Viva Las Vegas!

Bright light city gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire!

Howdy from Las Vegas! We've done so much in such a short period of time here that I figured I better write it all down before I forget.

We arrived late Wednesday afternoon and headed for check in at the Palazzo. In the words of Usher, OMG! The hotel is spectacular and, as it is connected to the Venetian, it is the largest hotel in the world, who knew?!

So, we pull up to the "freeway" they like to call valet here and once our suitcases were safely out of the car we bolted, kinda like chickens weaving in and out of traffic, to the foyer. Now, you know how you normally check in at a hotel, take a few steps back out to the left and enter the lift for your room. Not here.

We start the check in process by lining up in the cow rails...yep, there's that many people here. Get to the counter, ID, sign the forms, hand over poor Mr Credit Card and then comes the spiel about what's where and who's who. Once the Check-In Man is done he tells us how to get to our room "When you exit here, take a left and walk all the way to the end of the corridor, through the casino floor to the elevators at the end". Yes people, you heard that right. Lug your four suitcases and your handbag through the casino floor to the lifts at the end! So, off we head for our casual stroll to the elevators.

Fifteen minutes later when we arrive we stare, blankly, at the various groups of elevators before us. One set for levels 1-24, one set for 25 to whatever and the third for whatever to whatever else. Unbelieveable. We find our set, get to the 24th floor and head right, for about another fifteen minutes to "suite" 717. Yes Madam, there are no rooms at the Palazzo, only suites. Well excuuuuuuuse me!

The room is amazing. I have photos to show you all once we get home. It has a huge king size bed, like it's king and then a half; a sunken lounge, our bathroom is almost as big as the blue banana (look it up) and our view is meh, we just look over the golf course accross the road...hahahahahaha, talk about not belonging at Le Pavillion, this is even worse!

That night was pretty much a write-off but, once we woke from our travel coma on Thursday morning we were raring to go. We indugled in a quick continental breakfast in our own private, Prestige Bar (where we can also get free drinks all day, free canapes between 5-7pm and free dessert between 7-9pm...needless to say, I have gained at least 5kgs over here)! Anyway...breakfast, yes, we had that and then hit the pavement for a day of sightseeing.

First stop, the hotel next door, the Venetian. It has a real canal-way through the hotel, the ceiling is painted like the sky, you can have gondola rides and it has both a Christian Louboutin and Jimmy Choo shop inside, what more could a woman want (short of a nice win at the cas to actually buy a pair of those shoes)?

Next up, Caesers Palace...think Roman statues and artwork. It's beautiful. Then we headed for the Bellagio which has the most amazing butterfly theme in their foyer complete with a real butterfly enclosure filled with the prettiest little flying things. I could have spent all day just watching those things flutter around! Back over the road and we headed to Paris, Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe included.

"Over the road", something we say with such ease but which requires a great deal of mastery in Las Vegas. There's no such thing as "just over the road" here. You have to kinda go around the hotel you're near to the escalators, go up to the connecting walkway, walk accross to the other side and then down the escalator again. Only then can you head for where you really wanna go BUT, God help you if you try to detour through the shops or casino's that do their darndest to draw you in...then your stuck, forever! No kidding, we got "trapped" inside the Luxor (where we were later that day) and had to ask for directions out!

Anyway, I digress. As we strolled around we took the time to visit the Coke Shop and the four-story M&M World. Then it was over to the MGM Grand where we got to see the MGM Lions...you know that ones that go roaaaarrrrr at the start of all those old school movies? The ones in here today are actually descendents of the very first ones in those movies.

Over the road again and we headed to New York New York. The exterior of this place has everything from the Statue of Liberty to the Chrysler Building to the Brooklyn Bridge. It's pretty cool to see. Our main reason for going here though was to go on the Roller Coaster which we could see from the outside. It didn't look too bad, just your standard run of the mill ride we thought. Key word, thought. We follow the signs to the Roller Coaster and lock our things away. $28 later and we've officially put our life in the hands of a machine, with rails, wheels with a long, 12 seat yellow cab sitting on top of it. We climb in and, all the while, we're fine - we've done this a million times before.

Off we go, arms up, woooooooo. Then the roller coaster goes upwards, and upwards, and upwards, and upwards, and upwards. I kid you not this thing rose to a level I have never been to before (in a little car on a little rail anyway). All the while this thing is going up I'm sitting there thinking what goes up, must come down and then... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Holy crap, this coaster dropped like nothing else, twisting, looping, upside down and then over and back again. I'm screaming and laughing, Leo is just screaming and then FLASH, camera! The photo we had to buy, it's hillarious, both of us screaming our lungs off! It was THE BEST, without a doubt, roller coaster I have ever been on. I reckon I could even do that again.

After that, we took a few minutes to find our feet and then headed for Exaclibur which stunk like stale beer so we were straight back out again to the Luxor, a-la-Egypt.

Whilst we were there we took the time to see two exhibitions. One was real relics from the Titanic, everything from bolts and dinner plates and coins and bags/clothes to a piece of the actual ship which was recovered in 1998. All the items have been recovered over the last 15-20 years through various expeditions down to the wreck site (2.5 miles below the sea). This was a really interesting exhibition to go to.

The second was Bodies. This was real humans (who I assume (and hope) had donated their bodies to science) all cut up, pulled up, brains, lungs, you name it...it was all there for us all to see. Although also very interesting to see, this exhibition was probably not the best one to do on an empty stomach!

On that note, we headed back the Wynn, home of Vegas' best buffet. Usher's back. OMG#2. Shellfish, Sushi, Dim Sum, Asian Veges & Noodles, Roast Beef and Turkey on the carvery, Pasta Bar, Pizza Bar, Vegetables and Salad for as far as the eye can see, Vegetarian Indian, Seafood, Chicken (roasted, sauteed, chopped, bwok bwok, it was all here), Cheese Station, "other specialties" and then dessert. WTF! Who the hell can possibly even try one piece of everything they had to offer? And, what do you think we paid for this extravagance? Gold star to those of you who guessed $79, for BOTH of us, including unlimited cool drink.

Heading for home we showered, changed and went down to our theatre at the Palazzo to see Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. We bopped and sang along for 2.5hours without even realising it! Fantastic show and one that Papa Fred would love!

After that, yes people we were still going, time to donate to the casino that was looking after so well. I headed straight for Baby, Johnny and the Kellermans...plonking my culo down in front of the Dirty Dancing Pokie. What a cool poker machine! It has clips from the movie, bonus rounds and the little symbols that spin around include Baby's dancing feet, a record player and a watermelon hahahaa! I spent about 2 hours on this machine and, although I still cannot afford a pair of Choo's or Louboutin's, I had a great night. Do you know they serve you free drinks as long as your gambling here? Heheheeee.

So, that was day one and today is day two. Today we shopped, again. You'd think we would have learnt by now that there is NO ROOM LEFT in our suitcases but meh, we'll just rearrange and figure it out. We both bought pretty new prescription sunglasses today; one pair Chanel,  one pair Ralph Lauren, done in 3 hours, polarised and everything for $700. That seems awfully cheap to me. Then I did something I've wanted to do for ages, I got my teeth whitened! Not like Ross in Friends but I think they look pretty good and it only took 20 minutes.

We're now going to grab a bevie and then get changed and head to Fairmont Street, Old Vegas to see the light show. Who knows what the weekend will bring and which other shows we'll go to see but I hope to share it all with you before we head to Hawaii on Monday night. What a place this is. I think we're gonna keep having a lot of fun here!

Talk to you all later.
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