Back after a loong time!!

Hello..
At last I managed to take soem time out of my busy schedule.. I have had so many things happening over the last 2 weeks... Life has always kept me on my toes over the last 2 weeks.. Apart from the usual busy weekdays, I have had very exciting and fun-filled weekends to keep me busy..

Last Saturday, 18th Feb 2006 0100 hrs, we were all in a rented minivan on our way to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. It was a loong weekend.. We had a three day weekend.. We decided to make the most of it.. so there we were in the van, lond hindi music after a long time.. Reminded me of the days when i used to blast music in my car.. :(

We were 6 of us. Pravin and Pratik had invited us to join them on their tour. It was Pratik who was driving all through the night.. I got behind the wheels at about 5 in the morning.. It was a long drive.. We reached the Grand Canyon at about 10 in morning after a long 9 hr drive..

We were there the whole day, enjoying the natural wonder.. We had many breathtaking views of the Grand Canyon.. It was freezing cold there.. The Colorado river that flows through the Canyon had frozen.. Wat a sight.. a flowing river frozen.. It was amazing.. We also got the chance to have a small snow fight.. :) It was exciting..

We then left the Canyon and drove to a place called Kingman in Arizona. We spent the night there annd left for Las Vegas early Sunday morning. On the way to Las vegas, we stopped over at Hoover Dam.. I thought the Hoover dam would be some huge dam that I had imagined it to be.. But the Hoover dam was not as great as I expected it to be..

We then reached Las vegas in the afternoon at about 2. Vegas did not look as exciting as it seems to be in the afternoon.. We had lunch, got to a hotel, changed and slept.. We got up and left the hotel at about 6 in the evening and man.. This was the vegas I was looking forward to see... Beautiful place, awesome lighting.. looked completely different to what it looked itn eh afternoon.. I understood.. this was going to be a loong night...

Vegas has this street usually referred to as the "strip". This is where all the action is. The Strip is the home to about 10-12 7-star hotels... Each hotel is based on a unique theme... We visited each of the hotel.. Each hotel was great in it own way..

But the best hotel I liked was called the Venetian.. It was based on Venice... Venice is a place where the most popular (or should I say only) mode of transport is water. People in Venice use boats to go around city... This hotel also had boats to take you through the hotel.. The boats were rowed by Italian boatsmen. these boatsmen would also sing italian songs for you during your nice romantic boat ride.. Imagine going through a 7-star hotel in a boat.. I was very impressed by this hotel..

Other hotels were based also great.. There was an hotel based on Paris.. They had a half scale replica of the Eiffel tower. We went up the tower and the view from there was just breathtaking.. We could get an arial view of the entire Vegas city.. all lit up and beautiful.. A hotel named New York New York had this replica of the Statue of Liberty.. it was great..

Another hotel worth mentioning was the Bellagio.. The Belklagio has this beautiful fountain show outside the hotel.. They have this huge pond outside the hotel with fountains in them.. These fountains dance to the music played in the background... It was amazing to see the water dance and make various patterns and designs according to the music..

We got back to our hotel only at 4:30 Monday morning.. tired and sleepy... But we managed to get up at about 10 in the morning.. We had a show to watch.. It was a nice comedy show in a hotel called Stratosphere.. It was a nice show to watch..

It was then tie for us to make our way back to San Diego.. We reached San diego at about 11 in the night.. It was the end to a long and exciting trip to the Canyon and Vegas..

We clicked about 500-550 pictures during the 3 days.. I managed to post most of them on the link below:

http://public.fotki.com/PPKSTB/

And this is the end of the loong post too.. I will keep you posted on my birthday blast sometime later..