It was one of the things close to the bottom of my to-do list, but since I found a very cheap direct flight from Las Vegas to Frankfurt I decided to at least have a look.

We threw the few remaining things we couldn’t give away to anyone out in the morning, returned the keys and prepared for our last walk through Isla Vista. Our American roommates had already left on Wednesday/Thursday respectively, so we had no one we could ask for a ride. It was pretty freezing when we left at 5.30 a.m. but carrying all the luggage for 4 kilometers makes you get warm.

I had heard about about Burbank airport by coincidence. It is pretty cool because it is intermodal and served by Southwest. So we could just take Amtrak, get off and walk 1 minute into the terminal. With Amtrak we had decided to try business class this time, but for $15 more it was rather disappointing, You just get coffee, muffins and newspapers, everything else was equal. It even seemed to me business class was more crowded than all the coach cars.

Southwest worked great as always, the flight was overbooked so I could have gotten $300 for taking a three hours later one, but it was travel credit only and I wouldn’t want to let Lars wait even longer (he took an earlier flight). In Las Vegas the first strange thing was already spotting slot machines right in the airport terminal. Also from the flight you get a good impression how crazy this is – a huge city with swimming pools and parks in the middle of the dessert.

We stayed in the LVH hotel, which is one of the icons of Las Vegas, opened in 1969 and operated by Hilton until late 2011. It is not very new, but still pretty nice. As always we used public transport and we should have learned from previous experiences. Again the bus did not give any change, so we payed $20 instead of $10 (for a 24-hour ticket), but reached the hotel quickly.

When I went shopping I used the buses again, but ended up walking a lot, mainly because I did not have mobile internet anymore and couldn’t really find out which bus was going when and from where. I admit having been a little afraid all the time, there’s really strange people running around, especially after it got dark. I also saw some police who had obviously found drugs in a car and were interrogating the driver on the spot – somehow I get the impression American cops like that.

To avoid wasting time sleeping we went down to the strip at about 11 p.m. This is the really awesome part of Vegas – you can see, feel and taste the money. There’s a huge copy of the Eiffel tower and even of the statue of liberty. Every new hotel & casino tries something else to be unique and impress people.

While it is interesting to have seen this, I am happy to only have had to stay here for one day. It’s really crazy and there’s nothing to do except eating (cheap), enjoying all kinds of entertainment (expensive) and gambling (even more expensive).