and - you guessed it - played some more Black Jack. Actually, I didn't play Blaxk Jack at all, but I stood next to Michael while he played, and it was actually pretty damn addictive. I can see how people would get sucked in and continue playing until there was nothing left! The only gambling I did was a Titanic Game, which I loved because the seat wou vibrate when you won, and they played little excerpts from the movie. It was a short love affair which gave me enough taste of Vegas gambling to last me a lifetime (and the money I won was quickly lost again haha!) So - thanks Vegas, we had a blast, and it was a bit off sun, fun, and relaxation we definitely needed before heading home in a couple of days! Now, off to Los Angeles!