England

Hello everyone, we arrived back to the very wet, windy, and cold England around 7:45 this morning, after a whole days travelling, considering we set off at 8:30am the previous day.

Needless to say as soon as we got in the obligatory beans on toast was needed and we keep falling asleep at the most random hours of the day!

I will be creating a movie from all the video clips I took, however I'm not sure if it will be too big to upload to blogger or not - but I will try when it's done. Or you can expect to receive it in the post family members!

Thank you all for reading, and the lovely comments the blog got; hope to do it all again next year! X

Day Twenty Three

A quick post as we're all going to bed early since we're up early for our flights.


Last night we went out for our last family meal together, as unfortunately my Uncle had to work tonight (our official last night) - went to a restaurant called Gordon Biersch, which was very yummy indeed!


Tonight Lorrie and Dona came round and we said our goodbyes to them until another year, of course with some homemade savory meat and potato pies, followed by bread and butter pudding mm! A true British 'tea' (that's dinner to those Americans!)


It seems that all we ever seem to mainly do it eat sorry, but it's pretty much true. If you've ever met my family you'd understand! If we're not eating, we're talking about eating. Simple as that.


Flights tomorrow begin from Phoenix to Chicago at 11am, then a two hour wait at Chicago, and onto our last flight of the day which is around seven and a half hours to Manchester, England. Should arrive early Sunday morning. I hate how we completely lose a day!


Will try and do an airport post if we get time, although we only have a two hour waiting time at Chicago and we'll need to go through security (again) and baggage, again. If not, will probably do one later on in the week.


X

Vegas - 'photo bombard' 2

- The Venetian hotel, influenced by Italy's Venice, has beautiful hand painted ceilings throughout, and you can even go on a traditional gondola ride through the hotel on one of their indoor rivers.

- The Mirage hotel, most famous for it's white tigers, and the Beatles 'Love' show, had an entire section of the hotel dedicated to it, with changing coloured lights, Union Jacks all over the place, and the Beatles 'Revolution bar' (note, I'm sat in the 'E' of Revolution!)

- At night the Mirage's volcano goes off on the hour, to which we finally got to see as every other time we have previously been to Vegas, it has never been on due to unforeseen circumstances!

- The dancing fountains outside the Bellagio hotel, as previously mentioned. They reach an amazing height, really good for a free show!

- Our hotel, the Flamingo, and a few other flashing signs at night:

Vegas - 'photo bombard' 1

The Paris hotel has it's own replica versions of the Eiffel Towel and the Arc de Triomphe, and for all those reading in England who will know what I'm on about - the tower here is the same size as Blackpool tower!

Caesars Palace was just across the road from us, full of Roman statues inside and very expensive (yet lovely!) shops.

 - where we also found Winnie the Pooh about to have a pint at the bar.

- New York, New York - where each room is a different part of the city and every inch of the hotel is a different street of NYC. Also with a replica of the Statue of Liberty, and of course the horrific twisting roller-coaster that goes upside down and runs throughout the centre of the hotel.

- The Bellagio, one of the most expensive hotels to stay in on the entire Las Vegas Strip. The ceiling in the reception area was made of different coloured chuli glass (by artist Dave Chuli), and a gorgeous atrium area which they change very frequently, which was done up in a lovely vintage fair-ground theme, all real flowers too.

- The newly built 'City Centre' which included hotels, apartments, and (very expensive) shops - including Tiffany, Prada, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton; and this gorgeous water wall which surrounded the entrance to the Aria hotel there. Not to mention the rather strange looking wooden floating restaurant inside the 'Crystals' shopping area in the center of it all.

..even had it's own English pub!

- Hard Rock cafe (of course) towards the other end of the Strip; to where we bumped into a very tall man on stilts..who very skillfully managed to fit himself into the elevator, still on stilts!! I was impressed.