Week 8: Las Vegas Baby!

This weekend most of the exchange students went on a three day trip to Las Vegas. We started off pretty early, we rented the cars and embarked on our 10 hour journey. I was driving half of the time yet this was a pretty easy task since there was only one road to follow, leading us straight to Vegas. This road went straight to Arizona's canyons towards Nevada. When we stopped just across the state border there were already many opportunities to gamble, even in the gas-station.
After 10 hour we finally arrived and drove straight to the strip, where we were amazed by all the different casino's and the funny themes they represented.
The hostel we booked was pretty okay from the inside, and even had a jacuzzi. The neighborhood it was in wasn't that great; mostly homeless people and prostitutes were walking around, however when paying 20 dollar's a night, that's quite fine.
We entered the strip after settling in and by then it was already dark, transforming the city in a beacon of light making it even more impressive. There were slot-machines and roulette-tables everywhere and I started playing the 1c slots which was pretty cool, for an hour or so.
On the strip they have made replica's of just about everything; there is the statue of liberty, the Eiffel tower, a pyramid made of glass and a gigantic replica of the canals of Venice. After our initial orientation I headed clubbing with three other international students, which was twice as great as usual since Utah is missing that. The nightlife we visited was absolutely awesome, Vegas is by far the best place to party I have been to in the US. Although the admissions and drinks were kind of expensive we sure did have one hell of a time that first night, as you can see by the picture of the four of us returning from the strip.

The next day we wanted to see as many casino's as possible, and come to think about it we actually saw most of them that day. The casino's were quite the same from the inside however they were sure to give quite a show, attracting new customers. We spend most our time at Caesars Palace, the Bellagio, the MGM and at Luxor. We mostly walked around, visiting the attractions and shows and didn't gamble that much, I actually broke even at the end of the trip.
Yet you can find lots of people who did gamble a lot, you can spot them by looking at their membership cards in the machines, sitting there for just hours and hours, pretty funny. The casino's make sure they give you a lot of eye-candy so that you enter their casino's. When you made it in you will find that all lights are dimmed and no clocks are hanging anywhere, just to keep you playing and let you loose track of time. Also finding a exit is a big challenge, no exit signs to be found anywhere!

After this day of covering most of the strip we headed back to our hostel and sat down by the jacuzzi in order to revive our feet. We soon headed back for another night on the town, and mostly went to the Eiffel tower and the Venetian. Both pretty impressive to look at at night, after that we decided to call it a night in order to get some sleep since the next day we would go to Hoover dam.

Hoover Dam was only an hour away from Vegas, and it sure was worth the trip. The dimensions of the dam are hardly describable, and it separates Nevada and Arizona. After just walking around there we again went back to Logan through a last drive through the strip. We arrived at around 1 at night, and I had classes at 7:30 which was kind of though, and unfortunately very mandatory. The weekend exceeded my expectations and when I look at the 1500 photo's we took together I have some great new memory's.