A Thin Veneer Of Make Up – The Vultures Come In To Feed

My last day in LA was pretty uneventful – went for a massive walk down Rodeo Drive & Melrose, inspecting clothes shops etc & just cruising around. I basically wanted to kill most of the people that I encountered! Pretty much every person walking around had one of those ‘accessory’ dogs! Everyone! The glitz & glamour that are associated with the above streets just doesn’t seem to exist! Basically, what I’m saying is, LA – or at least Hollywood – ain’t the place for me. I had planned to wonder down to Red Rock (Dave ‘Jack Black’s) bar but ended up ordering a pizza and falling asleep around 10pm!

One of the many businesses that there are 100's of in Vegas.

The next day saw the Vegas & final leg of the holiday come into play. Heading in, the Captain said that there would be pretty bad turbulence, and there was! By far the worst I’ve ever encountered. The plane was still being tossed around as we landed & it did feel like we were going to skid & crash off the runway but apparently that’s normal in Vegas! It’s mainly due to the fact that the city, literally is in the middle of the desert. I did get a view of The Strip as flying in and despite it being daylight, I still hummed the CSI theme!

Giz having a flutter on the pokies @ Circus Circus.

The hostel where I was staying was in the um, lower part of the ‘glamorous’ scale of Vegas, down on the East side. I quickly ascertained that Vegas, like Hollywood, isn’t at all like what we’re led to believe thru media, celebrity & ‘the great American Dream’, oh no, it’s a cesspool of greed, slime & sex. Everywhere you go, there are pokie or slot machines. They cram them into every available space. And no, I’m unfortunately not just talking about the casinos – they’re in 7 Elevens, grocery stores, mini marts, souvenir shops, even drugstores!! I started going into as many different stores that I could and all had slot machines. Sometimes only 5-10 but they always had at least one person sitting there. The only place I didn’t try was Maccas, Wendy’s etc – the fast food chains but I dare say they too may have had some!

The only thing I can say is "I hope so" (read the fine print!)

There were some great people crashing at the hostel – it was fairly quiet seeing as it was winter but there were still enough people to interact with. The hostel was a franchise of the one Ric & I had stayed at in San Fran but this time I’d booked a single private room with an ensuite. Mickey (one of the hosts) was this great girl who was a fabulous cook. Each night you got to choose between two dishes & it only cost you $5! Cheaper than eating out but mighty tasty & it meant you got to mingle & share a few drinks with the others that were around. Daniella (Argentine), Alex (Spain), Carlos (Columbia) & I sort of bonded & hung out most of the time I was in Vegas. Jordan (another host) was from Chicago and cooked up a mean BBQ one night. He served up a mean hotdog – “the Chicago way”. It had about three layers of condiments & stuff on it and it was gold! As Jordan & I agreed, “it’s all about the sauces”.

As with most hostels they also had some form of activity on each night – the BBQ being one of them. The funniest one being Pool-quelia – the cunning combination of playing pool & drinking tequila!! It was pretty cheap tequila too. It started off as a normal game & if you gave away two shots, you had a shot & so on. After a few games, sill reasons for having shots came thick & fast. Mickey (Caribbean) was the ring leader of the night & then we all eventually ended up in the spa! Goes without saying that I slept soundly that night!

Me & my shadow on The Strip

This was a crazy guy from Japan. He was great & was trying to get me to tell him the name of this Aussie band that he'd heard... It ended up being The Veronicas - he was mad for them!! Crazy!

Another night took us to a local bar where two bands from the UK were playing. They were both pretty good, I wanted CD’s from both of them but only one of the bands (The Small Hours) had one to sell. The other band had left all their CD’s at their hotel!! Idiots!

By day I basically did my usual walking around to get a true feel of the place. I found The Strip by complete mistake & didn’t even know if it was The Strip. It looks nothing like the image you have in your head (well, the one I had in mine anyway!) Started to see casino’s that were ‘famous’ – Sahara, Circus Circus but where was the glitz, where was the chique…? No where! I put a few dollars thru at Circus Circus & the rumours are true, you do get free cocktails in Vegas but you ‘pay’ via tips! But if you apply the same idea as at a bar – tip them well on the first couple of rounds & they’ll come back more often! Either way, you’re still paying on average around $3/beer or bourbon.

Come on, you know the song... "Can you guess where I'm calling from...? The Las Vegas Hilton! (Hilton, Hilton!)"

One night I went out with $X amount to loose. It was my final fling of the holiday & I was well & truly prepared to come back with nothing. Upon getting to The Strip it immediately looked a whole lot better. It was all lit up & the spectacle of it all had come to life. I’ll admit, it did look quite fantastic as there was neon, flashing bulbs, strobes & blinking lights on every available piece of real estate. This was the Vegas I’d imagined! The underbelly of Vegas quickly reared up though. About every 10m or so were guys flicking cards out at you. When I say flicking, I mean that they were ‘shuffling’ them like a deck of cards but in a way that made this weird clicking sound to grab your attention & each card was ‘free entry & a drink to Strip Club (insert dodgy name here)’. Trucks towing billboards with scantily clad girls saying “Don’t be lonely, we can be at your door in under ½ an hour” went by, on The Strip, every few minutes. There were also street hustlers everywhere trying to sell you ‘genuine’ articles, CD’s etc. It was all pretty much summed up when the bus driver who dropped me off warned me that “you stay on The Strip, you gonna be fine. Wonder away from the pretty lights & it ain’t gonna be that pretty”. Words to gamble by!

Classy, classy Vegas...!

It was cool to see MGM, New York New York, Caesars Palace etc all lit up and showing themselves. Upon being in Vegas & seeing that it is all about greed (we all know this but it’s actually tangible in the air) you get a weird feeling. Granted there are people who are there as tourists but everyone has that “I could strike it rich” look in their eye. Maybe I’d have a different outlook had I had other people around to share the experience with but when your alone, all you can do is observe and you do get a far more honest taste of your surroundings as you are one giant receptor. Your brain takes in & analyses each piece of stimuli, not distracted by listening & then contributing to conversations or being caught up in the ‘excitement’ of being somewhere unique with friends.

Drive, arrive, plug 'n' play!!

Don’t get me wrong, Vegas was always on my list of places that I wanted to visit & I’m glad I have & I’ll be honest, it pretty much lived up to my expectations but it was, overall, entertaining.