USA today

There are 2 very important, most busy weeks in USA hospitality…i.e Christmas…and SKI-week! Now you have to get a grip of what Ski –week is…ski week is a week where children have a week off school so that they can go ski..how cool is that…that’s like Cape-Tonians having a beach week….?? Anyway its good for business. Ski-week came up right after Valentines (the Sunday ) and presidents day (the Monday).

Many guest in the hotel celebrated Valentines earlier in the week and we had the odd couple here and there, during the week..chances are they were married…but not to each other…

During this week we were told to UPSELL upsell UPSELL…because it’s the celebration of love day…its all about LovE, Lust, Temptation and BUBBLY…in the words of our FRENCH (most romantic nationality apparently) ‘you will buy your mistress a bottle of Dom Perignon…but definitely not for your wife..’

That was the start of this crazy week where the restaurant did 200 covers MINIMUM every night…

During the days the patio is opened as the hints of spring creep into the mountains, trust all patio staff to be South Africans as we bask in the sun to try get those rays our skins yearn for, as the all too cool servers strut their stuff in their sunglasses and guests sit by open fires, under gas-burners, listening to live music, right on the slopes….THIS…is the life…

SO time is running out for us South African folks here and they know things are gonna be a lot different once we are gone… they wonder who they gonna ship in for the next season…the guys are hoping Brazilian ladies….because they work hard….? :D

Every Tuesday is a big night in downtown Truckee (when I say ‘downtown’ I make the place sound big…but im trying to make it sound cool) its kinda like a Thursday back home and in one street they have 3 bars..the local hang out.. So this Tuesday we had YET another loooong night and we decided to go down town but being past 00:00 we search for a drink around the house, all Americans here keep drinks outside because it’s a large scale FREEZER…and we found a bunch of beers in the cooler….frozen together in an ice-block…3 girls all dressed up we throw the ice-block out the cooler….get a screwdriver and like the caveman AFRICAN that I am we start snow picking and carving the beers out of the ice block stabbing a few and getting beer all over ourselves!! After the hardwork we threw hot water over the ice….and by this time…the taxi was there to fetch us:D

Ski week is almost done!! and this means I can once again put my ski-feet back on the mountain!!! No more amateurs on the mountain, us advanced people can get back up there and just glide onto the chairlifts!! I stayed off for their SAFETY..?

Random thoughts…


7 week s left in the USA…
up to date I have been confused for,
an Australian…NUMEROUS times, every night 4 times a night, a pommie (british) , Dutch / Netherlands, Irish ad I speak Gibberish…

People that have heard about me think I am black.

• My American identity is Isle Mar-tiez
• Nicknames I picked up include ‘illy-vanilly’ and L-Z [el-zee]
• My French manger still can’t say my name and I respond to anything with an ‘l’ or a ’z’ that starts we an ‘eeee’ sound.
• The Italian manager calls me ELSA
• I look and sound like Minnie Driver

As a South African…

We don’t wear shoes back home, we are all black, we have lions and TIGERS…a lady asked me what I recommend because she wants to go on a Safari and come back ALIVE…???

When they find out I’m from South Africa some responses included…

ooo I’ve been to Ethiopia…ooo I went to Kilimanjaro…WE have friends in Australia…my nephew is in Cape town, his name is Alec and looks like Ashton KUtcher…so you must look out for him when you’re back…

The next conversation was with a guy maybe a year younger than myself…

Boy: Where is South Africa…?


The southern tip of Africa…


Boy: Yeah where’s Africa…?


Do you know wheres Europe…?


Boy: Uuuu….


wait..do you know wheres Australia??


Boy: …So I been to Japan before but I have no idea where that is on a map….


Ok dude…honestly I cant help you, pick up a map….!!!


Many people we speak to are not aware of the violence or crime that WE think is over publicized, but are scared of the WILd..they are scared of the animals…my favourite line..a CAT??i would LOVE to have a normal small domesticated cat, the lion is SUCH hard work!!! And my wild dog eats me out of the house!!

Words or 'sounds' heard out of Americans’ mouths include…LEKKER, suip, lekker suip, is jy lief vir my, baie mooi meisie, yebo… the words heard from some of the ‘gentleman’ will not be written here…

But all that said everyone is very excited about the world cup being there!!


And on that note…7 weeks left…

time flies when you’re in a different time zone…

VEGAS baby…

Its difficult to write this blog…maybe one of the most important ones to write…EVERYONE knows about a VeGAs but few people get to experience it… now the thing about LaS vEgAs is…its EXACTLY like you see it on the movies…no jokes…but you cannot imagine what the experience is like…
VEGAS has been dubbed “Sin City’ …with no need or explanation…it is exactly that...there is nothing normal about this city…it’s the city that NEVER sleeps… you do not go looking for parties…no no, parties come looking for you,- the first day we arrived it was slightly overcast but we checked into the LUXOR hotel (google it!) little EGYPT, and then we hit the streets…like KIDS at DISNEY WORLD we entered the Adult Disney World…lights, music, trains, rollercoasters, people lights BILLBOARDS, people lights people lights lights lights…(this was during the day though..)– It’s CRAZY…after a few hours of walking, we had collected enough ‘free admission’ and ‘ladies nights’’ vouchers, to ensure we would have a GREAT NIGHT. As we crossed the roads and rivers through NEW YORK NEW YORK, THE Excalibur, Mandalay bay, to the planet Hollywood hotel, miracle mile shopping centre, M&MS world (floors and floors of the tiny circular sweeties…in human and sweetie forms :D) the coke-a- cola store (where most of my ‘gambling’ occurred as I spent the most of my ’budgeted’ money).

2-3 weeks prior to this excursion though, you should note that my travelling partner and I spent days finding the PERFECT grand canyon tour…to get the BEST experience…as we walked the streets every block has a BETTER offer for this experience...but still nothing as good as the one we found on the net….so after getting the cold shoulder and ‘I-want-your-money, foreigner’- look, we paid many moneys to use public internet and book this tour…. after weeks of ‘research’ we booked our ORIGINAL grand canyon tour for 06:00 the next morning..this included the bus tour over the very awesome HOOVER dam, through the JOSHUA tree forest (a number of cactuses that look like Joshua from the Bible putting his hands up to the Lord (keep in mind this BIBLICAL referenced cactus is not IN sin city..) tour booked, so excited and hyped up, lets carry on.

Towards Paris and the Bellagio (refer to OCEANS 11?) at Paris there is the Eiffel tower of course…and at the Bellagio….a fountain show that I cannot explain to you but only try- 100s of fountains ‘dance’ every half hour, to specific songs…some such as viva las vegas, time to say good bye, and other classical as well as upcoming songs. Each fountain synchronized to create the most beautiful show you ever did see…If we saw these displays 5 times..that was too little…on weekends it happens every 15minutes!!!

The best thing about VeGAS is the HOTEL hopping….as each hotel takes up like 7 blocks of space, you walk from the one into the other, each hotel has something different to experience, each is based on something different, VEGAS is however the world in one city…NEW YORK NEW YORK has the most adrenalin rushing rollercoaster ever-best experienced during the night….the best way to see vegas at full speed and from every angle… ,THE LUXOR- Egypt, the main hotel is built in a giant glass Pyramid, the entrance is in the giant Sphinx, surrounded by palm trees and stone walls, PARIS has its own original Eiffel tower, on top of which there is an observation deck (right across from Bellagio).. (closed due to bad weather), TREASURE ISLAND has a huge pirate ship where there are free shows during the evening (closed due to bad weather when we went round)and tropical swimming pool, PLANET HOLLYWOOD HOTEL…Hollywood..the miracle mile mall is based at the foot of this hotel…miles of shopping…and the hard rock café, RIO slightly more off the strip...apparently a huge ‘party’ carnival club on the top floor…, CAESARS PALACE…obviously where the REAL Caesar lived…pager friendly with pager banks…but really…huge statues and just BEAUTIFUL, casesars palace has the cutest little wedding chapels, we saw 4, ranging from seats 50 to 300…some people DO get married legitimately in VEGAS….WHY I do not know…how will it ever sound good when you say ‘I got married in Vegas..’?? MONTE CARLO, THE VENETIAN... Venice an impressive, grand and luxurious hotel built on the a Venice canal….take a gondola ride down the canals and shop around, THE MIRAGE has a shark reef and an aquarium…and is home to the BEATLES club, Revolution, as well as the BEATLES cirque du soleil (too expensive for our pockets, but save up this is a MUST) the aquarium…was BEAUTIFUL….yes… the aquarium was a wall …behind the reservation desk? But an absolutely STUNNING HOTEL…

One thing common to all these hotels…is the GAMBLING…the bottom floor of each hotel is the casino floor….and in each casino you have your CRAZY people as well as the girls…no matter WHAT age…the dresses are not longer than…ok they just cover what they should….some hotels have slightly better attire but some of these ladies are no more ladies…but grannies and then there are the more ‘fit’ girls who spend nights dancing on the tables over and over and over as the gamblers and passersby ‘ogle their goodies’:D

One thing also very strange to us folk was the little booths of ‘OXYGEN’ you walk past these small ‘bars’ and people invite you to come have some OXYGEN…??? Uuuu??? Sorry…?? I breathe? It’s very nasty…so there are these small pipe-like bottles with different coloured liquids in and then people sit there with oxygen-mask kind of pipes up their nostrils…just sit and breath…..getting oxygen…? If you exercise the same thing happens... no I lie…generally when you BREATH…you get oxygen?

On every corner of any block you will find at LEAST 5 Mexican men handing out packs of little business-card like cards….of ‘strippers’ or what is nice word to call them…?anyway these cards just show boobs and some show other things….just because you are a girl do not expect them to NOT hand them to you….bridget, tiffany, taylor, etc….its NASTY.

Did I mention that during our 3 days here….it rained the WHOLE time…? Anyway so next morning 06:00 off to Grand Canyon!!!!! As we pull away the rain returns….it’s ok….it starts raining more and harder, as we get closer to the canyon the rain stops….:) :)….:D no wait….let me not mislead you…it stopped raining yes, it’s the middle of the dessert…. So it started SNOWING!!!! Yes…snowing at the Grand Canyon…one of the 7 wonders of the world….we right next to it…probably could throw a rock at it….but we had NO IDEA where it was…. Never worry we got a refund….:/



Went home got redressed and carried on walking more, and more and more.

AS a party goer in VeGas you have to buy these drinks that are very large…some are roughly 60cm long and the others maybe like a metre…with these ones you get a string to hang around your neck…

In vegas everything closes late…most things about 12:00 and others at 02:00 theses are attractions not bars…bars and clubs are never ending. At 01:30 on the last evening we made it to the top floor of the STRATOSPHERE hotel one of the highest structures in the world as we saw the Vegas strip and the dessert from the top, miles and miles of lights and then nothingness….

As I said...3 days is good….as we made our way back we wished the flight could have been longer so that we could catch up on some sleep… but alas, 50 minutes we were back in Reno and ran out of the airport as fast as our STIFF shins, calves and legs could carry us…in order to catch our lift back to Tahoe…took a shower, and back to work….like nothing ever happened…

The thing with VEGAS is when someone asks how VEGAS was…without knowing, a smile stretches across our faces, we look at each other and we KNOW….what Happens in Vegas…..STAYS in Vegas;)