On our last day we enjoyed a great continental breakfast at our hotel after which we spent an hour or two by the hotel’s pool and jacuzzi. We were the only ones there aside of a middle-aged couple and no wonder, it was a little chilly and windy even though the sun was shining. But the water in the pool was warm so it was great nonetheless!
In the early afternoon we walked around the Redondo Beach Pier which was a quiet and quaint place! We grabbed a random restaurant at the pier for some lunch before we headed back to the hotel to get our stuff and car.
We stopped by a mall for some last minute clothes shopping before we headed to the airport to give back our car and check-in for our flights. Luckily our planes left at pretty much the same time so we got to spend a lot of time together on the last day before we had to head to the International Terminal for our flight back to Finland and Christa had to go to another terminal for her flight back to Santa Cruz.
At this point I was happy to go home but also happy about our trip! I had a great time, experienced a lot of new things and saw some pretty awesome places. This was my third time in America, with two previous trips concentrating on Florida and New York, so being on the West Coast and the West was so different. Next time I want to go visit the Southern states or some places that are not the typical touristy places to visit!
I think before that, I will try to visit atleast London later this year but we’ll see 🙂
We started the day with our hotel checkout and some last minute Las Vegas shopping. We left Vegas a little after noon and it took us about 5 hours to get to the Grand Canyon National Park if I recall correctly. We stopped on the way for a short pitstop in a little town but other than that we just drove straight on so we could be at our destination at a reasonable hour.
We decided we want to see the Canyon during both daytime and when the sun sets so as we arrived at the Park we just rushed off to the nearest view point. The Grand Canyon is unbelievable, it stretches so far and it’s absolutely huge. But honestly, when you stand on the edge and view it, you don’t really realize you’re there. It feels like you are looking at a huge picture or a canvas is in front of you and not the real thing. It’s just so big and hard to comprehend. I could say it looks like a 2D scenery instead of a 3D scenery?? That’s how I would explain it! But it does look incredible in any case!
There were a lot of other people pretty much everywhere, so to those looking for a quiet picnic while viewing the canyon, it’s best to choose a more quieter viewing point and maybe not pick the first one you see. But for us it didn’t matter and we still managed to find a great quiet spot to watch the sun set.
We found a perfect spot right at the edge of the cliff where we had a picnic and had a nice time talking to a French-Canadian couple that were next to us. When the sun started to set it got really cold, I think the temperature dropped about 15 degrees celcius and I was freezing by the time it got dark!
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After the sun set we drove back to the hotel, or more like a cottage sort of accommodation, and took our stuff to our room. The room was convenient and quaint. We then drove to another resort’s building to grab a late night dinner before heading to bed. Oh and I remember going outside for one last cigarette and just looking at the sky totally perplexed. Honestly I have never seen so many starts IN MY WHOLE LIFE. It was beautiful!
We all slept really badly because the air conditioning (which we used for heating because the room was COLD) was really really noisy 😦 In the morning the girls went on a hike down the twisty paths of the canyon but I stayed in sleeping some more and watching tv. The girls told me the view from the paths had been incredible and you could really experience how big the whole canyon was so in the end I was really disappointed that I didn’t go!
Again at about noon we checked out and started driving back to Los Angeles. I took over for half the trip because the drive was really long (about 8 hours of driving with 2 stops totaling to about 9 hours). Everything went pretty well, except for a few slow vehicles driving on the wrong side and a little accident when I accidentally pressed the break pedal when my instinct told me to push the clutch. Seriously automatic gears are easy to get used to and make driving very easy but having driven a manual geared car for years can cause some difficulty. You can’t just let go of your instict to push the clutch so I had to drive with my left foot jammed up almost under me for the whole trip so I wouldn’t accidentally push the break and potentially cause an accident!
We arrived at the hotel at about 10 p.m. and after checking in, crashed in our king size bed! It was a pity that our last full day got spent in the car but it couldn’t really be helped! And the drive was a fun experience yet again except for the last two hours when we approached L.A. and it was pitch black and cars everywhere. Ugh.
The girls got up early in the morning for a run, while I, being the lazy ass that I am, stayed at the appartment and slept in. At noon we picked up some snacks from the nearby Walgreens and hopped in the car for our long awaited road trip to Vegas!
The whole drive took us about 4,5 hours with a half hour stop at a diner by the highway and the drive was very pleasant. I love to be in cars as a passenger and just drive around watching the surroundings. It gets really boring in Finland since I am so used to the sceneries next to the Finnish highways/main roads but of course the Nevada desert scenery is so much different! I didn’t get bored of the surroundings one bit during the whole drive and it was a quite a pleasant trip overall.
The diner we stopped at was such a quaint place which excellent customer service. I bet it’s been modified to suit tourists’ expectations of typical American diners but it was still a lovely place to have a pit stop and the ice cream and shake were great.
We arrived at our hotel late in the afternoon and it was huge. It’s not even one of the biggest hotels in Vegas, but it was big enough to impress me. And it had everything, from casinos to a dozen restaurants to its own theme park. Maybe the theme park was to blame for the amount of families with children that stayed at the same hotel, I would say most of the hotel guests were families and not couples or groups of friends. We didn’t expect it to be a party hotel, but I was still kinda susprised. Anyway, we had a quick rest before hitting some nearby shops for a little shopping. Then we started preparing for our night out! The view from our window would have been so great if it weren’t for the ugly construction of some hotel next to ours, but oh well. During night time we hardly saw it!
Our plan was to head off to Club XS at the Wynn/Encore hotel complex. My friend, who’s from LA suggested a few clubs to us, XS included, and Avicii was playing the night we wanted to go clubbing so XS was our first choice. The hotel was packed with people when we arrived and we had quite a difficult time finding the club, since on the official site it says that the club is part of Wynn but it was actually situated in Encore. So we had to back to Encore to get in.
The line to buy tickets wasn’t even that long, surprisingly enough! A guy approached us, can’t for the life of me remember his name anymore, and told us he wants to sell us his ticket since his wife felt ill and couldn’t come to the club. They’d just found out she was pregnant, what a bad timing for a clubbing weekend in Vegas but he seemed thrilled 😀 Anyway I offered to buy the ticket off him at a discount but I had to enter with him because the tickets were tied together so I got separated from the girls since the presale tickets had a separate entrance. We had an interesting talk with Mr. X while lining up to get inside the club, about sports, education, club policies and drinking habits! Once inside he was reluctant to leave me alone until I find the girls but I assured him I’d be able to find them. But boy was I wrong. After looking around the club’s pool area I realized I’d made a mistake. The club area was HUGE and at this stage, with the clock ticking close to midnight, it was pretty much full. My phone hardly had any service and it took me about half an hour with occassional panicking to find the girls who had entered the club at the complete other direction.
We partied near the DJ booth/stage pretty much the whole night and it was an awesome spot! We were right in the middle of all the action but we hardly got pushed or anything and this happened inside a lot because the club had thousands of people who all wanted to get to the inside area of the club rather than the pool areas. From the occassional drunk ass chicks to sleazy dudes we didn’t get bothered much and could concentrate on dancing and having fun. The only downside to being in the pit area of the inside of the club was having no access to the bar. So we opted out on drinks since we didn’t want to queue back inside but luckily some millionaire dude who had his entourage right next to Avicii’s stage just walked to us and handed my sister a biiiig bottle of champagne. Thanks mate! He also threw a big handful of 100 dollar bills into the audience, what a waste. Life just not fair is it? Anyway we had a great time and I could hardly walk while going back to the hotel, I was so tired. I highly recommend you visit XS if you visit Vegas! The place may not be suitable for you if you don’t like clubbing (duh though), spending atleast 50 bucks (the entrance was 35 and the drinks about 15) or honestly, if you feel awkward in a club full of attractive people who seem vain. :’D But for a true hip Vegas experience, I can’t imagine it can get better than this!
Here’s three small video clips from the night! Didn’t really spend that much time with my phone in my hand so it’s not much 😀
We stopped by a mall for some last minute clothes shopping before we headed to the airport to give back our car and check-in for our flights. Luckily our planes left at pretty much the same time so we got to spend a lot of time together on the last day before we had to head to the International Terminal for our flight back to Finland and Christa had to go to another terminal for her flight back to Santa Cruz.
Before I change my mind. Or my mind changes me. 