Toto, I don't think I'm in Blackpool anymore

What it looks like: Vegas

So here I am in the land of bright lights, nervously chattering slots, man made waterfall and bridge after bridge. Inside the casino's take forever to navigate and it is Friday night 24/7. It is loud and so air conditioned inside the casinos in a footstep I go from a hairdryer on full type breeze to teeth rattling and goose bumps with the cold. Inside smells like freshly sliced orange and cigarette smoke, outside smells of bergamont and drains that don't get enough rain. The builders are everywhere, dust in the air. After the long journey we walk along the strip past boxes of free papers with girls on the front with stars where their breasts should be.

Little Darlings

Aisian and Young

Older women

'I'm new in town and learning to entertain.'

I wonder what I am doing wrong when the men push flyers for hookers into his hands. Do I look like a woman whose partner might need a hooker? Most definitely, probably. So this is Vegas I tell myself, as I sip a beer and it takes about an hour to get used to the lights and the constant din. A bit of time on the strip and we head back for a beer, and food, but the city has tricked us with time, and we are too late for dinner. The trouble with Friday nights twenty four seven is losing track of the time. The only place still open is Subway, and I remember the smell of the freshly baked subs on Chilli Road that have made me delirious for the past few slimming months. When I eat the foot long it is just a sandwich it seems. Not bad, but not as good as my food addled head has lead me to believe.

The next day we head out to see Vegas in the light, and walk past Stratosphere to a shop I've seen on the net. It is hot, the walk is long, through the arts district (could it be any other way?) Amazingly I don't buy the pantaloons I love in the shop where you have to pay to get in. When we get back to the hotel we go out again, the other way, and walk the full strip and back. When we get back we have walked about ten miles, and my feet wince whenever they make contact with the concrete. Some of the hotels I've seen in movies have been knocked down, instead I look at gold lions, a techni coloured New York, the eifel tower, Venice, waterfall and fountains dancing to the pink panther tune. The whole place is water everywhere and not a drop to drink, so much man attended to water your feet aren't allowed to paddle in, and you can't drink.

Locals speak randomly to me like I'm some odd species they must identify.

'Cowgirl, damn.'

'Cowgirl. Where you from? England? I love England.'

'You ever been?'

'No, but as soon as I get a vacation that's where I'm going. England, yup.'

'Photo's for tips, get your photo taken with Elvis, filthy degenerate Elvis.'

'I live in Florida, I've been here 12 times in the last 11 years. I only gamble 100 bucks a time. A guy came to me and said I'm starving give me a dollar for a meal, I told him there's a place over there does hotdogs for a buck I'll take you there and buy you one, but he said know. If you're starving you'd go, I said you just wanna the cash to gamble am I right? That's Vegas, a lot of people come here, they don't all go home.'

New food tried today: The heat has made me forget to eat properly.

Falling asleep to: The Dawg (a show about a bounty hunter who looks like a cross between Peter Stringfellow the beast from 80's show Beauty and the Beast, and his comically breasted wife.)