I did some flying in Vegas about 10 hours after getting my PPL, looking back I thought I was better qualified than I actually was! With only 70 hours in my opinion I didn't have enough experience to take on board the "surprise" requests of ATC such as being told to report at a VOR, in a plane with very unfamiliar instruments (see below).
I took a cab to the FAA regional office to get the temporary airmans certificate, which in those days they just typed up in front of you. The office in in the middle of nowhere so the cab waited. It was not too tragic fare wise, but it could easily be cheaper to hire a car for all this.
Next day I got a cab from the strip (it is a surprisingly long way) to North Las Vegas which is a very busy airport with many movements. I went and visited in person all the schools and hirers, and then made a choice. I was offered a rather nice Arrow at one place, but had no complex ratings so thought this was a bit inappropriate! In the end I chose a school - Aerleon (too long ago to say if they are good now) with some 172's and explained my experience and wishes (to do ground school for US air law, nav and map reading etc and to fly solo over the GC!)
I did a few hours with an instructor on the ground trying to get all the differences in my head, then we went of for a BFR. They used a training area to the east (the whole of Vegas is split between McCarron, Nellis AFB and there is a small slice left for training!), where we did the usual stalls and turns then headed back for circuits. Amazing how being out of your comfort zone makes you crap at landing! The next day we did some nav over to Lake Mead and the Hoover Damm, also going in and out of the Class Bravo airspace. Then some circuits and I was declared ready for the solo the next day.
On arrival, the first surprise - different plane with steam instrument not the modern stuff I was used to! Oh well. Then taxi'd and really found out how busy the place was. Eventually got airborne and was handed a different routing towards Lake Mead, so surprise number 2. Busked it somehow, being told to go right over McCarron International was quite nervy! Anyway, made it to the lake, flew around then went down the GC a bit, but didn't go too far as it was very busy so popped back to the lake and then headed back to North Las Vegas. Again, completely different routing was given, all the VRPs that the instructor had shown me were then irrelevant. Somehow found my way back into the circuit and got downwind, then base. On finals I found myself presented with a V of 2 very similar runway bearings and somehow had to choose which was the correct runway!!! All this with ATC firing off very rapid US radio it was pretty stressful and showed how I wasn't ready for this really. Maybe after I had added 100 hours I would have been much more competent and could try again.
All in all it was great, I have probably made it sound worse here than it actually was, of course there was some great flying a well as the "What does he mean?" moments!! I did bout 5 hours flying over 3 days, which was all the time I had spare.
Looking back I suppose it was amusing that talking to McCarran I had such dodgy radios that I just couldnt hear him, so I had to twice ask him to say again one part. He then slowed to such a slow speech that it sounded like he was at half speed!