Vegas Baby

Trip Start Nov 01, 2006
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54
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of United States  , Nevada,
Tuesday, February 26, 2008

So we are on our way to Vegas. I´ve been waiting years for this, but we can´t write about Vegas without writing about the journey to Vegas. The easiest way was by Greyhound bus which takes 6 ½ hours from Palm Springs. What we didn´t realised was that no normal American take the bus. We had been given one hint, which is not to sit at the back as every released prisoner gets a free Greyhound tickets and they always sit at the back. I don´t think there were any on our bus, but at one place we stopped there was a policeman escorting 2 men onto a bus to LA and they looked so stereotypically like prisoners you see in the movies, it was hilarious! Sadly neither looked like Linc or Michael from Prison Break, more like Mexican homeboys in baggy jeans and white t-shirts with dodgy hair. Now having been on lots of different and pretty bad buses, we can safely say Greyhound is definitely one of the worst! We were instantly regretting buying non-refundable tickets to San Francisco from Vegas (14 hours!). Anyway the journey passed pretty uneventfully and we arrived at our hotel just after 2pm. We were staying in the Stratosphere hotel which is at the north end of the strip. It´s a bit away from the fancy places further down the strip, but you can get the bus or it´s only 30 minutes walk. We loved this hotel and would definitely go again. We only paid $35 a night and our room was huge. I´m sure it doesn´t compare to the likes of the Bellagio but for about 1/4 of the price who cares! So after dumping our bags it was time for a quick gamble. On our way to Vegas
On our way to Vegas
 Being on a backpackers budget meant that we stuck to the 1c machines (although we gambled up to 10c in one go, the highrollers that we are!). I quickly turned my $5 into $18 and then made that last until the end of our stay. Elliot also won $30 from $5 the next day, which we then cashed out and played on the roulette. With the free drinks we certainly felt that we were up, especially when we found the machine near the drinks station, which meant the beers flowed even more freely.
The first evening we went downtown and had a wander around, played a few machines, checked out the light show and had a burger. Downtown is ok, but nowhere near as impressive as the main strip. The next day we explored the strip which is pretty amazing and you could spend weeks going in and out of all the hotels. We had the buffet lunch at the Bellagio, which was great, the desserts were particularly amazing, so we had 6 between us! That evening we checked out the tower at our hotel which has amazing views over the strip and three fairground rides right at the top.
The third day and night gets its own separate entry of course, so now I´ll skip to the part where we finally checked out of the hotel at 6pm (thank god for late checkout, I was far too hungover to get our bed until then!). We wandered around, had a last gamble and then headed for our dreaded bus, which left at 11.30pm. We were really looking forward to San Francisco and seeing Josh, who we last saw in Argentina.
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