Chicago - Big Steaks & Big Beans!

Thie Blog was written on Wednesday night when on the plane home. I'm sorry if it sounds a little grouchy, you'll see why...

Ax

We are now 37,000 feet high just north of the Gulf of St Lawrence, Canada. I really should be asleep now but the kind couple behind me have decided to bring what Clarkson describes as, 'A huge lung coated in a veneer of skin.' I am allergic to the sound of a crying child and have no idea why people think it's a good idea to bring one on a seven hour flight. Is it honestly reasonable to force the sound of hell upon hundreds of people? Please please please, when it comes to long haul flights, wait until your kids have some grasp of reason.

Moan over.

I left you having spent our first night in Chicago, Karen & I being the ones to turn in on Sunday night. We had left the others in an Irish Bar on Division Street and true to form they had made the most of it drinking the bar out of Bombay Sapphire; this didn't affect their performance the following day however...

We were in Chicago without a plan, we knew it as a city of Irish Bars and Jazz Clubs but little else so the plans for the daytime were left fairly loose; after five nights in Sin City were were hardly up for getting up and on it. Foe came up with the idea that we should look for snowboarding equipment whilst we were out here but with the Pound nearly as worthless as the dollar these days it wasn't something that was not to be missed. That being said, Chicago was unfeasibly cold (even the locals were complaining) and a number of our party were in need of hats, scarves and mittens so we took a walk down the Miracle Mile and did the necessary. When we got to the top we came across the Hancock Centre and Paulie remembered that the stewardess on our Vegas flight recommended that this was a better option than the Sears Tower for getting a view of the city. We got some great photos and a lesson on Chicago by their very own Ross from Friends, who is a Cubs fan. Without knowing anything about Chicago or what to do, this commentary gave us some tips but by now it was approaching snooze o'clock and we wanted to head back for an hour's kip because we all knew what lay ahead for the evening.

We met in the lobby at 7.00pm for a gin and got to the phenomenal Smith & Wallansky's in time for our reservation at 8.00pm. We had been recommended this steak house by a fellow who has had a steak or two, my dad, who puts the prime rib as the best thing he's scoffed. We were eager to put Keen's Chop House of New York to the test. Opinion is divided but I can say with certainty that my ribeye on the bone was the best steak I have ever had. We all ordered dessert but did not expect the portions to be bigger than even Stuart's head, we tried our best to munch our way through carrot cakes and chocolate cakes big enough to feed a small African country and eventually gave up and handed the leftovers to a tramp on our way to see some Chicago jazz.

We had been recommended Andy's Jazz Club and found a table, I think we all knew that jazz is not our cup of tea but if ever you're going to visit a jazz club, it will be in Chicago. We saw the end of the first set and the head dude in the band tried to get us harmonising with some Swedes but I'm guessing unless it's Roxette they're not interested.

We tried jazz and decided it was time to move on. Where else to rescue the evening than the Chicago branch of Howl at the Moon? It was laid out identical to it's Orlando brother and was just as entertaining. We got just as drunk. Hazy memories follow but we did get ushered out at closing time towards another Irish bar but I really couldn't' tell you much about it. what I do know is that at midday Tuesday we were all slumped in a busy diner full of lunching (beering) construction workers and we were feeling like death. We took a stroll along Lake Michigan where it was even colder then the day before and back towards downtown. I am now officially a fan of the Great Lakes. I'm always in awe of what nature can produce (with the exception of Damien behind me) and to stand on the shore of a lake that's bigger than Wales is something that amazes me.

Anyway, it's time to talk about Chicago a bit rather than just write about how drunk we got and which Irish bar we did it in. Chicago is one of America's best kept secrets. When we booked this trip many people asked me why we were going to Chicago with a screwed up look on their face but the few who had been before tilted their head, grinned and said "You'll love Chicago."

We have news in the UK which makes us hate America; they're fat, rude, think they own the world and it's their fault the rest of the world hates us. What do we have to show us this? All films are set in New York and all Brits with lungs holiday in Orlando. I've been to Nevada, California and Hawaii and now Illinois. I can't wait to go back to any of these states but you will not find me in New York or Orlando again (until I'm getting hassled to take a child on a long haul flight to Disney).

Don't get me wrong, if you have never been to New York and have never seen Times Square at night, never stood at the top of the Empire State Building or never had a prime rib at Keen's then I heartily recommend it, just don't make the mistake of going again or you start to find faults with the place. You begin to see that New York is a city that is in an awful hurry and is full of extremely pompous twats who think they rule the world, the rest of America does not.

New York is a great place but instead of going there a second time there's all sorts of places in Eastern America well worth a visit. Chicago is well up on my list of recommended places and I can direct you to the best steak you will ever have and the better Italian in a better 'Liddle Idaly' than New York can offer. You can skate outdoors in the winter and they have big shiny bean that I am deliberately under-describing as it is far more stunning than I could give credit for ( For you Wikipedia fans).



If people made less films about New York and more about Chicago the world would be at peace. I'm sure that the 11 September attacks were orchestrated on the back of Bin Laden seeing Ghostbusters 2 and thought that the idea of the scum of New York being responsible for the near-end of the world was a little close to the bone. I want to go back to Chicago but not before I've given the rest of Eastern America a chance, probably en route back from Vegas. Off the top of my head we have, Boston, Philly, New Orleans & Atlantic City. So, from me, when you come across an American you hate, whether it's in person, in film or on the news - ask if they're from Florida or New York.

I'm going to leave it there because I'm clearly getting tired and cranky. I will try and get some sleep even though the parents of the Lung have decided to pacify it by lending it two plastic bottles to play with.

Andy
Chicago 2016
xxx

More Vegas!

I left you in the most extortionately overpriced internet machine I have ever used. $1 per minute was a lot and meant I could only do a half arsed Blog and not even check for more abuse on Facebook.

Vegas has once again killed me during the five nights we have spent there, I explained in the previous offering that we managed to pull a 24 hour day on the first night but due to jet lag this was necessary; nobody really expected us to do something similar on the second evening but the wonderful night in Hard Rock on Paulie's birthday saw us through and has been unanimously voted as the best night so far.

As I said, the day kicked off with each couple doing their own thing. Karen & I started off with a trip to Caesars Palace, a hotel I've always been keen on as it's massive and very central. Inside Caesars is a huge shopping complex and we had a wander though there as I needed a new shirt (all the ones I got in the summer seem to have shrunk). After a stroll through more of the Strip's landmarks we decided to take advantage of the Vegas sun and dropped anchor by the pool for a few hours.

We had all arranged a 6pm meet at Rouge Bar in the MGM Grand for a drink before we walked to the Venetian for or meal at Tao (the oe Stuoobs & Cazzie harped on about). It was extremely tasty and worth the harping on but by the end of it our body clocks we beginning to knock on the door and we knew it was important we got out of the hot restaurant and got some booze inside us. We decided to give the Venetian a chance and stumbled across a bar that had a stage with a keybard, drums and a guitar set up so we ordered drinks and waited for the band to resume playing. We left before the end of their second song because they were either mentally retarded or purposely camp - had it been a different hotel to the lavish Venetian then we may have let them off the hook.

One of my favourite live music bars from last year was the Big apple in NYNY. It was a decent size, adjacent to the casino and always had a good rock & roll cover band on show. NYNY have ripped it out for a High Roller lounge, this can only be for money and I suppose that's why all these hotels are stuck out in the desert but it's a real shame. Without knowing much at all about decent bars outside NYNY we drew inspiration from the best film of the last 12 months, '21', and hailed a cab to the Hard Rock Hotel. Set just off the Strip it's not one of the iconic or largest hotels but it will forever be remembered by us. I thought we'd find a good live music bar knocking around but that wasn't the case so we found a backjack table and got to work. The girls were tired of seeing the backs of our heads and went to the bar. As is the case in places like Vegas, three women in a bar on their own will not have to put their hands in their pockets too often and we were more than happy to have scores of blokes getting our women pissed. We really did lose track of time; I love blackjack as not only is it a game you can master it's also a very social game - we had a great table and we were all egging each other on to hit blackjack and take the casino's money. We had such a good time that we had no idea we'd gambled for seven hours straight. What was even more worrying was that the girls had been drinking for just as long (as had we but our drinks were complimentary). By the time we'd finished we were all completely mashed and thanks to some good card playing and massive amounts of luck I walked out of the hotel with $1000 more than when I went in. The others didn't have quite the same amount of luck but even to come out $200 down you can still walk out knowing that you've had seven hours of laughs and all the free gin they can throw at you.

The cocktail waitresses (or 'Gin Fairies'as we call them) are employed by the casino to keep you sat at the table. With table minimums of $10 a hand a free drink every twenty minutes is nothing to them. The Gin Fairies walk around and offer you drinks, I'm not sure if they get paid by the casino but they will do very well out of the operation as they get tipped $1 per drink. Assuming they work a six-hour shift and wait on twelve tables of six players each drinking every 30 minutes that's a wedge of over $400 a night and that's just with tight-arses like us tipping a buck, on the higher limit tables expect to see $25-$100 tips knocking about. However all of the Gin Fairies have bobbie jobs and bar far and away my favourite cocktail waitress fact is that the cost of these enhancements are TAX DEDUCTIBLE as a business expense, how good is that?

We were genuinely surprised that it was light outside but after our Hard Rock-a-thon the taxi driver dropped us off at the MGM Casino entrance instead of the Signature entrance and this meant that we had to negotiate the casino, not an easy job when smashed and Karen, Stuoobs, Cazzie & I pulled up some chairs at a table and got going. It's safe to assume we were not at the top of our game so the dealer and pit boss were both keeping a close eye on us. Poor Cazzie dropped a chip and in stretching out over three chairs to retrieve it managed to convince the pit boss that she was passing out and Stuoobs was ordered to take her to bed. This was all the reason Pezza needed to start referring to the pit boss as 'dad', to which 'dad'told Pezza that she's be next!

Now, as I've said many times Vegas will do anything to get you in the casino; that is why it is one of the biggest cities in terms of convention hosting. At any one time there will be many convetions in the hotels with heavilly discounted rooms and five star hosting facilities. Therefore when Karen & I were walking back through the MGM towards the Signature we walked passed a Starbucks line full of people in suits who were all essentially on their way to work. Paulie says that this night was the best birthday he has ever experienced, I think it's probably the best I've ever experienced too and meant that for two days running we were up for over 24 hours (if you get my meaning).

All of this meant that Thursday was a little quieter, so much so that I'm struggling to remember what we did. I know I've missed a day somewhere down the line and Thursday was probably it. Hang on, got it now....

Thursday was a tough one. We started the day one man short as Cazzie was incapeable of getting out of bed for anything other than poos. We decided to have a wander down to Hotel Planet Hollywood (which is closer to our hotel than the MGM, bizarley). We had one idea that is central to BOTT and that was that the only way we were going to get through the day would be to accompany breakfast with alcohol, we felt atrocious. Personally, my favourite way to start such a day is a Bloody Mary, the combination of the anti-oxident giving tomato juice and the kick of the spices help kick start your body into gear for the day. The huge shot of vodka also helps. After breakfast we lost Pezza but gained a Cazzie as Pezza felt bed was probably the best option for her. We then did what comes naturally and pulled up a pugh at the blackjack table where I met my new favour croupier, Ron from Upstate New York. This guy had been dealing blackjack in vegas for longer than I have been alive and he knew every trick in book and every way of shuffling, stacking and throwing chips. The guy was great fun and kept us entertained for a bit of early evening gambling. The girls went back a little before us and we thought we could get a quick turnaround ready for a 10.30pm start to the night's festivities. Stuoobs was first to pull the rip cord and say he wasn't going out. At that point I could have killed him for suggesting staying in whilst in Vegas but we were all asleep within about 30 minutes of this and our bodies thanked us for some rest after the previous two 24-hour abuse sessions.

This meant that we were all at the top of our games on Friday when we met for Breakfast (with orange juice and coffee this time). It was an early start to the day and we took the opporunity to head south down the Strip and visit the hotels at that end such as the appalling Excaliber, the iconic Luxor and the stunning Mandalay Bay. We took in the Bodies exhibition at the Luxor and we were all very glad that we didn't feel like we had done 24 hours previously as we were looking at skinned testicles and the occasional foetus. I nearly walked out with a new liver but the woman caught me. Spoilsport. It was a great exhibition and I can't believe we didn't go and see it during its two year stint in Manchester. The Mandalay Bay was beautiful without being pretentious. True to form we plopped the girls in a bar and we went to work, you can always tell how good a hotel is by the standard of the Gin Fairies and all of these were absolutely top drawer. This took us up to snooze time but I was too busy watching Top Gear on BBC America to get my scheduled hour in. Friday night was a great night; Paulie & Karen had recommended the Top of the World restaurant at the top of the Startosphere Hotel so we asked our concierge to make the booking and made tracks (this is where the last Blog post effectively ends). The restaurant is revolving and takes about 1hr 20mins to revolve. It offers phenomenal views of the Strip and surrounding area and has been firmly installed as number one in the 'Andy & Pezza Top Views Of All Time' list, knocking the view from Aqua Restaurant in Hong Kong off the top spot. (Incidentally, the picture at the top was taken from our hotel room, not the Strat!)Aside from the stunning scenery the food was great and our waiter foolishly asked if were celebrating anything which resulted in him making a bit of a fuss of Paulie, which was fun.

The retaurant is several hundred feet high (I'm writing this on a plane and don't have my usual access to Wikipedia) and the windows slope inwards, this means that we were able to do the Ferris Bueller thing and stand with our heads against the window looking straight down to the ground. I'm usually good with heights but this made me very nervous.

Must dash - seatbelt lights are on and that means we're approaching Chicago. I'll pick this up there...

Right, it's now 9.00am Chicago time the following day. As I was saying we were all feeling a bit nervous following our stare down the Stratosphere tower and that may have had something to do with why we bottled the thrill rides; they consist of a giant 'Playstation' (Now called the Ice Blast I think at Blackpool) right at the top and a ride that just shoots you over the edge of the tower, besides this was easilly the windiest day we had in Vegas and it was quite nippy up there and we were in no mood for hanging around so we had a drink in the cocktail lounge above the restaurant and then got a couple of cabs to Old Vegas, where it all began.

Vegas has been compared to Disney Land and you can see why, it's all fake and lots of gimmicks but when you
hit Old Vegas you get a real feel for the history that's around there and how it's struggled to keep up with the Mafia controlled Strip but it was packed and great fun to be at that end of town for a night. We had a couple of hours in the 4 Queens Hotel, named after the poker hand and NOT the kind of clientele it attracts, and enjoyed another successful hour at the tables.

Vegas was starting to fill up as there was a huge UFC fight on at the MGM, rednecks were flocking in from everywhere! It's one thing I love about Vegas, you get ALL kinds of people here and everyone blends in.

We therefore decided that we had little choice but to drink the evening away back at the Piano Bar in NYNY.

We stayed until around 2.30am and by this time my thoughts were turning to Saturday's football. Pezza and I had an hour together at the table in MGM and I walked her back to the room and back, by this time it was 4.00am and I knew I only had three hours before the United game kicked off so I pulled through and watched most of our 5-0 drubbing of Stoke. This was therefore another 24 hour session. Bedtime for me was 9.00am and I was woken by Pezza at 4.00pm with a calzone for breakfast. We had tickets to the show at the Wynn and we were looking forward to going back there after our stay last year. The show, Le Reve, is amazing and blew our minds away. None of us really knew what was going on but it's very 'Çirque Du Soleil' and the skills on show were astonishing. After that we ate at oe of the restauarnts in the Wynn and had our last hour of Blackjack before putting Vegas to bed. We had to be out by 9.30am the next day and I'm sure that we'd all felt we'd done Vegas the way the good Lord intended.

Our first night in Chicago was quiet for Pezza & I, after being last couple standing every night in Vegas we were first in Bed on Sunday in Chicago after a hearty meal in the Hard Rock Cafe which, confusingly, isn't in our Hard Rock Hotel.

The plans for Chicago are quite loose. We have two nights left here and we can see from our window the river and the steakhouse which my old man describes as the best he's ever had so expect some comments on these issues in due course!

Andy
xxx

MAXIMUM VEGAS!

Here it is, it took two visits to Vegas but I've finally managed to steal half an hour to do a Blog. What can I say about Vegas that I didn't already do in my first Blog of 2009? The place hasn't changed, it is still a city of magic and excitement, the only difference is that the Wynn has a twin sister and MGM's City Center complex is taking shape.

I'm unable to treat you to a picture right now but hopefully I'll have a few next time.

Our journey started in Manchester airport and we enjoyed a seamless flight to Las Vegas Steve McClaren Airport. Upon arrival we checked in to the suites at the MGM Signature and after pestering the dude on the desk for three rooms together with balconies he decided the best way to get rid of us was to upgrade us to the Upper Penthouse Level, a nice start to the trip!

The best was to keep going after shifting time zones so much is to keep drinking and we had planned to see the evening off the best way possible in New York New York's Piano Bar that we know from experience is the greatest way to beat jetlag. Before we went to NYNY we decided to take advantage of the facilities at the MGM and play a little blackjack. This was a disaster as we lost fairly big on day one however the Piano Bar did its tyhing and we managed to stay up until gone midnight (26 hours awake), jetlag cured.

We thought that we were done with the long days and woke up on Wednesday to celebrate Paulie's birthday. After a pleasant day of checking out a few hotels, shops and sunbathing it was time for a quick snooze before meeting in the bar en route to Tao Asian restaurant. Stuoobs & Cazzie have been banging on about this since they went to Tao in New York last year and we were all keen to try their Shabu Shabu which is a pot of stock (through lack of a better word) seasoned with soy, chili, ginger etc which is accompanied by a plate of sushi grade Kobe and it's basically a fondue with bells on. It was fantastic and I could talk for hours about it but this PC is costing me $1 a minute! (That will also account for some dreadful spelling - sorry!)

From then on we took in a cocktail at a bar in the Venetian and witnessed a terrible band that would have been at home on Britain's Got Talent - it was very camp but not what we were after so we decided to get a cab to the Hard Rock Hotel and see what would happen. We arrived and noticed it was a lot smaller than many of the hotels on the Strip but it was buzzing. The girls took a seat at the bar and the boys took a seat at the blackjack table. Unfortunately I can't speak for everyone but I had the night of my life - an excellent evening's entertainment, met loads of people, lots of complimentary booze and to top it off I won $1,000. The girls were letting nice chaps at the bar buy them drinks and Pezza got propositioned by a hooker. We were all exceptionally drunk and it was only when we left the casino we noticed that it was very light and couldn't believe we stayed there until after 6.00am. Not ones to give up we continued gambling at the MGM and eventually made our way to bed at 9.00am, passing delegates from various conferences on the way. A truly top Vegas night.

Since then we've been checking out more of the Strip and as I hurriedly write we're about to check out the Stratosphere and have dinner at the Top of the World restaurant at the summit of the tower and then we'll visit Old Vegas and see what happens.

Tomorrow we have tickets to see La Reve at the Wynn and as it's our last night in Vegas we'll probably do it justice.

I'll be back another day with a bit more detail, photographs and unwanted opinion.

Andy, Karen, Stuoobs, Cazzie, Paulie & Karen.

xxxxx

Putting 2007 to Bed

It's been a while since I blogged in LA. It's not that I got fed up with it after LA - I was incapable of getting to a computer and boring you with the insignificant details of my life.

Was I incapable because there was no internet access where I was?

No.

Was it that I had some sort of debilitating illness?

No.

The fact was we were in Las Vegas and as Elvis would have said had he not been working in our local chippy,

How I wish that there were more
than twenty-four hours in a day.
Cause even if there were forty more
I wouldn't spend anytime bothering to do a blog.

It really is that hectic. I'll wrap up the holiday in a bit but, for no apparent reason, I'll box off Christmas and new year first.

Christmas at the Geoghegans is always fun and one I was looking forward to more than usual as we had to spend last Christmas in the freezing and hostile climate of Melbourne. We did the traditional Christmas Eve activity of pub, curry and church (in that order). Some people think it's disrespectful to load up in the pub, have a stinky curry and then rock up at church for midnight mass but we've come on a long was since that dark Christmas Eve when we got banned from the church of England and if we're not allowed to turn up, sit politely and then have a good sing a long whilst the religious nuts murmur their way through songs celebrating the birth of Mr J Christ in a way that makes them sound unbelievably depressing. They missed out Silent Night so we, rather ironically, belted out on the walk home.

I love Christmas morning. We get up at about 9am as soon as Dad turns on the radio in the kitchen to wake us up and totter downstairs to find two clues that "he's been"; a lot of prezzies and a plate with a half eaten mince pie, half eaten carrot and half a glass of milk (Santa obviously had the whole Jagerbomb). Once we've established that Santa's been it's time to crack on with the Champagne and punch - this pretty much sets the tone for Christmas.

Presents open, more drink and general merriment - this is a picture of us waiting outside the pub at 11.59am waiting for it to open:


After a swift one in the Freshy it was time for Pezza and I to bid farewell as we popped to Karen's sister's for dinner which was nice; difficult to sum up really - probably fair to say nice family Christmas but without the arguing. It was then back to The Geoghegans for Christmas night complete with Clarkey's patented drumming to Paradise City on Mum's pots and pans.

Between Christmas and New Year we had BOTT Christmas - Like the Christmas I described above but with more alcohol and corned beef.

Finally, New Year's Eve. It took a while to decide what we were going to do but we eventually plumped for Beefy's fancy dress party. We pulled out the stops and rented costumes, Pezza and I going for the 'Pimp & Whore' ensemble. You can track Pezza's progress over the following 12 hours in the three photos below:


That'll be the Absinthe! We had to stop once on the way home for a quick vomit and then again once we got into the car park at home. I left her to it and went to the diabolical Man Utd v Birmingham match.

So that's that, we're into 2008! I'll be sad to see 2007 go; it has been a terrific year that will be tough to top - in brief we started in Australia, moved onto Hong Kong, stag do in Barca, got married, honeymooned in Cancun, retired and then went round the world.

So what will 2008 bring? For starters there's the change to the blog - it's no longer Andy's Retirement as I have come out of retirement now, I am now looking for work and we'll be all steam ahead to open our nursery. As I said in my very first post, the aim is to be 90% there come the spring and I'll update when anything significant happens.

2008 also sees a return of Mancunian Super Hero - FAT ANDY! The scales were tipped this morning at a mind-blowing 106.4kg, that's 16st 10lbs. This is phenomenal. 12 months ago I was 87.7kg - a weight gain of an average of just under a pound a week. So, here's the deal - I'm on another bet with the old man but this time not for money. We both have a target of weight and a date, if one doesn't make it and the other does then the loser must get a tattoo of the victor's choosing - no restrictions. We both have to get down to 83.4kg, my target date is 29 August whereas Dad's is 24 December (he's got a bit more pie than me).

I've pigged out a bit over Christmas, more consciously than usual as I've known that that's it now for 241 days. My first target is to lose a stone and a half by the end of January. It sounds optimistic but I'll let you know. I'll be dealing in kilos from now on so the target for Friday 1 Feb is 96.8kg. I will be doing this with a series of tasteless meals and sweating. I will be doing the 10k on 18 May in Manchester and hopefully the Great North Run on 5 October.

So, what of the remainder of the holiday? I left you in LA complaining of the transport infrastructure. We flew to Vegas later that day and the destruction soon began. Vegas is an astonishing place, everything is there - it's the entertainment capital of the world and they bend over backwards to make sure you have the best time you ever could there.

How can you sum up Vegas?

"For guys like me, Las Vegas washes away your sins. It's a morality car wash. It does for us what Lourdes does for humpbacks and cripples. And, along with making us legit comes cash. Tons of it. I mean, what do you think we're doing out here in the middle of the desert? It's all this money. This is the end result of all the bright lights and the comped trips, of all the champagne and free hotel suites, and all the broads and all the booze. It's all been arranged just for us to get your money. That's the truth about Las Vegas."

Sam 'Ace' Rothstein, Casino (1995)

I love it, it's my kind of place but 5 days there is a real test, or at least it seemed to be. Perhaps if you lived there you would perhaps pace yourself a bit more. It was my plan to cram as much in as possible, Vegas is all about indulgence so there was much gambling, much drinking and not much sleep. As Ace Rothstein said, it's all about the money and they need you in the casinos. To that end smoking indoors is still permitted in Vegas and, as long as you're gambling, a pretty, surgically enhanced robot wearing exceptionally skimpy clobber will happily bring you any drink of your choice all day and all night. Our rationale was that as long as we weren't losing more than £15 an hour we were even with the booze. As it turns out we all ended up about even with the drinks pulling us out on top.

The first thing that struck me about Vegas is the vastness of the hotels, they are full scale resorts in their own right. Each has 5/6 restaurants, two theatres, conference rooms bigger than most pubs, 2/3 nightclubs, 4/5 bars, cafes, rows of shops, a couple of pools, spas, a casino exactly as you see in the movies and a taxi rank. To walk from one end of the Strip to the other is pointless - it's 4.5 miles long so the best thing to do is get a cab to one bit and hang around there for the day.

This is one of the streets inside the Venetian - as you can see it's bustling with activity with roadside cafes and shops leading up to the man made canal network. What is amazing is that this is actually indoors and the sky is painted on.

Our day would usually start at about midday (the cleaners in Vegas don't start knocking on your door until after 4pm) and we would get our steak and eggs for breakfast, with a Guinness, before the assault on the day began. We would either do a bit of shopping (Vegas was much cooler than our previous 9 destinations) or gambling before trotting to New York New York where the real drinking would begin. We were never going to fully experience every hotel in Vegas so we stuck to what we know from when Stuoobs, Easty, Foe and Dunc went and just got wrecked in NYNY.

The Saturday was the night of the Hatton v Mayweather fight. Tickets were available for about £1000 each so we decided against it but a number of hotels were hosting fight parties and we ended up in the Mirage where the atmosphere was amazing helped by about 1500 drunk Mancunians packing the place out.

On the Sunday when drunk in the piano bar (or Bar At Times Square as it's actually called) we were joined by one of the chaps that managed to get into the MGM for the fight:

A definite highlight of Vegas was our trip out of state to Arizona and the Grand Canyon. We booked a helicopter flight that took us over Old Vegas, Lake Las Vegas and then onto the Canyon. It was cold down there and even a bit of snow was lying around. We had a picnic below the rim of the canyon and took in the surroundings - it's a stunning place which makes geography briefly interesting as you see the Colorado River meandering through the Canyon and eroding away rock formations over 2 billion years old.

Some people got different things out of the trip, for example Karen and Caroling literally fell over themselves in an attempt to sit next to the pilot who they thought was rather fit.

The occupants of our helicopter enjoying a glass of bubbly

with our pilot, Travis, far right.

The flight back took us over the Hoover Dam and then one of the most remarkable sights you will ever see, Las vegas Strip by night (hindered by my 3.5mm camera):

We then went to see Cirque Du Soleil, just go and see it - it's phenomenal.

Our last night in Vegas was predictably heavy and doubtless responsible for the trouble I suffered for the following 9 days I lost my body clock. We had to be at the airport at 7am the following morning and I didn't go to bed choosing instead to keep the blackjack dealers company all night whilst drunk.

This made the flight to New York uneventful as we slept the whole way. When we got to NY we knew that sleeping would be a mistake so we took in a basketball game (Sonics at Knicks) where Stuart betrayed his Seattle heritage and merchandised up on Knicks gear:

Madison Square Garden, not a clue what's going on.

I have finally decided that I don't like New York. Sure, it's got the best steak house in the world but other than that it's a very angry place full of busy people in a hurry - three adjectives that I try and avoid. Take the Rooftop bar we went to:

This is a view, a good view, but there are better. Take Central Park, it's a park and the only reason why it's significant is because there's no greenery for miles around - compare it to central London where there are green parks and squares all over the place. It's a city centre that's just a bit too busy for me and aside from the steak I really can't see the point in going there for a holiday. It's taken me three trips to figure this out but seriously if you want to experience a city that will blow your mind then head to Sydney.

A picture of us about to get fleeced £20 for the pleasure of sniffing a horses arse around a park.

New York did produce one of the better moments in life. It was our last night and we were drinking in Times Square after our steak. We asked the waitress where would be good to move on to and she suggested an Irish bar. This wasn't your typical Irish bar of Guinness and Pogues, it was an R&B bar with a 'wigga' DJ and music that I'm too old to appreciate. It was getting late and we were bored, Stuart was flagging. Pezza and I went to the downstairs bar that was empty with the same kind of music as above I therefore sent Pezza to find the DJ and see if we could request a song or two to keep the evening going. The guy in the DJ stand gave Pezza his iPod and asked her to choose a song. Feeling under pressure she opted for some AC/DC. Upon the selection of which the guy put Pezza in charge whilst he buggered off. When he came back Stuoobs and Caroline had joined us and we were another few choices down the line. He showed me how to operate the laptop/iPod combination, how to fade in and out and wished me luck! In poured 500 students on a medics night out and we all of a sudden found ourselves DJing in a club on Times Square!

Needless to say the next day was rough. In the taxi to the airport I was in the back in the middle of Caroline and Pezza who both had their heads out of the window. Once aboard the plane it was heads down and a quick watch of my new found inspirational movie, Run Fat Boy, Run.