HUBBERS BLOG

Got up early to eplore Vegas. Today we didn’t bother to try to get the group out in one piece and it was a good thing to as Runt and Coops didn’t get out of bed until six.
Adam Sophie and I went around town and saw loads of the casinos.

Got back in early in the evening and had a few warm up drinks for New Years Eve. We did the three rides on the top of the Stratosphere. At 1,149 feet, the Stratosphere Tower is the tallest freestanding observation tower in the United States and it has three of the scariest rides I have ever done on top of it. I did them all but I don’t think I would again. The worst was the X-Scream where they dip you off the side of the tower eleven hundred feet up. I have never kacked myself so much in my entire life.

When it got closer to midnight we went down to the Strip to enjoy the second biggest New Years Eve street party in the USA. When we got to the very edge of it a Runt and Coops decided that we were close enough for some reason. I tried to debate the issue out and managed to convince them to go another fifty meters closer to the street party before toys were thrown. In short we were at one of the largest street parties in the entire world and didn’t even bother going to it. Go figure.

Got up early to see a little bit of vegas town. It took until 2pm to get the last of the hard drinkers up and going so we didn’t get to see that much.

The highlight was the rollercoatser that goes around the New York New York Casino.

Got back in after dinner and played some more black jack. Coops dropped four hundred dollars.

I heard that they only have a handful of days of rain a year here. Today was one of them. We tried to take a look at the Grand Canyon and couldn’t see more than 50 meters in front of you. Thus we saw nothing. Probably my best Grand Canyon photograph was taken in the IMAX theatre.

Drove back to Vegas a little disappointed.

Going out for the evening we found a hum-dinger of a hootenanny western bar called Gilly’s. A mixture of beer and macho Kiwi pride meant that we all took a turn riding the mechanical bull. We all fared rather badly (as expected) except the Runt who did really well and managed to stay on until the controller gave up on trying to throw him off. To hear him tell the story you’d think he was off to join the rodeo. I’m not saying he asked the guy to go easy on him (like I did) but I do think it was a bit suspicious that he was given a balloon animal and a lollypop when he got off.

Drove out to the Hoove Dam and the Grand Canyon. Weather shitty still.

The Hoover Dam is impressive. Interestingly even though it is a huge power station just outside Vegas it only provides one percent of the power for the city. Mainly it was built to control floods downriver.

This traveling backwards through time can be a real bitch.

Coops and Runty were in fine form on the plane. They had pressed the call stewardess button roughly 20 time before we took off. The first thing the stewardess said to us after takeoff was a warning about ‘our’ behaviour. Thankfully Coops and Runt dozed off before to long but not before Runty had a chance to shit himself and throw up on himself. The smell was like flying to Vegas sitting next to a homeless guy.

Once we had all arrived in Vegas we went to the strip and played a bit of black jack.
I have learnt a few things about playing black jack that I didn’t know before. Always split eights and aces. Hit on 12 if the dealer has 2 or 3. And if you are up for the evening and put everything on the last hand, you will get 13 and the dealer will get 21.

Needless to say the weather is crap. Can you believe they have winter in Vegas? You don’t see that in the movies.

As I am heading back to London to live I spent the day with my parents.

Greg spent his day drinking vodka and trying to talk his friend ‘Super-Duper Nick Cooper’ into coming to Vegas. He succeeded with 20 minutes to spare and Coops Visa’d a flight to Vegas.

Greg helped coops pack to save time and if Coops hadn’t checked his bag just before he dropped it into the taxi he would have ended up in Vegas with every bit of porn he owns and a pair of overalls.

Greg and Coops were drunk as monkeys by the time they arrived at the airport. My parents are not what you would call big drinkers. Actually they are not what you would call moderate or even light drinkers. Seeing Greg in full swing must have been a bit of an eye opener for them. The most cringe-worthy moment for me was when he asked my Dads 80+ girlfriend if she goes both ways. Greg later described the occasion by asking “I wan’t that bad was I?”.

I’m not saying that driving in NZ has really gone down hill since I left. But if it were going down hill the drivers would have their feet firmly placed on the break to ensure the car never got more than nine kilometers an hour over the speed limit to avoid the plethora of speed cameras. In short NZ has become a nation of nanna drivers.

Some things in NZ seem to have gotten really expensive like food and alcohol. I am particularly worried about this as I frequently find myself indulging in food and alcohol.

The rumours are true New Zealand is very beautiful.

The main highlight for me was catching up with friends and family at home. Thanks to everyone from Gissy, Wellington, Harewa, Hamilton and all over Auckland who put me up or even just put up with me.

I saw the biggest truck rolled over on a state highway forty mins outside Gissy.

Sang/screamed ‘Wooly Bully‘ in Harewa’s roughest pub.

The weather in NZ was piss-poor. Mostly it rained and when it wasn’t raining it was hailing. I heard that it was the wettest December in ages. I have had bad weather all the way from London to NZ so I am beginning to feel like I might be a rain-bringer.

Drove out to the Hoove Dam and the Grand Canyon. Weather shitty still.

The Hoover Dam is impressive. Interestingly even though it is a huge power station just outside Vegas it only provides one percent of the power for the city. Mainly it was built to control floods downriver.

Dubai is loaded. Like loaded loaded. I had a theory a while ago that you could tell how well a city s doing by the number of cranes on the skyline. Mr Wayne reckons that there are fifty cranes on his site alone and that a quarter of the worlds cranes are in Dubai at the moment. That’s a lot of cranes so if my theory is correct then Dubai is absolutely booming. They are even building the worlds biggest shopping mall and the world’s tallest building. The tallest building is being built so that an additional five floors can be added in case anyone builds a taller tower.

Dubai’s oil will run out in the next ten years. To combat this Dubai has heavily invested in tourism. They get 11 million tourists now and think they will get 23 million in the not to distant future. To cope with this they have over 47 five star hotels and soon will have over 100. They are also building a Dubai Land, a Disney Land and three artificial Islands called Palm 1, Palm 2 and The World. The billion dollars worth of property on the first Palm 1 sold out in 72 hours. They also have the only seven star hotel on the planet, the magnificent Burj Al Arab.

I told you Dubai is loaded.

Two-Eyes another London mate is coming through Dubai tonight on his way to the same wedding. By shear coincidence we are on the same flight tomorrow so we decided to go for a beer.

Ended up at a club which is just like a normal club except every one of the 150 girls working there is a pro. The best part is they aren’t aloud to talk to you unless you talk to them first so it was an excellent night full of delicious eye candy.