Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Karen's Travels
Hello everyone - have arrived safely in Miami after a 5am start this morning. We are now only 5 hours behind you. It was pouring with rain as we drove from the airport to our hostel near the South beach. I thought we had arrived in England by mistake. Have had a meal and it looks like it's beginning to brighten up. We are here for four nights, although we nearly found ourselves on the street today when the hostel had no record of our booking. Fortunately,they have a private room available for tonight and we have to see what's available again tomorrow. From here, we will probably be visiting the Everglades and maybe Kennedy Space Centre - plans yet to be discussed and made. Hostel is in a lovely art deco building - was built back in the 1920s and Al Capone used to meet here with his cronies! We are just off the Espanola Way, with its fancy boutiques and art deco buildings. Very pretty. I enjoyed my couple of nights in Las Vegas more the second time around. The Tropicana is much more up market that Circus Circus (thanks Mr and Mrs Long!) and more central on the famous Strip. Let me tell you a little bit about the various themed hotels, particularly the ones we visited: The Bellagio is one of the more exclusive hotels and at intervals throughout the night, they have a beautiful fountain display to classical music which brings the tears to your eyes. The Mandalay Bay hotel has its own aquarium which we visited last night. Shark Reef, as it's called, has a crocodile and (surprisingly) lots of shark among other wonder ocean predators. It was brilliant being up close to them - my Dad would have loved it! Took a long, hot walk down the Strip last night to Treasure Island hotel to see their pirate ship display, which was disappointing in that it was more a dance show with lots of scantily clad girls than pirates battling on the high seas! The Venetian has its own Doge's Palace, Bridge of Sighs and river down which you can have a gondola ride. The Mirage has a volcanic eruption every hour or so! The Luxor is everything Egyptian so the hotel is a gigantic pyramid and inside you have statues of the Spinx etc. The New York-York comprises a cluster of famour New York buildings - such as the Empire State and Chrysler - complete with massive Statue of Liberty at the front - and a Brooklyn Bridge! The Paris Hotel has an Eiffel Tower almost as tall asthe real thing with a restaurant half way up. The Stratosphere has a revolving restaurant. You name it, Vegas has got it! You really have to see it to believe it. You can wander through each hotel by means of connecting walkways and escalators. All of them are jammed packed with slot machines and gaming tables - would you believe it, people were STILL playing the gaming tables at 5am this morning when we checked out! Vegas is not a place that sleeps and I stayed up til 2am the night before last - unheard of - and after midnight last night, so I'm feeling a bit jaded, to say the least. What I need is a day laying on the beach to recover! Yesterday morning, we took advantage of the Tropicana's outdoor swimming pool - that was lovely; to be so cool in the middle of the desert. The temperature stays up near 100 degrees at 10-11pm. It feels much cooler here in Miami. Well, that's a quick update. I need to get back to the hostel now, see what the girls are doing. More soon ... Love to all. Karen xx
- comments