Week in Review

So there is a lot to catch up on and its hard to believe that I have already been away from home for two weeks. It feels like I have been in Denver for at least a month. I am going to try to keep my review short but I apologize if it gets long, like I said there is a lot to cover.

Monday-August 31st
   We left Stony Point at 7am by bus for a short ride to La Guardia, at least shorter ride than the way to Stony Point. After a short flight to Baltimore and a lot of good-byes to new friends, Rachel and I grabbed a bite to eat and found our flight to Denver. Once arriving in Denver we found our luggage, Molly (our site coordinator) and our other house mate (Meghan). During our ride to our new house we found that we would be the first tenants in our four bed room duplex. After dinner, tacos Molly-style, we took a brief walk through our neighborhood, began to unpack and get to know one another.

Tuesday
    Tuesday morning we woke for devotionals and what turned into a long day learning our way around the city. After a tour of the Gathering Place (www.the-gatheringplace.org), Rachel's agency, we picked up our month long public transit passes and began the downtown tour. We ate lunch at the original Rock Bottom Brewery on the 16th Street Mall, wandered through the State Building (making a stop in the cupola to take in the views of the city no mountains though), admired the beauty of the Brown Palace Hotel and located the Art Museum, YMCA and downtown Library. Molly showed us the location of the DOOR (http://www.doornetwork.org/) office and the two buildings that make up the Denver Inner City Parish (www.dicp.org), my agency. That night we learned how to make our own calzones with a homemade dough recipe of Molly's.

   Side note: For the first three-ish days we could not see the mountains because of the fires in California but we relished in the fact that although we walked around the city in 90 degree weather for several hours we didn't sweat much at all.

Wednesday 
    We stayed in for the morning and early afternoon to get paperwork taken care of and to spend some time getting to know more about each other. During an afternoon trip to Walmart we found window treatments for all of the rooms in the house as well as trashcans. (Crazy the things you take for granted.) After home-made spaghetti sauce and pasta we headed downtown once again to watch a great Rockies game (they won!) and to see the mountains for the first time. We also had our first experience with "Denver weather." They say, if you don't like the weather wait 10 minutes and it will change.

Thursday
     In the morning Molly took us on a driving tour showing us where all of our local "resources" were. Then we had members of the Denver DOOR Board and people from our agencies come over for lunch. It was a great way to meet all of the people who have been awaiting our arrival. After lunch we took naps and discussed more paperwork items and then had the special treat of "Little India" for dinner, which is Molly's favorite Indian restaurant in town.  

Friday
    We took some time to talk about reflection and self care and then got a tour of Meghan's agency, Metro CareRing (www.metrocarering.org). That afternoon we had a plumber show-up to take a look at our shower, which was acting more like bathtub. That evening my roommates and I took our first solo bus ride to go and enjoy the Taste of Colorado Festival.

 

  

  

Saturday

    We awoke to find out that not only had our shower not been fixed the day before but that we were going to have to evacuate our house for the entire day while they fixed it. My roommates indulged me by allowing me to find a place to watch the first OSU game of the year. Not only did we find some place but we found the meca of places, the alumni sponsored OSU bar in Denver. I was able to watch the majority of the second half and entertain my roommates with my antics at the same time.

     

Side-note: The Penn State sponsored bar was located in the basement of the same building, making for a convient location for me, the OSU lover and Rachel, the PSU fan.

After the game ended and OSU won in their typical fashion we headed to the Tattered Cover, a local bookshop and then back down Taste for more of the previous day's entertainment. 

Sunday

    We met Molly for church and spent the day lounging preparing for our first hike in the mountains. Rachel's parents took us out to dinner during their brief stop on their way out to California and we got to act as the tour guides. Strange feeling considering we hadn't even lived here for a week yet. We showed them a wonderful time, allowing them to experience the wonderful public transportation system and a new pizza joint. They enjoyed wandering the 16th street mall as much as we still do.

Monday- September 7th

     Waking up at 7am to be out the door at 7:30 is amazingly easy when you know you are going to the Rocky Mountains. We spent the whole day either traveling to/from or climbing around Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a bit crowded but it was easy to over look because of the beauty. On our way back we saw some Elk and stopped in Estes Park for ice cream. I am going to let the pictures below tell you more about our 7+ mile hike.