We were greeted by Vegas as we drove down the highway in the dark towards our home for the week. Bright flashing lights, loud music and hundreds of moving posters surrounded us as we settled ourselves into our very cheap and very fancy hotel. The hotel that we stayed in, The Royal Resort, was just off the strip, and because of this it was the cheapest accommodation that we had stayed in since arriving in America, and probably the nicest. As we had the car, we took advantage and drove down the strip to a supermarket and topped up on food for the week. We passed many chapels where I assume a lot of drunk couples get married after winning a bit of money on the slot machines, and the drivers were both impatient and crazy due to the sheer amount of cars on the road in one small area. I still find it fascinating how Vegas revolves around one long road where so many hotels are situated, and it's not technically even in Las Vegas, it's in "Paradise". We went to bed for the night, tired from the drive, and ready to explore the hotels in the morning. These hotels were unlike any I had ever seen before. On the first day we visited Luxur which was based on the ancient Egyptian pyramids, New York New York which had a roller coaster on top of it which had numerous 360 degree loops and overlooked the whole of Vegas, and Excalibur hotel which looked like a Disney Princess castle. All of the hotels were so extravagant and had almost everything that one would need inside them, including, of course, outrageously big casinos.
It was almost unbearably hot for the whole time that we were in Vegas, and as you can see from this photograph, I was constantly having to drink as my mouth would just go dry after a while. A taxi driver told us that sometimes it gets up to 46 degrees and that the 32 degrees that it was while we were there was a nice and relaxing temperature. It was so hot most days that we spent the mornings by the pool, sunbathing and diving, and the afternoons and evening on the strip. On the first full day of our time in Vegas, we decided to get on the guestlist for a club in the Paris hotel where we got free entry and Heidi and I got free drinks until midnight because we were female. You cannot tell me sexism is dead because Vegas was appalling for it, although it worked to all four of our advantage. Girls almost always got into clubs for free and were given free drinks, and yet men would have to pay. Heidi and I, being the good Samaritans that we are, shared out our free drinks with Matt and Nathan so that they did not have to truly suffer for their gender ;) When we later inquired about a pool party with Calvin Harris as DJ, however, tickets for men were so much more than for women (at about $90 each instead of $30).
So once we had signed up for the guestlist and visited a number of the hotels, we headed back to ours to get ready to party in the Eiffel Tower. When we go into the club I looked up to the ceiling and it was painted as the sky so that it felt as though we were outside. A statue of the Eiffel tower ran through the many stories of the hotel and up into the sky so that it really did seem like we were by the Eiffel Tower. We entered the club as if we were VIP and had to take a lift up from the first bar up to the main dancefloor and other bars. It was a great night out and Matt and I made lots of friends after Heidi and Nathan went home early. You can't really see me on the photograph below but you can see the statue Eiffel tower coming from the floor below and going up to the floor above.
The next morning we went to Denny's, a cheap American Diner that sells burgers, pancakes, steak etc. We ended up visiting this Denny's 5 times during our 7-day stay here, and I think Matt, Heidi and Nathan actually went 6 times. After every visit, no matter how much of the portion first put in front of us had been eaten, we all felt as though we needed to be rolled out of the door. Any main meal could be made bigger by adding pretty much anything to it, including macaroni cheese, mashed potato, fried shrimp, cheese etc. I ended up always ordering a side of vegetables because I miss them so much!
On another day, we managed to get on the guestlist for a pool part in Caesar's Palace, my favourite hotel on the whole strip, and the one used in the first and third Hangover film. Thankfully it was free for us to get in, due to our guestlist, as once we were inside we were told that to sit on any sunbed by the pool we would have to spend a certain amount on food and drink at the pol bar. The least comfortable type of bed had a minimum of $50 each to spend, and the most expensive was over $250. Obviously we politely set our towels down on the floor by the pool so we had no minimum to spend and ordered a bucket of 8 Coronas. To our horror, each Corona was $11, when we had spent $1 in Mexico. It was worth it to spend a day relaxing at the prestigious hotel and dipping in and out of the luxurious pool. All around us was blue sky and extravagant Roman-esque architecture and yet all I could envision was Mr Chow flying out of one of the bedroom windows with a jet pack on his back! We were served all day by skinny and tanned women in bright orange bikinis, and all chaos broke loose when one of the drunk guests showing off to a group of girls ordered the $1000 champagne bath as every member of staff got involved in walking (and sitting in) a wheelie bath full of bottles of champagne, squirting water out of water guns and wearing Mexican hats (?!).
While we were in Las Vegas, Matt and I went to watch Penn and Teller and met them after the show! The hotel that they were performing in was not on the strip so we took a free shuttle bus across the freeway and spent an afternoon on the computerised blackjack table where we did not win any money but got many free drinks and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. When we got into the Penn and Teller Theatre (their show has been on for 13 years and so the theatre is named after them) we were greeted by a 2-man jazz band who announced that all members of the audience were to walk down to the stage and sign their names on an envelope and examine a box which Teller then magically appeared out of at the start of the show. As Matt and I were queuing to do these two things, the Englishman in front of me said to his son that the bassist of the band looked like Penn. I looked over my shoulder to the stage where the two magicians were, and realised that the bassist was in fact Penn. Once we had sat back down in our seats, Penn left the stage and got ready for the performance while the pianist carried on playing.
Some of the tricks that they performed were incredible. The first one began with Penn picking a random lady out of the audience and asking her for her cellphone. He then got her daughter, who was also in the audience, to ring her phone so that her ring tone (Call Me Maybe) could be heard by everyone in the theatre. Penn and Teller then messed around with the phone, saying that they would put it in a cup at the front of the stage for safe keeping, but Penn threw the phone over the head of the lady and into Teller's hands, who in turn put it into a bucket that was hanging from the ceiling. That was the last time I saw the phone, and I kept my eye on the bucket the entire time that the trick was being done. Penn then asked the lady's daughter to ring her cellphone again, and a muffled version of Call Me Maybe could be heard somewhere in the theatre. We were told to all point at where we thought it was coming from, and most people pointed at the bucket, but others pointed at an area of the audience in the middle of the theatre. A spotlight then shone onto a man in the audience and Penn told him to reach under his chair and pick up the box that had been placed there. Different audience members then passed the box from row to row until it got to the stage where the lady picked it up and opened it under the instruction of Penn. Inside the box was a fish, clarified by the lady who said it smelt disgusting. Her daughter was then instructed again to ring the phone and Call Me Maybe was heard coming from the fish. I then watched Teller cut open the fish, blood and guts spilling everywhere, and retrieve the cellphone from its insides. The lady then took the cellphone to make sure it was hers, and she said it definitely was. Penn then told her that the way they did the trick was revealed by a video recording on the phone and she was only able to watch it after the show. I have no idea how they did it, it was so complex and truly fooled me. I need to look on youtube to see if the lady, or someone else from one of the shows, has uploaded the video anywhere online.
Another trick that they did completely fooled me. Penn set up a table with a board behind it and walked behind the board where there was a camera which was projecting onto a big screen that the audience could see. He told us that he was going to get a member of the audience to hold the camera and film his slight of hand tricks so that we could watch him doing tricks close up and from the perspective of someone who was not involved in the performance. He then picked a member of the audience with "experience" in filming and he walked up to the front of the stage. This man seemed as though he may be drunk, as he almost stumbled to the stage, he wore quite baggy clothes and had greasy blonde hair. He looked like a typical American that you would see walking down the strip in Vegas but I remember thinking that Penn was going to regret choosing him as I thought he may ruin the trick. Anyway, Penn handed him the video camera and everything that he was filming was being projected onto the screen that the audience could see. This volunteer had the camera up to his eye the whole time that he could not see the screen and he could only see what he was looking at through the camera. Teller then popped up on the screen and told us (with a paper and pen of course, as he does not say anything) that this trick was not actually the trick that they were pretending to do. It was a trick within a trick. We then found out why as the volunteer filmed Penn turning toy cows into many toy cows and then vanishing again. What he could not see was Teller passing Penn more toy cows over the board behind the table and then taking the toy cows back over the board, making it seem to the volunteer that Penn was doing magic. From behind the board, Teller changed the tablecloth on the table and also changed the picture that was on the board by the table. This was hilarious for the audience as the volunteer was so amazed by the toy cow trick that he had not even noticed the tablecloth or the board. At the end of the trick Penn told the volunteer that he had not noticed these big things such as the tablecloth and the board, and as he told the volunteer that he has changed the board, he flipped it 360 degrees as if it were an old fashioned chalk board. As Penn flipped over the board, revealing nobody to be behind it as we though Teller was, the volunteer's hat and hair flew to the floor as Penn announced that he had changed the volunteer into Teller. The volunteer then turned round and low and behold he was Teller.
There were other tricks in where they sawed their assistant in half, showing the audience how other magicians usually make their assistants bend their bottoms so that they only saw the part of the box where their assistant is not placed. They showed us what this looked like, revealing their assistant's folded body between the two boxes. They they used a chain saw to cut right through her body without the boxes being there and blood and guts spilled everywhere. Teller also performed the trick where he turned water into gold coins and Penn performed his nail gun routine. These were both on the Penn and Teller: Fool Us programme that was on in England.
We were only supposed to stay in Vegas for 4 nights but we ended up staying for a week. It was a lovely mix of relaxing by the pool, going out at night, and seeing over the top buildings. We also went to the coca cola factory where you could pretty much get any flavour drink that you wanted. I got another cherry coke vanilla and remembered only to get a small as they are the same size as our larges in England, whereas Matt ordered one the size of his head! We also went out on another night out to Pure in Caesar's Palace where we left at 2am but kept ourselves occupied in the casinos and on the strip until 4am. Nobody ever sleeps in Vegas!
We took a 14 hour bus journey on the Greyhound from Las Vagas, back to LA, and then to San Francisco where we would be spending our next week. I was really looking forward to exploring San Fran as many people, including Anna, had told me what a quirky place it was. We arrived at our hostel, "The Amsterdam", and relaxed in our 4 bed room with en suite. Our hostels have been much better than in Asia, with hardly anything to complain about, but we have started paying around $28 per night which is slowly adding up to be quite a lot of money. The next day we woke up late, tired from waking up at 2 am the night before the catch the greyhound, and then took a walk down to the pier. I had not appreciated quite how hilly San Fran was until we went for this walk. You cannot walk for longer than 5 minutes before either walking up or down a hill, and for once there is no satisfaction in walking down one as you know in a few more minutes you will have to walk up one probably twice as steep - my nightmare! The pier was beautiful though, and we watched an artist balance rocks from the harbour on top of each other in what seemed to be impossible positions. There are trams that tavel around San Fran as a means of public transport and we walked past the turn table at the end of one of the tracks as we walked toward the pier. It was very windy and very cold and reminded us of Reading, it did not feel like we were in America! Standing on the pier enabled us to view the sinister Alcatraz island which we would be visiting in 2 days time and gave us a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
The next day we walked through China Town and I bought some souvenirs and presents for those lucky enough to get some. It seems very strange to be thinking about going home after being away for so long, but we only have 3 weeks left now. I felt as though we were back in Asia again with the little shops that were packed full of trinkets and we stopped off in an Asian bakery to enjoy the extremely cheap food being sold. We had forgotten, however, how odd Asian food is in comparison to the English food that we are used to. I bought a chicken pie that had pastry that was too sweet for even me to eat. Nathan's pork turnover was also made with sweet pastry and he bought a beef roll that looked like it had brown mould on top of it. We then headed towards Pier 39 which is famous for the amount of sea lions that rest on the dock. The whole are smelt of fish and the only thing to be heard were the barking of the sea lions. They were so funny to watch as hundreds of them all fought to lie in the same place and they would just walk over each other in order to get a good spot to lie on. We saw 2 particular sea lions who were play fighting constantly which often resulted in one of them slipping off one of the docks and falling into the water with a splash. We all joked how they were the sea lion versions of Matt and Nathan as they are constantly fighting with one another. It turned out that the sea lions were in fact mating, and they were trying to attract one another by performing a sea lion mating dance. Definitely Matt and Nathan!
We then walked along the pier which was filled with restaurants and sweet shops. I was shocked, again, at all of the American food as I found a packet of bacon and maple syrup crisps, buckets and buckets of taffy that were flavoured by every flavour you could possibly imagine, and the world's biggest gummy bear. They also sell a lot of clam chowder in bowls made out of bread rolls, but I am yet to determine what the difference between chowder and soup actually is.
The walk back to the hostel, as always in San Fran, was cold and very hilly, but also enjoyable. I was excited when I went to sleep that night as we were going on a tour around Alcatraz the next day! We arrived at the pier ready to board our ferry in the pouring rain, this, however, made the trip all that more exciting as it was dark and gloomy, much like Alcatraz. Once we got off the ferry and into the prison I was in my element. We walked past rows and rows of tiny cells where some prisoners had spent 30 years of their lives. We learnt about famous criminals who had been imprisoned for serious crimes such as The Birdman and Al Capone. We also learnt how 3 prisoners escaped the prison, which is over a mile away from San Fran mainland, by using spoons to carve away the stone surrounding the vents in their rooms over a period of about a year. They then squeezed out of these holes and into the corridor running behind the cells that contained all of the pipes for the prison. They climbed the pipes up onto the roof of the prison and jumped into the sea. This was the last time that these prisoners were seen, and nobody knows if they survived the cold and vicious sea back to San Fran or if they died during their escape. In Alcatraz, there are Wanted posters for these 3 prisoners with photographs of what they think they now look like on them.
One of the former prisoners of Alcatraz visited on the day that we were there to do a book signing for his book about his time in the prison. He was only jailed for bank robbery and had changed his life around, but now he was back in the prison where he had spent a significant part of his life locked away. I can only imagine how strange that must be. He said that he had never seen the Warden's office before as it was strictly off limits to any inmate, and the only time he was able to see what it looked like was when he came back to the prison as a visitor. As we walked around the prison we saw the dining room where the inmates were made to eat pretty much in silence 3 times a day, the place where they were allowed to talk to close family members who had come to visit them, and the prison cells of the serious criminals who were kept in isolation and had to live in the dark. The whole place was so sinister and yet it echoed of the life that it had once contained.
We then went to Angel Island as part of our tour, but it was so cold and wet, as well as being so badly run, that I could only laugh at our situation and look forward to getting under the covers in my bed! The island was pretty much deserted as only 25 people lived on it, and it would have been very beautiful in the sunshine. We drove past some old buildings that were used during the war, including a chapel, and the hospital used to contain people who needed to be quarantined after catching illnesses.
Our next day was spent exploring the main city of San Fran as we wandered around the shops and spent most of the afternoon at The Cheesecake Factory hoping that Penny from The Big Bang Theory would show up. I ordered a macaroni cheeseburger (only in America) and bought a chocolate mousse cheesecake which was the bet cheesecake I have ever had!
We then took a crazy and bumpy tram ride to Fisherman's Wharf where we looked around the markets and climbed a hill to see the zig zag hill which is so steep that the road is zig zagged rather than straight. Heidi and I also visited a very American diner which looked like something from Pulp Fiction. I had a 'grilled cheese' which was so cheesy it was unreal!
The guys left early yesterday morning to go to Denver and Heidi and I are waiting patiently for our flight to Hawaii where we will be spending the next week! We unfortunately woke up to find that our flight had been cancelled but we have now been put on another one for this evening. We are so excited to go!
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