So, since arriving in the states we've pretty much not had a moment to pause for me to sit down and write a proper post. So apologies for not updating regularly, I promise to be much better from here on out.. Probably.
I left off with us about to go down to the pool on Sunday evening, which we did. The only difficulty was - which pool to go to? As there were 5 to pick from (not including the two sauna pools - natch) it was a tough decision to make, we went for the one with the most sun in the end, which had a fountain in the middle and had a lot of fun splashing about. Even more fun was had once we realised that the ladies walking around in sparkly purple bikinis would bring you ANYTHING to drink, in our case anything was mojitos. This was already one of my favourite drinks but had in a swimming pool, in the sun, with no work on Monday, was definitely my happy place. We dried off and walked to Ceasar's Palace which was ridiculous, in a fantastic way, as are most of the hotels here. **by the way I realised the photos I was sending didn't work due to technical stupidity. So will try again now I've been shown how to make it work so you can see photos of all of our adventures**
We did some nosing round the shops, Hannah, Gina and I got a little distracted by the shops - although Jon did his best to shepherd us we got a little left behind and had to split up for dinner. We went to the cheesecake factory, which is a restaurant which does real food as well as about twenty thousand options for cheesecake. Bimal was feeling hungry and demanded extra bread, which we then felt honour bound to eat, and had to hide some so they didn't realise we couldn't manage it all. It was delicious though, half was french bread, the rest was a sort of savoury-ish malt bread, like soreen crossed with french bread maybe? Amazeballs anyway. I had a brilliant rice based vegy burger, which served as breakfast on Monday with a (really strong) boozy salted caramel pretzel milkshake. And yes that was as delicious as it sounds, especially because it had bits of caramel pretzel in it. Anyway, milkshake heaven. Bonus points to Bimal for reccomending it as a place to eat, also bonus points to Dibs for eating crispy fried cheese and nicking most of the blue cheese sauce from George's dinner to have over it and creating the most artery clogging plate of food I've ever seen..
Vegas at night is full of such a varied mix of people, tourists from all over the world, random show girls, homeless people, people dressed up in suits and sparkly dresses, others in tshirts handing out cards for you to order girls to your hotel room - more on them later. It's great fun to walk through, the people and the lights mixed with the setting is something like nowhere else I've been. You have to feel sorry for the people dressed in transformer suits for tourist photographs - it's too hot to be out in the evening with a cardigan on - even up to midnight and onwards, so being in a big plastic enclosed suit must be horrific. It's weird having to bring something to wear when your inside because of the air conditions though.
Service in restaurants and shops is a whole other way of doing things here. Literally nothing is too much trouble for them, and they're so happy and helpful. I find it really hard to deal with and am super glad that it's not like this in England, it's a bt unnerving.. It can be a bit oppressive too - walking round a very small shop I was asked wheher I needed help 5 times. Maybe they get really good commision.
After dinner we walked back and arranged to meet our Man of Honour and Best Woman at 10am for a wedding rehearsal..
