Planes, buses and hummer limos - LA and Las Vegas

So I left for the US on a cold a dreary Tuesday morning, my journey brightened by the Rastafarian bus driver at LHR singing along to the Millionaire song on the shuttle from T5 to T3 :)

I had the ‘joy’ of flying United to LAX. What is the problem with American carriers? Bad service, scruffy staff, bad (and hardly any – they served us one meal and a sandwich in 10 ½ hours!) food and no wine! Also next to me was a pretty huge American guy so I managed to get out of my seat once in 10 ½ hours and had like 4 movies to choose from so ended up watching a Miley Cyrus movie – joy!

So I get to the airport and meet my first kooky person, a woman from Manchester who was off to Comic Con to see some actor she was obsessed with (apparently he is in the Tron movie which is coming out) and was then flying to Canada to stake out some place where he is filming a new movie. Kooky person number one – tick! The fun continued on the bus to the hotel where this American dude (apparently in LA to go to court – go figure) was harassing these Brazilian girls by trying to talk in Portuguese and insisting the driver take us to In’N’Out Burger. God I was glad to get of that bus (kooky person number 2 – tick!).

Hotel No. 1 – Kyoto Grand Hotel in Little Tokyo. Nice hotel, nothing really around it apart from some food places and the odd shop, meant I had to pay $2 for the tiniest tube of toothpaste at the hotel gift shop (I had to forget something!). First night in the hotel I met my first Grand Southerners! Ex-Geordie boy Mark, Kiwi Mike, The Jonas Brothers Joel and Tony, Janice from N.I. and Naomi and Deani from Oz. We went for noodles in an asian sport bar (weird I know), gave the leftovers to a homeless guy and finished the night in the roof bar.

Day 2 I decided to go see the city and booked what turned out to be a pretty mediocre (and overpriced tour) but I saw the Hollywood bowl, the Hollywood sign, the Chinese theatre and walk of fame, Rodeo drive, farmers market, Beverly Hills, Chinatown and probably some other stuff I’ve forgotten. That night was out pre-tour meeting. I found out I was going to be on the ‘gold’ bus (it was actually gold in colour!’ and my tour manager was Justin (and can I just say that that combination was a key factor in the fabulousness of my trip!).

De and Janice were on the other bus (boo) but the rest of the people I had met were goldies so so far so good. Finished the night with more asian food (we were in Little Tokyo!) and a few bar drinks where I first met the lovely Trudy who scared us with how much she could drink!

Grand Southern Day 1 – LA to LV. An early wake up call (8am??) meant we were all bright eyed and bushy tailed for our first bus journey. A hearty breakfast of whole wheat bagel and skinny latte set me up for what would be one of our shortest drives, about 4 hours or so.

As we traversed through the arid landscapes of California and Nevada Justin introduced us to what would be our day song, ‘In My Head’ by Jason Durillo. We established very little thought had gone into this choice and were dubious about the lyrics (‘Just sleep with me now say the word and we’ll go' etc) but it turned out to be a whole lot more catchy that the White bus one ‘Sins of our youth’ (no I still don’t know what it is).

We arrived in Vegas about 1-ish and I met my new roomy, Erin! I was later to discover she was from Gateshead. Honestly, fly halfway round the world and end up rooming with someone from 10 miles away, what are the chances? I was very lucky though as Erin is super lovely and we have no excuses for not keeping in touch. We stayed at Harrah's on the strip, pretty nice hotel, big rooms and a pretty good way to start the trip!.

So, night number one, start as we mean to go on! Had dinner at Bucca di Beppo (not bad not great!) shared a bottle of wine with Naomi and met some new people, Hayley, Ray, Chris, Bruce and Mick (who came across a little sleazy at first but is such a lovely guy!). We then headed off on a little tour of the strip and then our first ‘surprise’, Justin felt ‘ill’ and ran off the bus. When he got back he told us some guy had asked him to witness a wedding and we were invited. All a ruse of course but we got to go see Elvis sing in the Little White Wedding Chapel and saw Alana and Mick ‘get married’ (which turned into the start a great friendship!). We then headed to freemont street which is old school Vegas and got some 2ft long drinks and watch the light show on the canopy, it was to Queen music, we will rock you. Pretty cool J We then visited the 'sign' and got the usual pictures that everyone needs to get in Vegas!

Next, we hit the Palms and free entry to the Playboy Club and Moon (which apparently has a retractable roof, pretty sure it didn’t move when we where there, it was pretty humid!). Had lots of fun, got a picture with some bunnies, drank $12 vodkas and danced, danced, danced until my feet hurt and Naomi and I made the executive decision to leave!

The following day I dragged myself out of bed and hit the pool with Naomi which was quite refreshing and then headed to Caesars Palace and the Bellagio for lunch and 1c slots (I’m a big spender!). That night we sampled the casino buffet (not too bad but big queue) then headed to the ph casino to meet the others for our limo ride! We had the choice of a hummer limo or the ‘party bus’, I had on heels so we chose the sitting-down-ness of the limo and off we went. We stopped again at the sign (white bus didn’t go last night, sucks to be them!) and cruised the strip, went past the Bellagio as the fountains were on (beautiful!) and played an ‘informative’ game of I have never.

Now, by this point I was ready to go home, I was tired and my eye had been hurting all day (from my LASIK!). However the magic words ‘free entry’ and ‘free champagne for ladies’ were uttered and I decided to check out the Cathouse at the Luxor (the pyramid one!). Turned out to be muchos fun, free drinks, getting dragged in VIP area (and then getting kicked out!), dancing on a sofa/podium and general good hearted silliness. I left at a reasonable hour (2 ish) and got some shut eye for the early start and visit to Arizona and the Grand Canyon!

TBC!