The bells are ringing in Las Vegas when I check out from the hotel I've stayed at. I just bought a ticket on the evening bus to Albuquerque, NM. The lady that sold my ticket looked like a nun, dressed in blue with a gorgeous cross on her chest. It doesn't take me long to find out why the bells are ringing: it's Nov. 11, 11 minutes after 11! I wonder if those ringing bells are real!
On my way to a cheaper Internet cafe than the one in the hotel lobby, and as I wonder about "The Working Nun" at the Greyhound station, I walk right into the Remembrance day parade. At first it looks pretty harmless: a handful of very old veterans marching behind a slow moving van with more very old veterans. Then I see the first high school bands: girls swinging their school and their American flags, the marching band, young man and women in uniform marching to the beat of the drums and then comes the shock. Kids, boys and girls with guns! High school bands after high school bands, and the same pattern: first the girls bearing flags, then the band followed by the guns. Wait a minute I need to ask someone why the kids are carrying guns! I look at the people lining the sidewalk with their little flags, children with their parents and grand parents, ladies wearing T-shirts that say: "Proud Military Mom", old, sad looking men wearing their war medals and dusty uniforms, more marching veterans, this time younger looking and carrying a sign that says: "Freedom Is Not Free". I feel totally lost. Finally I see a lady walking her dog. She does not seam too interested in what's going on, and so I summon up the courage to ask her why the kids are carrying guns. "I know", she says, "I don't like it either, I hope those guns are not loaded". Then she tries to explain that in some high schools in America the kids enrol in a pre-military program, maybe at some schools, not at all schools...She i not too sure....I decide to leave but not before I watch hundreds of motorcycles followed by some beautiful, old cars and the closing truck with bails of hey and carrying the little miss Las Vegas princess in her sweet dress, surrounded by children carrying a flag that says: "Children Of America Support Our Troops".
After the parade I decide to try to cheer up by visiting one of the many wedding chapels on the streets. I read that there are more than 200 wedding chapels in Las Vegas. The first one is a bit disappointing, very white! I try another one and another one but they all look the same : white interiors, white benches, white and red or pink artificial roses, little white cherubs. These wedding chapels look more like funeral chapels to me! Las Vegas has a slum that I wanted to check out, but all of a sudden I feel tired of America. The last thing I see in day time Las Vegas before I immerse myself in the world of the Internet is a sign on a very vacant lot that says: "Motel Ambassador, Thanks For The Memories".
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