Las Vegas and Los Angeles

Tuesday the 29th August we flew from Denver, Colorado to Las Vegas Nevada. The trip started off well with the air-hostess becoming very interested in what Mark and I were to get up to on out trip. Even mentioning us on the intercom as we landed as "the two rugby players from Eng-er-land" and giving us each a complimentary bottle of whisky. The only problem being that the hostess was a man. After that the only was was up, which only took about 10 minutes after which we picked up the Red Ford Mustang Convertible.



Pulling out of the rental car parking lot we had a short drive to Luxor, the pyramid type hotel and the bottom of the strip. We walked quite far that evening exploring the strip and well Las Vegas is a bit of a sensory overload and you could really do with a local to show you all the "best" places to go. After a long walk we got changed and headed out to Hooters for some food, followed by partying until 4am at the Hard Rock Cafe. Highlight of the evening was listending to Cory Harts "I wear my sunglasses at night" and actually having our sunglasses with us to wear.





The following day was painful, I haven't been this ill since my 21st birthday party where I had alcohol poisoning. The whole day until 4pm was spent in bed. That eveing we drove to the Hoover Dam on a concrete / civil engineering expedition. Had the dam had 2 engineering qualified doctoral students in its presence before, i doubt it, so there was a first for the dam. There is proabably a statue there now to commerate the experience. A little tired that evenig we retired at midnight as tomorrow we had a longish journey ahead.

August 31st we drive from vegas to LA. The drive into L.A. was amazing, the traffic is so manic. Luckily our hotel was easy to find being on Sunset Boulevard, The Standard. What an amazing place, easily the coolest person that has ever stayed in the hotel. The lobby was decorated with furniture by Ligne Roset and behind the desk was a fish tank / gold fish bowl which occasionally housed a scantily clad lady.



Los Angeles is a strange place, although at first amazingly superficial, it has some good qualities, great nightlife, and daylife, there is plenty to do. Main observations were the fact that I never saw anybody that looked old, they may have been old, but they did not look it. Almost all the girls has plastic surgery of one form of another, and everyone dressed as if they were at, going to, or had just been to an Oscar's party. The weekend hardly differed from the week in terms of the amount of people that were out on a night, and that is part of its charm. If you have lots of money and want to party 24 / 7 then head out to L.A. but make sure you stay somewhere cool.

We sat next to quite a few famous faces. Anjelica Hustan sat next to us in the restaurant in Barney's of New York. The presenter of Fear Factor Joe Rogan sat next to us in the hotel diner. We saw Colin Farell driving about in his beat up Ford Explorer (I think) jeep.

All the photos from the trip can be seen here.