I would love to go to las vegas and witness a huge pay per view boxing match live and in person!!! 20 hours ago

This was a trip I won’t forget :D

As soon as the 747 touched American ground and we got in the queue for border control, I felt sick. That 10h flight, >24h of being awake and me eating something weird at the stop-over in London were not a good combination. When we arrived at Luxor, I felt the “sweet” vanilla perfume that infused the whole hotel hit my tired face as a wall. As we finally entered our room, it took me a few hours before I threw up whatever I had eaten, up ‘til now. Yum.

The next day my stomach hurt so much I could barely walk. We found a Walgreen – some kind of convenience store (don’t have these in Europe ;) ) and got kind advice to see a doctor if it get’s worse and drink something with electrolytes. She who helped us was really nice and helpful, which made me feel a little better.

Back at the hotel, that (#x%x# vanilla perfume had the opposite effect. At least the AC in the room kept it out from there. And of course there was no window to open since it ‘could be dangerous’.. Whatever position I lied in, it hurt – and occasionally I had to throw up. I felt sorry for my company… :D

Since I wasn’t feeling too good, we mostly took short walks on the Strip. What I did see was the random architecture along the street: “Hey – I’ll build a castle, then we’ll place a pirate ship there and .. I think we also need a pyramid..”. Many of the hotels/casinos there had some weird perfume floating around. Why??

The most amazing thing of this trip was the Criss Angel show, that I was determined to go to – sick or not. I’m not sure he was worth every cent the tickets cost, but he was great! And seemed like a nice person too :)

After 3-4 additional days of almost not being able to eat or walk, suffering at breakfast buffets, and drinking lots of vitamin water, the illness went away. There were 2 days left.

I had been mostly annoyed at the salty and fat food that you could not escape.. And the soft drinks.. Why on earth do they mix that corn syrup into them, and so much of it? I couldn’t drink a normal coke, even when that stomach pain-thingy was away. It doesn’t taste like that at all in Europe… it’s less sweet and more tasty.. but to each their own :)

The Strip was very noisy and flashy – downtown and Fremont street, the old Las Vegas I suppose, were more to my taste. A bit rugged but less artificial. We also took a local bus a bit outside of the town – it looked more normal. I was worried that the Strip = USA in general, but this trip changed my mind. It’s a huge country with different places :) I might even want to return on vacation to some other city, to get a better picture of the country and ‘real’ culture.

Also, everything was much bigger than here. Now I have seen that myself. The cars.. the roads with 8 lanes.. the sidewalks.. the food servings.. the stores and shopping malls with huuuge parking spots. There are large cities here too, but I think they are more compact. That was a big (...) difference.

Still, I’m really worried because of the food I was served.. People sure know what they eat, but so much of the “normal” food was dripping with fat, very salty, stuffed with chemicals and/or dressed in corn syrup. Yes, I’m whining, but I think it’s sad that millions of people are eating that kind of food on a daily basis.. The bread – that always tasted like sweet sponge cake to me – was what made me the saddest.. I hope there is real bread somewhere there :(

Finally some nice points at the ending: I did meet rather frindly people, the breakfast pancakes with fresh berries and maple syrup were great when I could eat them, and I got a beautiful dress from .. Charlotte Russe I think the store was called. Now, I’m quite curious to learn more about USA, because I think it’s really different depending on where you travel to. 3 weeks ago

I went to Las Vegas with a few hundred other college students about a week ago. The experience was amazing but definitely exhausting. Great memories made with good friends. 7 months ago