A Blue Popsicle and the Mafia

As I said yesterday, everything seemed to be going far too swimmingly on our outbound journey and it turns out I was right to be suspicious.

After collecting our bags, we began walking towards the second security check before leaving the airport. This means that before this point, we'd already had a thorough passport check, finger prints and mug shots taken and visas scrutinised. A random security guard/serious looking police officer man decides to pull us to one side to do some kind of unofficial background check on us.

'Are you two married?

*classic gets-em-out-of-everything-giggle* 'No!'

*stoney faced* 'What is your business in Las Vegas?'

'Travelling...?'

'What is the actual name if your hostel?'

'Las Vegas Hostel...' (Perhaps I can see why that was kinda suspicious)

And he went on like that for a while, so I decided to word vomit our entire trip at him until he let us go. Now I get that the security here is tight and that on a plane full of hen parties and fake baked middle aged men we did stand out a liiiittle bit, but just coz I haven't brushed my hair in a month and we didn't smell the sweetest after a 10 HOUR flight doesn't mean we're up to something. Honestly.

The second exciting event happened just after we arrived at the hostel. We'd had a lovely shuttle bus ride with Belltrans (highly recommend!), who drop you and your luggage at the door of your hostel for just $8. This meant that we got not only a trip of all the fancy famous hotels (whilst we were praying we'd be dropped off last, seeing as our digs were bound to be of no comparison and no-one in the bus even understood the concept of a 'hostel') but also some solid advice of where to go and what to see. Lots of people told us about their favourite places to visit and where we could find the best chapels - EVERYONE thinks we're eloping... - and of course the best places to eat. Our driver was particularly lovely, and on dropping us off warned us not to go any further right down the street we're on. The location, he said, is great, but six blocks in the other direction and we're in gang territory. 

So we got into the hostel, unloaded the bags and headed across the street to the 7/11 which is literally only half a block to the right of the hostel. I mean we could see it from our dorm room window. Yet straight away I was approached by a man, who I kid you not, literally fanned out a spread of $50 bills in my face (there must have been thousands there), looked me up and down and asked if I was interested in making some quick money... As always, I took a little time to click onto what he meant but, I mean, I didn't know my pasty white legs could be so enticing... Luckily, when I said a respectable 'no thank you', he was actually very lovely, wished me a nice day and went about his business. I'm still confused.

Finally, I am awake at this ridiculous hour (it's 3.22am), in part due to jet lag and partly due to my dorm-mate Chris, who woke me an hour ago to offer me a popsicle in exchange for helping him blow up a lie-low for the pool downstairs. He's been awake for two days and is afraid to crash in case he sleeps through the remainder of his trip (which is three days...) and was very surprised that I was a girl for some reason. Vegas is really weird.