Las Vegas

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It was quite a contrast arriving to the craziness of Vegas after coming from the natural beauty of the Grand Canyon! Weatherwise  there was big difference too as had been pretty cold in the Grand Canyon whilst Las Vegas was very hot & sunny with lovely blue skies! We were staying just off the strip, the hotel wasn't exactly luxurious but v good location! When first arrived just had a bit of a wander around and just took a look at a few of the casinos although some of the guys on the trip went straight to drink & gamble! Even though I had expected Las Vegas to be bit crazy still couldn't believe how different it was to anywhere else I had been before! It was actually not really like I imagined it would be, I wasn't really sure if I would like it but i ended up having a lot of fun and it was cool to see somewhere so totally unique!! On the first evening we were there we had an tour of the city at night which was pretty cool and we went for a all you can eat buffet dinner at the Excalibur...i don't think i have ever seen so much food! Was really good though but defintely ate too much! It was quite a busy evening really as after that Todd and Jay threw the surprise they had told us to expect at some point. First they pretended that there was problem with the bus and that we would have to get a taxi and before we knew it we were at Graceland wedding chapel where we were greeted by an 'Elvis' singing Viva Las Vegas! It was really funny and defintely worth the $6 we had chipped in! There was even a comic mock wedding ceremony and Todd had picked on two people from the tour called Rodger and Becky for that but think they both quite enjoyed the limelight! After that entertainment we went to watch the Freemont Street light show which was very cool but again very different to I expected! I hadn't realised drinking in public was allowed in Vegas so it was quite strange to see everyone walking out of drinks with bars! Lots of people got cocktails in the shape of American Footballs and were walking around with those so that was bit odd to see! The last thing of the night was going to watch a show, it was a general variety show type thing and although it was pretty good it didn't start until very late so think quite a lot of people dozed off at points including me! The show didn't finish until 1 and was pretty tired by then so headed back to get some sleep!

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Just had the one full day in Vegas so tried to fit in as much as possible!  A few of us headed out to explore the city and saw all the major casinos like New York, New York and the Bellagio etc which were really impressive. I really liked the Venetian which was really like a slice of Europe transported to America! I  didn't do any proper gambling but myself and girl called Lauren but $1 in slot machine and won $38, it would have been more except we hadn't realised we won so kept on having more goes, still was a tidy profit!! In the evening we went for our big Halloween night out! Before heading out we all had a picture taken in our costumes. We then went for dinner at the Hard Rock cafe before heading to a club called Studio 54 which was at the MGM casino. It was a really fun night out and everyone had really good costumes. I don't normally like dressing up but Laurel had helped me throw a costume together and was actually a lot of fun. Being able to celebrate Halloween in Vegas was a lot of fun and a good experience as its such a big night in America!