Welcome to Denver - Population: No one but us

Hi everyone!

Well, in keeping with our New Year's tradition of keeping up a regular blog (and email replies) we are about to do our first blog of the new leg of our trip - only 3 days in!

But first, an update on the last month or two in Vancouver. We moved - that was fun! (detect the trace amount of sarcasm here). We spent our last two weeks living with Chris and Alice (payback!) and it was great to have roomies again.

We celebrated Australia Day with work (well I did anyway), snow and a few drinks and dinner with Chris and Alice at a local restuarant, named after a place in NZ - Raglans. Two things worth mentioning - great chicken wings and MASSIVE cocktails, ie in a fish bowl type glass. For Mike's birthday we went to the hockey the night before, but we spent the actual day moving house. That night we went out for a steak at The Keg. Aggie's b'day is a day later (same year) so we headed out to a club on Granville St that weekend, called Crush. Not a bad place - if you can get in. We were ID'd, wand'd for metal obejcts, then our photo was taken and scanned then compared to our IDs, we paid our cover, handed a ticket to the guy right next to us and then went to the coat check and paid more money to check our jackets. But it was a great night and there was a DJ from Sydney who was pretty good.

We finally ended up night skiing on Grouse - both of us were nurisng some sore heads and necks due to massive stacks. Actually, after skiing at Whistler, Grouse is pretty boring - 3 minute runs just aren't challenging enough! Anyway, we also checked out a few more hockey games. We spent a lot of our last week eating out at places we had always wanted to go, and we had our last ski on Grouse (the weather started out beautiful and turned ugly fast - pics to come). We went out Friday night with my mates from Harbour Cruises (my first job) and then Saturday night we went out with "'Couver Crew" (ie Aggie, Lukas, Bodhi, Chris and Alice) for dinner at a Greek restuarant down the road. All in all, we are happy to be moving on to more travel (and hopefully warmth and most importantly, sunshine!) but just can't believe it's all over! We will miss all our Vancouver buddies (and Aussie and NZ buddies)!

Ok, so back to our trip. Lukas and Aggie were kind enough to drive us out to the airport - at 4am! We got there in record time and had plenty of time to check in. Our flight was a non-event and we landed in Denver around 12ish. It was very flat (with the exception of the Rockies of course) and brown....and deserted! It was Sunday, but still. We found the hostel, and the first thing we thought was DODGY! They didn't have our reservation (I'd even rung the previous day to check) and reception was through another business' door and the whole thing looked shady. So we thought we'd "look at the room" before making any commitments. The place turned out to be one of the cleanest hostels I've seen. We got used to the place and figured that it only really looked dodgy because the area was full of parking lots and industrial type shops, it was cold and everything was dead. However, we found out today that this was not the case - it really was dodgy (you'll find out why later). Anyhoo, we spent our first arvo wandering around downtown, at first enjoying the blue sky and sun, and then fighting the gusty winds and swirling snow. It was freakin cold! But the following two days turned into beautiful ones - with warm weather! Downtown was pretty deserted, and this continued on Monday. We didn't know what was going on but found out Monday was a public holiday - President's Day - and Tuesday it turned into a thriving metropolis......kinda.

Our priority for Denver was to see the Colorardo Avalanche (ice hockey) and Denver Nuggets (basketball). Mike - I'll take over this part. I have actually been a fan of the Avalanche for some time and Allen Iverson is my favourite NBA (basketball for those not in the know) player who happens to now play for the Nuggets. So this was shaping as somewhat of a dream north american sport trip for me. Turns out that the one player I really wanted to see on the Avs went down with injury 10 weeks before the game and was scheduled to come back about the same time as this game but never made it back in time. Nevermind, I still saw the team, however, they got flogged, which was pretty bad. The Nuggets, on the otherhand, got up in a pretty close game. All in all I walked away happy, and a lot shorter in the hip pocket but with enough merchandise to fill a separate bag.

Not much else to note about Denver. We went to Capitol Hill - their parliament building (seems to be a common theme, but they are free! and usually have interesting buildings and you learn a little about the city). Avoided (well, missed really) the tour but got to go up in the dome, which is gold plated. The views were amazing, especially because of the sunny day. However, the place definately looks better in the warmer months. They had some pics up of the view during summer and it is green and there are lots of flower beds. The only other thing we did was check out Boulder. Its about a 45 minute bus trip from Denver and it's a University town - i think the Lonely Planet said there is a 30 000 student population. Not surpising considering the size of the friggin' campus - you think UQ or Griffith is bad, I would be lost in this place as soon as I turned around. All in all Boulder was a nice enough place - we liked it cause it was warm. The last thing we were going to do in Denver was a tour of the baseball field, Coors Field, but we picked the only day of our visit that there weren't any tours. So instead Mike just bought stuff from the shop :-)

So today....well we were up at 6am today to catch our mid morning flight (you can never tell with US security) to New Orleans. We met this guy from Melbourne in a cafe and had a chat to him (he was also on our bus and we knew we were all from Aus because we had Kathmandu bags - his and Mike's were identical!) He was actually heading to Vancouver to do the working visa thing and believe it or not he was staying across the hall from us at the hostel - never even saw him. It was at this point he informed us that there had apparently been 6 shootings in the last month within a block of the hostel (deep breaths mums!).

Again, the flight was uneventful. We knew we were in "Naw-lins" when we got to the baggage claim area and there was a brass band playing. And it was humid! Yes, I have never been happier to feel the humidity before. It almost felt like home :-)

The bus trip downtown was interesting. Mike reckons harrowing but I think that's an exaggeration. Honestly, it's only really in our minds - in reality we were going down the main drag from the airport to the financial district/french quarter in the middle of the day. But when you know New Orleans can be dodgy if you're in the wrong place, in particular at night (don't worry, we won't be adding those places to our itinerary) you kinda think twice. NOTE - the bus trip was $1.60 each (listen up AirTrain), so we each saved $13.40 (shuttle) - which is why we took the "cultural experience / live like a local" option. Mike - That and the cabbies apparently like to take tourists on the "scenic route", ie the wrong way, for a big payday. We arrived at the last stop and although I knew what buses to catch, I had no idea where or when exactly - just the general vacinity - bit of a "she'll be right mate" attitude. So after lugging our suitcases for a few blocks in the rain (yes more friggin' rain!!!!) we saw a bus coming and hopped on - with all our shit - I'm getting pretty sick of our 7 bags by this time. So we finally arrived on the edge of the French Quarter and it's starting to look like the New Orleans I've come to see. We walked yet a few more blocks (I think it was only 4, but i was actually sweating by the time I got to the hotel) and finally arrived. This place is gorgeous! A bit worn, but very New Orleans French. It's recently been renovated and only around $60 a night, incl tax and brekky! We are in the courtyard, with a fountain ourside (I can hear it now, mmmm along with a train - there's always a friggin train!), and our room is very romantic. We wandered around tonight looking for somewhere for dinner and it's a lovely area but very touristy.

Anyway, we are going to get an early night. There's so much I want to do here and we also need to do some washing. Apparently the pub down the road has a laundramat....interesting.

Good night. Hopefully you're all doing well. We miss you!

We'll get some piccies up soon.

xoxo

PS - We just wanted to say a special thanks to a few people -

• Chris and Alice - for letting us mess up your place
• Aggie and Lukas - for getting up in the wee hours of the morning and driving us to the airport
• Bodhi - for all the advice and help while we were in Vancouver (and especially the sleeping bags and mattresses!)