Las Vegas, NV

Up and at ’em this morning, to check out of the hotel at 8:00. Should you ever be visiting New York I can strongly recommend the Tryp by Wyndham, it was a great place, friendly staff, a good comfortable, room kept spotlessly clean, and it’s very well located near Penn Station for great subway coverage to get wherever you need to go. The car we hired ended up being 20 minutes late (dial7.com, I’m looking at you!), but we’d allowed an extra half hour and still arrived at LaGuardia airport more than 90 mins before our flight was due. I still took the opportunity to wield a bit of New Yorker’s Revenge (I don’t know if that’s a thing, I just made it up), and only gave the driver a very modest tip. First flight from LaGuardia to Chicago O’Hare was great. Calling it “First Class” is maybe a bit of a stretch, but the seats are big and comfy, you get real glass, and metal cutlery, and the quality of service on board was great. The in-flight wifi is a fun gimmick for us foreigners who don’t get to experience it at home. Chicago O’Hare is o’huge – but for the benefit of nerdy travellers the world over, the place is positively festooned with power outlets – both normal power points, and powered USB ports as well. Nice one! And very welcome since our 3.5 hour layover has stretched out to 4, thanks to a delay on the Chicago to Vegas flight. But we made it eventually with the minimum fuss and here we are at New York New York, Vegas.

As a New York themed hotel, of course it has a giant roller coaster out the front – I guess that’s Coney Island. One thing that is very un-New-York-like is the size of the room – it’s enormous compared to the actual New York hotel room. Probably about double the size. We went outside for a quick wander into crazytown, which to be honest wasn’t that crazy once you get used to it. A world of neon and artifice, and people on every corner inviting you to go to their strip shows. Nice. But despite that sleaziness, ‘the strip’ itself is very well kept, clean, tidy, and … everything is just massive. So much neon and light, the moon hangs sadly in the sky like some kind of afterthought. We waited by the Bellagio fountain for a while, but alas it wasn’t doing its tricks as it chose today of all days to break. Ah well, we still have a few days. We had a “when in Rome …” moment, donating $10 to the upkeep and maintenance of our hotel via the ‘Survivor’ poker machine. Sure enough, those $10 were quickly voted off the island. 🙂 But for now, off to sleep! Since we’ve been heading west all day, the shift in time zones means we’ve actually had a 27-hour long day – 11pm here is like 2am for our New York selves. So… Goodnight!