I've been to Vegas once before and it is an extremely odd, intriguing and artificial place. A city that was founded by Mormons, constructed by mobsters, imports everything (even the tap water!), is devoted solely to unwholesome pleasures, has few laws and few locals, it is incredibly unnatural and it feels that way. I find the place fascinating and perhaps may use it as a cultural observation subject for my dissertation, but it is definitely not for everyone and I always feel uncomfortable seeing children there.
On this trip I had intended on seeing the other side of Las Vegas; visiting the Atomic Museum (as part of Vegas's small history; nuclear bomb testing took place nearby), the arts district, the Neon Graveyard (a lot where the massive broken neon signs are left) as well as a trip to the Grand Canyon... this isn't how it worked out.
It was a really early flight, 7am from Biloxi, where I had stayed a couple of days with my dear friend Jill and her lovely family. It was a very smooth flight, full of nap time. When I arrived and got the $2 bus to the hostel, some weirdo grabbed and ran off with my notepad... a notepad that had cost 50 cents at Walmart! While I appreciate that it wasn't anything valuable, I was annoyed mainly because I had written all my itinerary for the following weeks in it, including addresses, meaning I had to rely on the kindness of strangers in finding my hostel (it was only across a road but I got lost without knowing street names) I really am confused as to why anyone would steal a random notepad; maybe the street value of drugs has become incredibly low.. or someone mistook my identity?
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| Hostel Cat |
I struck up a friendship with two girls in my room, Anna from Ukraine and Elaine from Australia, we all decided to explore the Strip together. Pretty much everything exists within the hotels that line the same stretch of road (they're so big they fit shopping malls, casinos and nightclubs inside) but they're all crazy, imitating Egypt, Paris, New York City, Venice, fairytale-ish castles... they're sugary, fake versions of each but fun.
Main sites we went to:
Circus Circus a 'circus' themed hotel, mainly aimed at families with a show taking place every fifteen minutes and arcade games for kids to enjoy/start 'em gambling young. We saw a group of acrobats from American Idol perform which was fun
Welcome to Vegas Sign a fifteen minute walk from where the bus will take you; you also have to jaywalk across the road to reach it which is dangerous and highly illegal- I'm not sure why they haven't created a crossing? It's pretty fun to see
The Luxor fake Egypt. Here we saw Cirque du Soleil Criss Angel show 'Believe' which was based around illusion and magic, there were some eyebrow raising tricks but I thought it seemed over-performed, poorly scripted and bit lackluster, I saw 'Love' the Beatles Cirque du Soleil show last time and was blown away. We also went to the Titanic Artifact exhibition which had items claimed from the wreckage in a recreation of the different cabins (One man cracked us up when he asked if the wooden stairs were actual set from the ship itself) I was surprised to discover how expensive the very cheapest ticket was in today's money- more than half an annual wage of a low income earner- I was taught something in Vegas!
Bellagio this is a rather fancy hotel which houses a botanical garden that looks like it has been dreamt up by a child, incredibly strange!
So... I had planned to continue spending time in Vegas, then in LA and NYC but I was sitting in the youth hostel watching Braveheart and thought, boy I miss the people & Hattiesburg- maybe it'd be best to do the travels with friends another time.. and so I returned back to Mississippi! But my adventures haven't ended just yet
I've uploaded further photographs on my Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/maddiesayshey
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