Day 298: Las Vegas – Atlanta – Buffalo – Niagara Falls
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Thursday June 2nd
A very early start to the day – even though I had set my alarm for 5:30am, I was in the shower at 5:20am. Everything was already packed, so I just had to throw in my toiletry bag and I was out the door. Given the size of the MGM Grand (it has over 5,000 hotel rooms), it’s a trek to get anywhere, so I utilised the express check-out so I could head straight to the taxi rank.
My taxi driver seemed to have stepped straight out a movie, decked in khakis and a Hawaiian shirt, and regaled stories of conferences in Las Vegas (can you believe it is a common occurrence to have a conference of 130,000 people, and may include sit-down dinners for 8,000+ people?)
The McCarran airport is extraordinarily close to the Strip – yesterday, when I was walking back from the post office, a plane came in for landing mere metres above the cars on the street!
After receiving my boarding pass and paying for my bag, I stopped off to have a frappucino and take my cough medicine (fingers crossed it would work … 4 hours of coughing on a plane did not sound fun!) I was a little concerned about clearing security with it as the bottle was over 100ml, but the security officers just waved me on.
Within the airport there were still numerous pokie machines (and even more disturbingly, people playing them), but I just headed for the departure gate and played on my laptop until boarding. The flight was near full but it passed by remarkably quickly as I passed out as soon as we’d taken off, thanks to the sedatives in the cough medicine. (I’ve never had such a good sleep before – I know what to do on the longer flights now!) The only thing of interest was a comment made by the very redneck flight attendant, whom I overheard telling a passenger, “I don’t believe in shares and all those things, I believe in investing in liquor!” I think that’s the most American thing of the day ….
I had a quick one hour layover in Atlanta, just enough time to grab a sub (seriously the most unappealing food ever, and that was the best choice in the airport!) and board the second flight to Buffalo. It was only a short flight, but arriving into the airport terminal was chaos. None of the baggage carousels listed the flights for the baggage which was appearing, so everyone was walking around in a daze.
My bag took forever to come out, and by the time it did I had missed the 6:05pm direct bus to Niagara Falls. There were two alternatives: wait until 8:05pm, or catch the #24 and connect to the #40. I decided to do the latter, but regretted it … there seems to be a common theme that the only people that catch buses in America are the extreme lower-class of society. At one point, I thought there was going to be either a fight or police involvement, when a trashy (what am I saying, they were all trashy!) guy was denied entry.
I had a 30 minute stopover at the downtown transit centre, which was in an extremely dodgy area (the bus drivers won’t walk outside the centre, and apparently there was a shooting outside 3 weeks ago). I did a lap of the centre and was approached by a bus official, Shaun, asking if I needed any help. (I didn’t, I was just pretending I was in the Amazing Race, ensuring I was taking the quickest route to Niagara Falls). We got talking, and Shaun told me how he was trying to set-up a country-wide safety policy, based around 4 key areas: bulling, terrorism, assault, and medical emergencies.
Just before 8pm, the next bus pulled up, and 45 minutes later I was in the town of Niagara Falls. An obnoxious American, who I had tried my hardest to ignore during the ride, pointed out my stop, and I made my way to the hostel just before dark hit. Despite being a sanctioned HI hostel, the place was merely a large old house that had been converted into a hostel. It had only 38 beds, no real reception, and no facilities of note … although at $22, at least it was cheap! Although it was only 6:30pm Las Vegas time, it was 9:30pm New York time, and I fell asleep almost immediately thanks to another dose of cough medicine ….
A very early start to the day – even though I had set my alarm for 5:30am, I was in the shower at 5:20am. Everything was already packed, so I just had to throw in my toiletry bag and I was out the door. Given the size of the MGM Grand (it has over 5,000 hotel rooms), it’s a trek to get anywhere, so I utilised the express check-out so I could head straight to the taxi rank.
My taxi driver seemed to have stepped straight out a movie, decked in khakis and a Hawaiian shirt, and regaled stories of conferences in Las Vegas (can you believe it is a common occurrence to have a conference of 130,000 people, and may include sit-down dinners for 8,000+ people?)
The McCarran airport is extraordinarily close to the Strip – yesterday, when I was walking back from the post office, a plane came in for landing mere metres above the cars on the street!
After receiving my boarding pass and paying for my bag, I stopped off to have a frappucino and take my cough medicine (fingers crossed it would work … 4 hours of coughing on a plane did not sound fun!) I was a little concerned about clearing security with it as the bottle was over 100ml, but the security officers just waved me on.
Within the airport there were still numerous pokie machines (and even more disturbingly, people playing them), but I just headed for the departure gate and played on my laptop until boarding. The flight was near full but it passed by remarkably quickly as I passed out as soon as we’d taken off, thanks to the sedatives in the cough medicine. (I’ve never had such a good sleep before – I know what to do on the longer flights now!) The only thing of interest was a comment made by the very redneck flight attendant, whom I overheard telling a passenger, “I don’t believe in shares and all those things, I believe in investing in liquor!” I think that’s the most American thing of the day ….
I had a quick one hour layover in Atlanta, just enough time to grab a sub (seriously the most unappealing food ever, and that was the best choice in the airport!) and board the second flight to Buffalo. It was only a short flight, but arriving into the airport terminal was chaos. None of the baggage carousels listed the flights for the baggage which was appearing, so everyone was walking around in a daze.
My bag took forever to come out, and by the time it did I had missed the 6:05pm direct bus to Niagara Falls. There were two alternatives: wait until 8:05pm, or catch the #24 and connect to the #40. I decided to do the latter, but regretted it … there seems to be a common theme that the only people that catch buses in America are the extreme lower-class of society. At one point, I thought there was going to be either a fight or police involvement, when a trashy (what am I saying, they were all trashy!) guy was denied entry.
I had a 30 minute stopover at the downtown transit centre, which was in an extremely dodgy area (the bus drivers won’t walk outside the centre, and apparently there was a shooting outside 3 weeks ago). I did a lap of the centre and was approached by a bus official, Shaun, asking if I needed any help. (I didn’t, I was just pretending I was in the Amazing Race, ensuring I was taking the quickest route to Niagara Falls). We got talking, and Shaun told me how he was trying to set-up a country-wide safety policy, based around 4 key areas: bulling, terrorism, assault, and medical emergencies.
Just before 8pm, the next bus pulled up, and 45 minutes later I was in the town of Niagara Falls. An obnoxious American, who I had tried my hardest to ignore during the ride, pointed out my stop, and I made my way to the hostel just before dark hit. Despite being a sanctioned HI hostel, the place was merely a large old house that had been converted into a hostel. It had only 38 beds, no real reception, and no facilities of note … although at $22, at least it was cheap! Although it was only 6:30pm Las Vegas time, it was 9:30pm New York time, and I fell asleep almost immediately thanks to another dose of cough medicine ….
Post a Comment