I am currently sat in our king deluxe room in the Bellagio over looking the strip sipping on some "ice water" (as they say here) having spent the last two hours drinking cocktails by the pool. Niiiiice I hear you saying.

However, that's not quite quite how our time in this crazy place started. Nope, it started with a 2 hour queue in customs!! Now I know they say that the Brits like queuing but from the faces and snide comments that were coming from our fellow travellers I would say quite the opposite. Then we collected our bags only to find ourselves in another queue to hand in our customs cards. They are security MAD here! I can't figure if I feel safer here or guilty of something that they think I might have done!!

Anyway, queueing over, we flagged down a cab and were swiftly taken to the MGM Grand! Our first hotel in Vegas, which we found out when we got there is having some renovation work done. It's nice, but not that great. So we headed straight to the room for two hours kip as we had been awake for about 22 hours by this point.

Refreshed, we headed down for dinner and a little gambling. We ended up having some Asian food, a bottle of red before Amy hit the slots.

Now, she thinks that she's "won" money because she won and now has $23. However, she started with $30. My maths isn't great but I fairly sure that means she lost $7. Having discussed this with Amy, I was wrong.

Aaaaanyway, after a good nights sleep and wearing the jet lag well we headed down to Starbucks for breakfast before spending the morning and lunchtime by the pool. The outside space at the MGM was really nice and had this thing called a lazy river where you sort of float around the complex. I think Amy and I were doing it wrong as we were actually swimming, the Americans were in rubber rings wearing sunglasses and holding bottles of beer!?

Which brings me nicely on to a little side point. Fat person spotting is ENORMOUS fun (see what I did there!?). Although, it is phenomenal how large these people are and how they just keep eating and drinking crap. Even the "thin" people are chubby by European standards. Anyway, the result is Amy felt a ill little by the pool where the aforementioned fatties took their clothes off.

We then decided to head to the Bellagio where we're staying for the next two nights. In my infinite wisdom, I said that we should walk down the strip to the hotel with the bags because "it's not that far". Turns out I was right, it wasn't, what I hadn't factored in was the 35'c heat and the fact that I would be carrying 50kg of bags, along the crowded strip which has 3 stair ridden pedestrian bridges! So we turned up to our (much classier and nicer) hotel a little sweaty.

So, that brings me back to me being sat in our lovely room just before heading out to hit the casino ( I spent some of the time by the pool reading up on craps and blackjack). Amy is (still) enjoying the fabulous bath room. It sounds like she's now having a shower after having had a bath!? I'm expecting a very clean and sparkly girlfriend when she eventually emerges.

Well that's all for now folks, tomorrow we're going to explore the strip a bit more sans cases and see what else other than casinos Vegas has to offer.

See y'all later :-)

Ben