7 Things That Will Blow Your Mind About Las Vegas
Few cities captivate the world’s imagination as much as Las Vegas. For those who have never been it’s almost impossible to imagine the scale of the city, built on dreams, recreations of the world’s most iconic monuments, and promises of fame and fortune to whoever steps onto the strip. There are many things we don’t know about the city, due to our vision of it being clouded by heist films and stories of big wins. Beneath the glitz and glam is a real place, where people live, work and do some rather strange things.
There Are 1000 Mole People Living Beneath The City
Strange as it sounds, there really is a large group of people who find shelter and set up home in the tunnels which stretch underneath the surface of the city, as they find themselves out on the streets and need to protect themselves from the alternately scorching heat and the biting cold of the desert. The tunnels are actually flood controls, designed to prevent disastrous consequences for the city after heavy rains, but have been the subject of books, documentaries and photography projects for curious journalists and authors, fascinated by these ‘mole people’.
You’ve Got Enough Hotel Rooms For Several Lifetimes
There are so many hotels in Las Vegas that you could stay in a different hotel room every night for your entire life and still need another 200 years to do the full round. The advantage of this is that competition is high and so good deals are plentiful, allowing visitors to save on the room and splurge on the games. Some of the hotels are so big that they could house the entire population of the town they are named after, for example The Bellagio, after the Italian town of the same name.
Even If You’re Not a Gambler, You’ll Be Sucked In
A survey of visitors to the gambling city showed that only a small proportion were there with the intention of gambling. But although only 15% admitted it was their intention, a grand total of 71% of visitors ended up taking to the casino floor and putting their money on the table. It’s just too hard to resist those bright lights and promises of fortune.
Las Vegas Is a Meadow In The Desert
In Spanish, the name of the city literally translates as ‘the meadows’, despite it being in the middle of one of the nation’s deserts and there being no natural green spaces on the strip at all. All you can see now from the hub of Las Vegas is concrete, gold dust, bright lights and a lot of high living. Wishful thinking, perhaps?
What We Think Is Las Vegas Isn’t Actually Las Vegas
Visitors and inhabitants more often than not wrongly refer to Las Vegas as being the pleasure land of casinos, hotels and resorts, as well as the residential city which it sits adjacent to. In fact, the Vegas strip is actually made up of Paradise, Winchester and Enterprise, communities which don’t fall within the city limits. Maybe it’s best that we don’t call it ‘Paradise’ though, as things could get confusing.
Vegas Is Actually Part of Hawaii
It’s not technically true, before you think that we’re trying to hoodwink you. Many residents of Las Vegas will often say this in jest, due to the large number of Hawaiians who have migrated to the city over recent years. The city has more than earned its nickname as the 9th island of Hawaii, as more than 16,000 residents of the Pacific Islands are known to be living in the area. So if you fancy a bit of Hawaiian cuisine it’s not too hard to come by.
Vegas’ Eiffel Tower Was Nearly As Big As The Original
When the Eiffel Tower replica was built, it was originally intended to be the same size as the iconic tower in Paris, but due to the proximity of the hotel-casino resort to the city’s major airport, the project had to be scaled back, and they instead erected an Eiffel Tower half as big as the original. Uniquely, this version of the metal structure has one foot of the base poking through the main building, straight into the casino; talk about putting your foot in it.
