Day 15: 20 March - Guns and Cocktails

Today, I had a day out with my new friend, Randall. We decided to spend the day on the strip and go to a shooting range.

The shooting range was first on the list. I was actually really nervous about this, never having shot a gun. Randall is a fighter pilot in the army, so he was in charge of choosing which guns to shoot. I ended up shooting a Glock handgun and an automatic rifle. It was such an incredible experience! I would definitely do that again, it was very cool!

Don't mess with me!

Afterwards, we went to Mandalay Bay. We thought about going to the aquarium, but we weren't keen enough for the $18 ticket, so we had lunch instead. An American classic, which I was really interested to try - a chilli cheese dog! It was so big that it was my breakfast, lunch and dinner, and it tasted brilliant! We need these in Australia!

We then went exploring around Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and Excalibur, were we decided to buy frozen cocktails. It seems that in every casino in Las Vegas you can buy these frozen cocktails, in novelty cups. We opted to get 1/2 yard cups, which would keep us going for a while! We then moved over to NYNY and made a bet on a basketball game. We refilled our cups again (pina colada and margueita this time), and sat at a blackjack table to watch the game. Our conversations mainly consisted of each other paying out our accents and teaching him Aussie expressions and slang.

My kind of wine rack - at Mandalay Bay

1/2 Yard Cup, Full Yard Fun!

Yummy yummy!

To finish off the night, we went to Coyote Ugly. Randall and the girls on the bar taught me the Wobble Dance (sort of similar to the nutbush, but a lot more butt shaking!). About a dozen off us in the bar played flip cup - boys vs girls - and the losers (the boys) got to buy the girls jely shots. We were also spoiled by the bar girls who would give a free shot to everyone that participated in their bar games - needless to say, we got a lot of free shots!

Day 14: 19 March - Grand Canyon Day!

I was up at well before dawn today at about 4.45am for my day trip down to the Grand Canyon. I was so happy to see the amazing, comfy bus, but soon realised that this was only taking us to the terminal. I then got on to the tour bus; a horribly cramped bus that I would be spending about 11 hours in! I was very happy to be exhausted and managed to sleep a lot of the time.

I hadn't realised just how far the Grand Canyon was from Las Vegas. We left the terminal at about 7am, heading for Arizona. On the bus, I met Miguel from Miami. We were each other's photographers and friends for the day!

There were a couple of stops along the way. One of them being the Hoover Dam, an impressively big dam that was built in the 30's to try and control the raging Colorado River (yes, the bus driver blasted a DVD about the Hoover Dam on the way!). It was a very beautiful spot and was quite picturesque!

The Hoover Dam

At around 12.30, we stopped off at our last stop before the GC, a cute little western style town about 60 miles from our final destination. Here we were treated to an all you can eat buffet of which I was extremely excited about after being stuck on the bus!  

About an hour later we were at the west rim of the Grand Canyon (yay!!!). The name doesn't do it justice, but it is certainly the best way to describe it - it was extremely grand! The views went on and on! The widest point of the canyon is 18 miles (29 kms), and it is about 4,000 - 6,000 feet deep (1.2-1.8 kms). There were some amazing lookouts and even spots where daredevils would venture out onto un-fenced ledges into the canyon. Needless to say, my pictures do not do it justice!

We then went out to the Bright Angel Lodge, a native american lodge on the edge of the canyon, where we enjoyed amazing views and peanut butter ice cream.

We got back into Las Vegas at about 10.30pm, and I was straight to bed!

Day 13: 18 March

I woke up today with an incredibly sore back and no motivation to do anything. Things didn't start out well at all! I also had to check out of The Riviera and make my way down to The Las Vegas Hostel in downtown Freemont. Once I got off the bus at the top of the Freemont Street Experience, I decided I would walk the distance to my hostel with my luggage. This was probably not the best move. It was much, MUCH further than I had anticipated unfortunately. And the area was not really great either. Sorry Mum and Dad, but wasn't feeling too safe!

Despite this, the hostel was really nice, and the people were friendly. I dumped my stuff and bussed back down to the Freemont Street Experience. This was very cool, and would be even better at night! I did a bit of souvenir shopping and exploring. There were mainly just casinos and souvenir shops really.

There was a zipline that went from one end of the street to the other, which looked amazing, but I wasn't going to risk it with a sore back. Instead I just watched and heard all of the people flying above us.

Freemont Street Zipline

The famous cowboy

Heart Attack Grill boasting a world record breaking "Quadruple Bypass Burger" at 12,410 calories!

After a crappy Chinese lunch and a quick pokies bet at a casino (I didn't win anything!), I went back to the hostel, and relaxed. Later on that night, I had a drink with my dorm mate, Dom by the pool, but otherwise, had a very early night. I needed my rest for the next day...

Day 12: 17 March - The Las Vegas Strip

The day was spent walking along the parts of the strip that I couldn't get to the night before..which was a lot of it! I started down the other end of the strip to where I was staying, at the Luxor Hotel and Casino. This is the pyramid casino with the giant sphinx at the entrance. All of the hotels along the strip are huge, and take a lot of time to explore the various casino floors and retail stores in each one! The Luxor connected to the casino next door, The Excalibur, a Hotel of castles, where I did a bit of gift shopping.

Excalibur 

Luxor (Pyramid and Sphinx)

I visited my favourite casino next, New York New York! Around the outside of the casino, they have a roller coaster, so of course, I went on that, thinking that it would be quite tame but would be a way to see the sights of the strip from a different view. I was so wrong, it was pretty scary, with 360 degree turns and flips all over the place! Inside the casino was like an adult's playground. The restaurants were located in a spot of the casino that was completely decked out to look like a New York City suburb, with multiple streets lined with stereotypical New York building frontages.

New York, New York and the crazy roller coaster

NY city street inside the casino

After NYNY, I headed over to the MGM Grand, which wasn't too amazing after the other casinos. I decided that, while in Las Vegas, I needed to see a show. I went to a Half Price Tix stall and bought a ticket for Zarkana: Cirque Du Soleil for that night.

I then walked back through the Miracle Mile Mall at Planet Hollywood. The ceiling was painted to look like a sky, and every hour, the ceiling would light up with fake lightening and rain that would fall into a pond in the middle of the walkway.

Miracle Mile Mall ceiling

L'Arche du Triomphe on the Strip!

The Paris Restaurant

Later on, I headed to Aria for the Cirque Du Soleil show. It. Was. Incredible! I managed to get an upgraded seat, closer to the stage. It was definitely worth the $70!!

Tight Rope Walkers

The amazing trapeze artists!

My favourite act - The Wheel of Death

Incredible Gymnasts

Day 11: 16 March - Off to Vegas!

Today was the day I left L.A. for the bright lights of Las Vegas. After a going away breakfast with Julia and Amanda, and saying goodbye to Jonathon and the great staff at the hostel, I made my way down to the bus station.

The bus ride was very uneventful; it was about 6.5 hours and it was pretty nice and comfy. The views on the way to Las Vegas were quite interesting at first - it was all desert, cacti and mountain ranges. They were incredible to see but got old pretty quickly!

Desert and Mountains

I got into Las Vegas at around 6pm, and made my way by bus to the Riviera Hotel. On the way to the hotel, I got to go past the amazing hotels and casinos on the strip, even getting a good view of the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign (though not a picture!!)

Once I settled into the hotel, I went for a walk down the strip. My hotel was at the very north end of the strip, so I headed south, towards the hotels that I had heard about for so many years! Treasure Island, The Venetian, Wynn, Caesar's Palace..and so on and so on! It was unlike anything I could have imagined. Everything was so incredibly grand, and I felt so small in comparison. It took me close to 3 hours to walk down to New York, New York Casino (not even at the end of the strip), though this did include stopping along the way to check out the casinos. I had a quick dinner at an Irish outdoor pub outside of NYNY while listening to a live U2 cover band. My feet were sore and I was so sleepy, so I caught a bus back and went straight to bed, looking forward for the next day!

Treasure Island Pirate Ship

Bellagio Fountain Show

Bright lights of the strip

Caesar's Palace

Street Performer

Paris!

"Brooklyn Bridge"

Chocolate Statue of Liberty at the Hershey's Store!

"Statue of Liberty" at NYNY

MGM Grand Lion

NYNY

View from the top of the strip

Day 10: 15 March - Last day in L.A.

It was my last full day in LA. Rather than run around all day, I decided to relax and take it a bit easy. I spent my morning packing up my bag so that I didn't have to stress in the morning before I left.

In the afternoon, Jonathon and I decided to bus down to Melrose Avenue, a famous shopping spot and interesting road in general. As I had missed it on the hop-on-hop-off bus the day before, I was eager to see it. When we got there we had planned to go to Pink's Hot Dogs, a very famous lunch spot in LA. It was a little too famous unfortunately, and the line up was huge! Becau.se we were hungry, impatient and hot under the sun, we opted to have lunch at Chipotle, a fast food Mexican place sort of like Zambreros, though not as good!

After lunch, we strolled down Melrose Avenue. The shops were very interesting, and many of them stood out with amazing store fronts, that give the road an amazing character. Not having a lot of money to burn, and shopping with a boy, it was mainly just window shopping on a lovely, sunny day!

We got back to the hostel fairly late, so we got changed, headed to the bottle-o and I stayed up playing drinking games with people from all over the world until about 4.30am. It was definitely a great way to finish off my time in LA.

The only "good" picture from the night...

Day 9: 14 March - City Lookout and Tour

City Tour: Part 2

Despite how sick and tired I felt, I was up really early today to visit the Griffith Observatory in the hills. The views of the city and Hollywood sign were incredible and the observatory was an amazing building, though I didn't explore inside too much. Today's weather was already so hot, and the sun was really biting!

Griffith Conservatory

Shameless selfie stick selfie and the city

I spent the day back on the touring bus, to explore the areas that I didn't get a chance to explore the day before. Thankfully, the places o wanted to visit were towards the end of the loop, because within a few minutes of getting on the bus, I completely passed out! The too warm bus made it impossible to stay awake! I had at least thought to put in the headphones before I took my nap, so when I heard that the next stop was the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA), I woke up pretty startled and managed to hop off the bus in time!

The stop was at LACMA and the La Brea Tar Pits are right next to each other. The tar pits were left there from centuries back, and a museum has been built around them with the fossilised remains of the animals that were stuck in the tar after mistaking the pits for water pools. LACMA also had amazing outdoor sculptures and installations around the pits and museum. I didn't end up going inside the museum because I wasn't feeling great walking around too much, but just exploring the outside was fun enough. Across the road from LACMA, there were about 10 food trucks lined up, so it was a great time for lunch! I have to mention it because it was amazing - soft shell crab slider burgers! I was in heaven!

Yellow cord

Restored, painted lamp posts from around the city

Actual panels from the Berlin Wall

The next stop was to the Farmer's Markets. Sort of like the Central Markets in Adelaide, this is a permanent set-up just outside the Grove shopping centre. The market place was filled with incredible smells, and there were so many cafes selling really interesting and foreign foods - I almost regretted the sliders.

Angel of Travel

Back on the bus again and I was spent! I was boring and went back to the Hostel where I hung out with Jonathon and new German guys that had checked in that day. To try and be a little less boring, Jonathon and I decided on a Mexican restaurant called House of Tacos. By far, the best Mexican food I've ever had! I had a fish taco and veggie burrito and Jonathon had nachos, which he thankfully shared!!

Overall, amazing day for food!