Vegas No. II

So, I'm slowly sobering up and can get in touch with you again. I hope you don't blame me for the long silence, but I'm back in Las Vegas and had to take advantage of the party life here. It wasn't always easy to write beside it ;)

On Tuesday, I had the great luck of being picked up by Kevin in Prescott and taken to Las Vegas. He happened to be going there with his friends to party and I wanted to greet Anne, my dear friend from Germany, who arrived there yesterday. So I just took two more days in Las Vegas to drink away the waiting time for Anne ;).

What can I say? Vegas is and remains a completely crazy place. Here you can find Paris, New York, and Egypt all in one city. I have rarely seen so much light in a city. Everything is colorful and shining, everything seems so surreal, so unreal. Even the people in Vegas are sometimes so styled that you can hardly recognize their true form.

Nevertheless, I liked Las Vegas much better the second time than the first time. The main reason for this is probably that Kevin and his friends invited me to their decadent hotel (Flamingo Hotel for Vegas insiders) and showed me how locals party in Las Vegas. And this party experience was completely different from the first time I visited touristy Las Vegas. Instead of falling into tourist traps on the 'Strip', the main street in Las Vegas, we spent the night in the old town and had a blast. I have never seen so many hippies in one place who celebrated together in a relaxed and joyful way. Even though many of these people take a bit too many drugs for my taste (which seems to be completely normal in the USA), they were the kindest and most welcoming people, filled with joy and openness.

Even sobering up in Las Vegas is quite pleasant... especially since we were there on Thanksgiving, we treated ourselves to a proper hangover meal and simply went to the hotel with the most beautiful pool to sober up in the sun. Yes, it actually stays so wonderfully warm here during the day that you can lazily lounge and swim in the sun without any worries.

BUT I wasn't just being lazy and drunk in Las Vegas =). Because even in the Nevada desert, very close to Las Vegas, you can go hiking wonderfully. There is also a Red Rock Park where you can spend a wonderful afternoon. And with a pounding head and blazing sun, hiking becomes twice as fun ;). It's always amazing to me how different the world can be in different places. While in Las Vegas City you are overwhelmed by people, lights, and party music, just a few kilometers away, you can experience absolute peace and serenity while hiking through beautiful rocks.

Especially after so much city hustle and bustle, this peace and reflection while hiking do me so much good. However, this hike was a bit too much peace and reflection... because Kevin once again wanted to hike with a kettlebell, had probably had more to drink the night before than I did ;) and I had ants in my pants again, I ran a bit ahead during the hike to reach the summit before sunset. Kevin and I wanted to meet on the mountain peak... unfortunately, we didn't consider 2 things: 1. Everyone defines mountain peak differently and there are different paths to get there. 2. The Nevada time zone is different from Arizona's. The sunset in Nevada occurs earlier than in Arizona.

Unfortunately, when I climbed up the mountain, I noticed that the view was indeed beautiful, but the sun was unfortunately very low and wouldn't provide much light for much longer. I waited a bit nervously for Kevin, hoping he had a good flashlight. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Kevin... after waiting for a while, I decided to sprint back down the mountain to find Kevin as quickly as possible and get back to the car. A sunset can happen very quickly. And have you ever been on the top of a mountain, with quite demanding climbing sections? Just that can be quite scary, I always find the descent much more difficult than the ascent. But if you also lack light, are completely alone, desperately searching for your hiking partner, and suffer from a lack of orientation like me, it can turn into a horror movie in your head. So I ran down the mountain in panic, shouting for Kevin and getting lost a few times. In my mind, there were always spiders and scorpions, panic, the fear that Kevin fell down the mountain, and the fear of never finding the way again. In retrospect, it's very interesting how you react when so many fears arise in you.... Your body develops extraordinary powers and my legs drove me down the mountain at breakneck speed. Despite some wrong turns, I probably set a personal record for downhill hiking... and at some point at the end of the mountain, I found a panicked Kevin searching for me in all sorts of crevices. The relief of finding each other alive was indescribably huge. I don't know how we managed to hike up the mountain on completely different paths and miss each other... but I can recommend to you: never leave your hiking partner on the mountain, there are countless paths! And pay attention to the sunset in different time zones, I will probably never forget that :D.

After this hike, Kevin and I decided to only do sports together in the park, especially after hard party nights ;).

Besides the positive party feelings, in Vegas, I experienced terrible feelings in a completely different place. Do you remember the shooting in Las Vegas this year, where 59 people were killed and 500 injured? Of course, we all heard about it. And of course, this news shocked me and triggered deep sympathy in me at the time. But when I visited the memorial crosses of the victims here in Las Vegas, a terrible feeling overcame me like rarely before in my life. Crosses were set up for each victim with pictures of them on them. Personal belongings of the victims were also placed at the crosses. Their favorite clothes, books, photo collages with friends and family, flowers,... At this memorial, Vegas didn't seem superficial at all. Here, I met many crying people, the atmosphere was so sad and oppressive that I could hardly stand it. Hearing about an attack is already terrible enough. Feeling it afterwards, experiencing the sorrow, is even more terrible. I am so grateful that I have never had to witness such a tragic loss of a loved one in my life.

Thankfully, since yesterday, I have even been able to experience the opposite: the support of a very important person to me on my journey. Anne came to Las Vegas to accompany me on my trip for a few days. You can't imagine how great it feels to have such a familiar friend near you after many highs and lows of traveling alone. It feels like recharging, being able to let go and feeling infinite gratitude. And not just because Anne brought me birthday presents ;). Although Anne was struggling with the time difference, we celebrated our first reunion night properly ;). We treated ourselves to plenty of alcohol and fast food and then went gambling in the casinos.

Do you want to know how much we lost? We're not quite sure, but we guess it's around $800! And yes, for us, that's a lot of money... but no, we didn't go crazy. What we gambled there was fortunately not our own money. In the casino, we met a gentleman who asked us to bet his money for him on the wheel of fortune and roulette. He pulled out $100 bills one after the other and supplied us with whiskey. We couldn't quite fathom what and why he was doing this, but we just played along... and unfortunately lost quite a bit! In hindsight, we regret a bit that we didn't ask him to invest his money in our trip ;). But there are apparently numerous people who travel to Vegas at certain points in their lives to gamble away their money, or have it gambled away. If you've never seen Vegas, you can't imagine what goes on here. There are really countless casinos, all full of people of all ages. From students to senior home residents, almost everyone here gambles from morning till night. Many people can be found at what seem to me like pointless machines, like slot machines. Others sit at the gaming tables to play against each other, roulette, poker, or other games of chance. I don't want to know how much money is flowing here. At least, thanks to the unknown man's desire to gamble, we had a very exciting night.

After only 3 hours of sleep, our day continued: because it was Black Friday in the USA, the biggest shopping day of the year, when (supposedly) everything is drastically reduced. Although we didn't find the clothes incredibly cheap and we had actually lost quite a bit of money, we still had to try a bit of shopping in Vegas today. And that was really exhausting, for me worse than any hike. That's why I'm going to bed now and send you my best regards!