Las Vegas is a city of dazzling lights and faded shadows. And it's like that with everything. Sparkling lights sit side-by-side with unsightly buildings, strip club signs next to children's clothing stores, and a bustling nightlife with exhausted midday desolation.

Getting to know it started with a view of the night city from the mountain at the entrance. The huge plain pulses with the straight lines of avenues, hotel lights, giant signs, and space-age towers, merging in the distance into a blinding horizontal line. Las Vegas trembles with the electric tension of the thoughts and desires of hundreds of thousands of people. And you involuntarily begin to feel this wild, inevitable rhythm, realizing that before you is a legendary city...

It was about 4 a.m., so the rest was just checking into the hotel in a half-daze and sleeping.) In the morning, it turned out the car had broken down; repairs took about 4 hours, and after that, we set off to explore the city. Our girls had spent a couple of days there before the Grand Canyon, so they knew exactly where to go. And so we went)

To my deep disappointment (and perhaps not just mine), Vegas turned out not to be what you imagine. From the inside, it's not full of lights and luxury, but a rather deserted city with only one main street where everything is located. And it's not laid out in a way that makes you gasp at what catches your eye, but rather at a decent distance from each other. Expecting to drown in the light of lamps and neon signs at night, I found the night lighting frankly lacking. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

In the morning (meaning during the day), we went to look at the hotels, which are also casinos and shopping centers. To gamble, they asked for our passports, so fake IDs apparently don't work here. I wasn't 21, so I sat by the broken-down wreck (the car=)) and flipped through flyers for prostitutes, which the Mexicans hand out here because prostitution is legal)) Moreover, when handing them out, they slap the flyer against their hand to attract attention, and that's why in some places the city center turns into a continuous competition of performers on plucked instruments)))

In general, the whole point of Vegas is the hotels, specifically that they all have different themes and each has its own casinos and shows; you just walk around, look at the interiors, and pick any one. There's a pirate hotel, a Venice one, a Disney one, an Arabian East one, and so on. Roughly speaking, there are about 15-20 decent ones.

First, we go to the Treasure Island hotel - tropical theme, vegetation everywhere, a pool, and a nude bath. If you're lucky, you can get into the VIP pool by pretending you live there. The girls managed it the day before, in several hotels at once; they say the one at Treasure is the coolest. But it didn't work for us - six Russians were asked for their room keys))) Also, every hour from 6 o'clock, they put on a water show about pirates. The show is so-so; you can see that the people are clearly slacking off, so the crowd disperses in some bewilderment, but that's understandable - it's free, after all))

The next hotel is Caesar's, with Roman mosaics, vases, a bunch of shops, etc. Then Sahara - Arabian style and an excellent buffet for $12.) After lunch, Venice. It's cool because of its appearance (an almost exact copy of the Doge's Palace in Venice, you can take a photo so you can't even tell the difference=))) and the fact that you can take a gondola ride, inside and outside the palace, but it costs something like $20. The girls had ridden it the day before and said that riding inside isn't great, so if you go, try the outside. Inside, there are again shops and roulette machines.

The sun began to set, and people drifted from their cool, cozy hotel rooms toward entertainment. It's the perfect time to go to the Stratosphere tower!!! The observation deck at a height of almost 300 meters and the crazy carousel there will leave impressions for a long time (if you're a tough person) or a very long time if you're a girl))

We move on to the main casinos - "New York-New York," with small New York streets, cafes, etc., Disney with huge dolls of Minnie that don't justify the name, Casino Royale, which is actually not a royal, but a 'royal-ette' because of its size, Circus Circus with cool acrobats who are all Russian and Ukrainian, Paris with the Eiffel Tower (half the size of the original, you can also go up:)), the Arc de Triomphe, and French music, etc.

But I know people who think all this is nonsense compared to the Pyramid. They say the most powerful spotlight in the world shoots from it straight into the cosmic abyss. In front of the entrance are sphinxes, and inside is a strict style, somewhat reminiscent of the Soviet Union. Everything here is also huge and square. There is an excellent Titanic exhibition - you can enter from where their exit is (through a small shop) and not pay $25:) At this exhibition, there are audio recordings reconstructing what happened on the ship, the history of the wreck, personal belongings of passengers and crew, and the eerie statistics of the tragedy, where almost everyone who traveled in third class died, and those who traveled in first class survived...

Right there is the "See to Understand" exhibition, with dissected corpses, as if that helps you understand yourself better. I don't know, I didn't see it))))

And finally, probably the most famous (and for good reason) symbol of Las Vegas - the Bellagio fountains, with jets shooting up to the 8th floor. They play every 10 minutes until 11 p.m. to different tunes, so don't be lazy and watch it once with a view of the hotel (you can from the Eiffel Tower), and from the other side - with a view of that very tower from the hotel. The jets fly up, intertwine, form intricate harmonious figures, and scatter in a cooling mist. You'll like it)) Unfortunately, my camera had died by then, and I don't want to steal photos. Look online to see what it's like if you want) for example

Well, that's it. All the prostitutes have been seen and called (heh, that was an interesting dialogue=), we played roulette and the one-armed bandit, bought clothes and souvenirs (they are mega-cheap here at Walmart, any local one) - so onward to tomorrow!

And tomorrow - relaxation in nature at Zion and Bryce Canyon parks...