Every now and then during your travels, you might do something that isn't actually culturally right. You know, fly to the other side of the world, and end up in an Irish bar. Which is fine if the other side of the world is Dublin, but you know what I mean. So the guys I was with decided that we should go to the casino. Now the casino can be the backpackers best friend (if he can find his shoes to be allowed in). If everything goes right, you can quickly fix your financial position now that you've realised the ridiculous 25 peso a day budget that you planned just isn't enough. Admittedly, if it goes wrong you can be on the phone to the airline the next day and emailing your mates to see how is going to pick you up from the airport on Tuesday.
Thankfully I was able to turn around my horrible form on the black jack tables in Queenstown and came out on top. I can't take all the credit for it though. This was the best casino I've ever been to. Firstly it was free beer. Now lots of casinos in the USA offer this, but it's not that easy. In Vegas you have to tip like there's no tomorrow and maybe if they can be bothered they'll bring you a bourbon and coke. Here they actually were happy to supply the beer and a cheeky 5 peso tip meant whenever I turned around there'd be my man waiting with a fresh beer. Secondly the dealers were awesome. Blackjack is a funny game, the dealer doesn't beat you, you loose to the dealer. For most hands, there's a definite right and wrong choice to make and the dealer was basically doing this for me. It was like on auto pilot. So basically I could sit back and enjoy my beer and play a very basic strategy and watch the pesos roll in. So at the end of the night I finished a WHOLE 40 pesos up, not quite enough to start those retirement plans, but any win is a good win.