Las Vegas

Arrived in Vegas from Bryce after hours of driving on June 30th. I had my flight back to England the following day at 7:20 in Phoenix, so this was going to be my last night in the US.

Las Vegas was very busy, it's a big city actually, and there were a lot of road works. It was difficult to drive there. I knew the "strip", where all the insane hotel-casinos are, is located near the South of town, but I arrived on the North side. And then my GPS was dumb enough not to find "Strip, Las Vegas". I found out later that the actual name is "Las Vegas Boulevard". The GPS also didn't find "Caesar Palace" (Maybe because the correct spelling is "Caesars Palace"? It should be "Caesar's Palace", in proper English anyway!).

Anyway, I wondered where I'd be staying. I finally found the strip and which Hotel would have been more appropriate for me to stay in than the Paris? You know, the one with a mini Eiffel Tower on the front!

You can see it was pretty busy.

I had no idea how much it was going to cost and if I could afford it, but I figured I'd give it a try anyway. So I found my way to the free car park and went in the hotel.

First impression, which is valid for any Hotel in Las Vegas, is that it's like a Disneyland for adults. It all seem as fake and there are no kids anywhere you look. The ground floor of the hotel is huge and is organised in "Parisian" streets. You've got little signs indicated the directions of the various places. Every thing is slightly French. You've got signs like "Le Business Centre", "Le Car Rental", "Le Burger Brasserie", and my personal favourite: "L'Eiffel Tour". This is neither one thing ("The Eiffel Tower" in English) nor the other ("La Tour Eiffel" in French), it is so stupid! I got a good laugh out of that.

I finally found the "Reception" and queued to check-in. In my flip-flops and hiking clothes, I didn't feel very appropriate. People around me were all good-looking--or maybe more appropriately "looking good" (i.e. well groomed)--and with an attitude. I thought "what the hell", and was curious how much it was going to be. Their cheapest room (which is in fact quite big, with a huge plasma TV and a fantastic bathroom) turned out to be only 90 dollars! So I checked in. After 3 weeks in the desert, it was very nice to take a bath and use all the mini-bottles of grooming products they provided.

Then I went to walk a bit outside. Looked a bit at the zombie-people gambling. Walked to the nearby Caesars Palace. Same crap, different packaging. I saw Jerry Seinfelf on a poster and enquired about it. It'd have been awesome to go at his show! But unfortunately, he will only start here in August. Right now, Cher was here. No thanks!

Lacking Jerry Seinfeld, I set out to look for the Pussycat Dolls Lounge. My Lonely Planet guide mentioned it, so obviously I had to check it out! :-D I got a VIP pass for free and was told to come back after 10:30 PM. So I went back to the hotel to catch a couple hours of sleep (I was exhausted), watched a weird program about a group of amateur mechanics that changed an old van into a cow-milking truck (that was quite an experience) and came back to the club. I got almost denied entry because of my hiking T-shirt and pants and flip-flops, but I got in anyway!

Unfortunately, disappointment awaited me. I discovered that only the terrace was going to be open that night (Thursday). That meant no shows. So I only had a glimps of the "dolls" from behind a VIP ruban. Apart from that, the club was quite boring. As you've probably figured out, if you've read a bit of my blog, clubs are not really my cup of tea!

On the way back to my hotel, I met Elvis and Marilyn and got my picture taken with them! The picture was taken by Tommy & Lisa, from Alabama. They were kind enough to promise to send me the picture, thanks!