Discovering Denver

Last week, I flew down to Denver for an exploratory trip to my soon-to-be new home. The big goals were 1) find an apartment and 2) discover the city. I am very happy to say that I successfully did both!

Seeing as my last experience with finding an apartment took place in France and was a two-week wild goose chase before the stars finally aligned (and remember, I had to do everything in French!), I was extremely nervous about only having four days in Denver to find a place to land in August. I had heard that the housing market in the city is exploding and that places get snatched up fast. Fortunately, though, I did lots of research before I left Vancouver and had three appointments set up to see apartments during my first full day in town. 

After arriving in Denver very late on Tuesday night, I woke up early on Wednesday morning (7/17) and headed out to pound the pavement and check out my options. The first place? A 300-square foot studio, much too far from campus, too expensive, and a tiny kitchen with no oven (I didn't have a real oven in my place in France, and I was NOT about to do that again. I love to cook too much to have sub-par kitchen facilities!). The second place: a 400-square foot studio, still too expensive for the space, and still a bit far from the DU campus. The third place: HUGE, separate bedroom, all utilities included, full kitchen, and 2 BLOCKS FROM DU. Bam. "I'll take it!!" I ended the day a very happy girl. :)

Since I had found an apartment already, I got to take it easy all day on Thursday! I walked around the University of Denver campus, took the bus to the Tattered Cover Bookstore on Colfax, went into downtown and stumbled upon a super-random but awesome costumed dance performance in Civic Park, and enjoyed a delish iced mocha (it was 90ºF every day I was there!).

Crazy horse costumes. Not sure what kind of dance/ceremony this was,
but it was interesting to watch!

My new campus :)

Kris arrived on Thursday night. I was very glad he was able to fly down to explore the city with me, and he was very glad that I had already found a place to live so that we could just play and explore!

We went for a long walk around the DU neighborhood on Thursday night, and then hit downtown Denver on Friday. We went to several breweries, walked through the 16th Street Mall, had delicious lunches and dinners, and then we met up with one of Kris' old friends from high school and saw his band, P-Nuckle, play in the Five Corners part of town. It was an awesome, sunny, hot day and we had a blast.

Fist-bumping the gorilla at Wynkoop Brewing Co.
Kris wound up with an awesome souvenir t-shirt. :)

Part of the downtown skyline

The 16th Street Mall was littered with beautiful painted pianos that anyone could
sit at and play. It made me wish I had kept up my piano lessons! 

Wynkoop, Great Divide, and Breckenridge Brewing Co.; a few
of many Denver microbreweries. Sa-WEET!

On Saturday, the woman with whom we were staying let us borrow her car, so we hopped on the freeway and headed up to Boulder for the day. Boulder is super cute!! Definitely a town I'd like to spend more time exploring. The main street downtown (Pearl Street) had an outdoor art market going, and there were lots of street performers and fun booths to look at. We also discovered a great throw-back arcade bar, where we stopped in and played some pinball and a few other old-school arcade games.

After a tasty late lunch at the Walnut Brewery, we ventured to the national park near the Flatirons. The Flatirons are an amazing geological formation that I had heard about while initially investigating the state of Colorado. I was very excited to see them. We went on a short 2.5-mile hike along the base of the rock faces and enjoyed the fresh air and beautiful scenery. Kris and I both want to return sometime to do some rock climbing and more hiking.

When we returned to town that evening, we wandered around Denver's REI store (the second-biggest REI store in the country, behind the Seattle store. Woo!) and then treated ourselves to dessert and drinks in a cute, newer neighborhood north of downtown, along the Platte River. We walked around a bit after dessert and got to see a beautiful lightning storm flashing away off the in distance.

Can you see the lightning flash in the clouds behind the construction crane?

Sunday was our last day in town, so we headed back into downtown to check out one more local brewery and see more new places. We walked along the Platte River and dipped our toes in to find some relief from the hot hot heat. Kris wound up finding a $20 bill in the water! He was pretty excited.

It's alive! Haha

Kris and his lucky $20

We were sad to leave each other and leave Denver to go back to our respective homes in the PNW. Denver is such a beautiful, fun, GIANT city! The public transportation via bus and light rail is amazing (I'm glad I won't have a car!), I'm super excited to move into (and decorate!) my new apartment in a little over three weeks, and I'm looking forward to calling Denver "home" for a few years while I go to grad school. 

It's hard to believe that summer is so close to being over and then I'll be a student once again! Weird. I have plenty of work to do around my parents' house in the meantime, though, as well as more catching up with friends, with my sister and brother-in-law, and also going to a wedding in the mountains! 

This summer has been busy, hot, and wonderful. Life is good. :)