Las Vegas

Up nice and early at 8:30 and met my Mum and Dad down in the 'food court' (aka, Starbucks, McDonalds, Subway, etc.) Opted for a McD's breakfast and it seemed the only 'normal' thing available, Iy was huge and came with pancakes & syrup, a sausage and egg muffin, hash browns and scrambled egg, Was way too much (not that it seems to bother the locals!) Feeling well stuffed and in need of a walk to get rid of the umpteen million calories we'd just ingested we set off down The Strip. It was a clear blue sky but was still a little chilly in the shade, but pleasant in the sun. We walked down though the Mandarin and on to the Bellagio with its ornate decoration, which is one of the places the high rollers go. We walked out to the front of the complex so see the fountains alas they weren't working in the morning whilst we were there. We continued down to the past Caesar's Palace to Treasure Island Casino where we had a cup of tea in Starbucks of all places. Next door was the Forum shopping centre where I found a Borders Books and bought a copy of Frommer's USA travel guide (Which is not as good as the Lonely Planet guide). After this we crossed over to the Huge Wynn Casino Complex which has a escalator which actually goes round a curve, weird. We seemed to walk for miles in here trying to find the way out and eventually came out at the side on Sands Road. Back on The Strip we went into the Venetian Complex were they have the Gondola rides through the shopping mall. It was a surreal sight to see a gondola with a singing boat man on a mock canal in the middle of Vegas. We had a snack here and then returned to the Monte Carlo by taxi to chill out for the afternoon. Back in the hotel I used my mum's laptop to program my Amateur Radio hand-held with the data lead I had bought in LA. In the evening we went down to the all you can eat buffet. The food was good and there was loads of choice and I went for a few different 'small' plates of different dishes. The fact that you can eat as much as you want and go back as many times as you want amazed me as to why so many people were loading their plates like it was the last ever meal time. Suitably stuffed we went out onto the Casino floor to have a dabble. We wandered around the various tables where some people were really getting into the spirit (or the spirits we getting to them) loud cheers and whoops flying around the Craps tables. The Roulette tables were a little pricey at $10 a chip so we headed to the Slots. The funniest thing was that you put your notes in a slot and then the lights on the buttons light up, only thing is the one my mum sat at only lit up the 'Cash Out' button, so she pressed it, and thought she'd won a Fiver (exactly what she'd put in!). I managed to draw even but my dad cashed out up enough to cover for the meal we'd had earlier. I also found you can get 'free' drinks when playing in the casino – it costs you a minimum of a dollar tip and you can get any thing you want from the casino bar – nice, but dangerous!