Uruao in Vegas!

Going from 20 degree weather into the 41 degree heat of Las Vegas was the most dramatic thing that’s ever happened in the lives of our Uruao pononga.

The doors of the airport opened and we were smacked in the face with a wave of heat, bright coloured buildings and a ton of billboards promoting Gwen Stafani.

Our hot adventure began with a family bbq that the beautiful Tuira whanau put on for us. The night was full of chattering, catch ups and manus in the hotel pool. We were amazed that there was water left in the pool after we were done.

The next morning we embarked on a trip to Zappos in which we took in the unique nature of the company and left with aspirations, a sense of hope for career choices and values...and a few containers of cereal.

Quirky workers, fair rules for everyone and a safe working environment is something we learnt can happen in the business world. We celebrated being in America with a day of shopping, buying for ourselves, whanau and quickly calculating the difference between American and New Zealand prices.

By day Las Vegas is a retro coloured city, people dressed as different characters from different movies littered the street, by night it lives up to its name as the city of lights.

Bright colours filtered out onto the strip as as made our way on to the NEW YORK NEW YORK. A massive roller coaster atop one of the most amazing buildings we’d seen so far. The view was stunning and truly something to marvel at...until you get to the drop of the roller coaster and then suddenly you’re screaming for your mum.

We ended our time in Vegas only able to describe it with one word that had become common amongst our group because it summed up everything, “Wow”

With a long bus ride to our next adventure we saved the reminiscing, took in the last few sights and said goodbye to that stop on our adventure, next stop LA!