colorado

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today i'm writing from colorado, where i'm staying with tracey and her family just outside denver. it's pretty warm here comparatively, yesterday when we arrived it was 50 degrees farenheit, which was nearly t-shirt weather compared to all the temperatures i've been in recently! (though today it's back down to freezing!) in ann arbor it was the worst, days were between -15 and -25 celcius, so basically it was too cold to do anything. one day when school was cancelled cos of the cold, we took my cousin's kids to a play cafe, and while walking from the car to the cafe my wet hair started to freeze! that'll teach me for refusing to use hairdryers...

a highlight in ann arbor was going to the outback steakhouse, which is meant to be australian. i'd heard lots about it so wanted to check it out, and it was pretty funny. they served normal food with aussie names like alice springs chicken and bloomin' onion! hehe. but they failed my aussie test when i tried to order a lemon, lime and bitters and was met with the usual blank look. to their credit though, they did stock a few aussie beers other than fosters, so they get points for that!

i flew from michigan to new york, where i spent a few days. i'd been before and had seen most of the touristy things, so the first morning just looked around times square, which was about 200m from my hostel. i love the virgin megastore there, it has an entire level devoted to pop/rock. i spent a couple of hours in there listening to different music and now have a rather long list of american music to get. i felt pretty ill that afternoon from eating too much junk food, so spent it in bed, but thankfully felt much better the next day. i went to the un headquarters (which is not technically in america, it's international territory) and did a tour there. they rush you through so i didn't have time to read all the displays and stuff, but i learned a lot and found it really interesting. it was then time for barack obama's inauguration, so i went in search of a television and ended up in an extremely crowded pub with lots of happy americans watching him take the oath. it was a pretty cool thing to see.

that afternoon i went to the international centre for photography to see the fashion exhibition they had showing, and then went to meet tracey and mel who were arriving that afternoon. i was doing a lot better with my sense of direction in new york up til this time - i planned to walk the thirty blocks to their hotel, until i accidently walked in the wrong direction for ten blocks without noticing! so i was running really late and had to take the subway instead. they ended up being about 2 hours late so it didn't matter, though not having a phone makes meeting up a little difficult! i just waited in the lobby til they showed up and then we went to dinner at an italian cafe.

the next day was mel and tracey's only day in new york, so they came to meet me in the morning and we went up the empire state building. it was a nice view but absolutely freezing. then we took a ferry to liberty island and saw the statue, after clearing security that was stricter than any airport! it was still absolutely freezing so we didn't admire it for too long! after lunch we took the ferry back to manhattan and i went to the movies while tracey and mel went to see the lion king (i hate musicals...) i saw benjamin button, which was interesting but way too long. i found it amusing that despite three warnings for people to switch off cell phones at the movies, when i went to see bride wars the other day, the people on either side of me each took a call during the movie and texted all the way through. it was pretty annoying!

yesterday i had to get up at 5am to get to the airport and catch my flight to denver. because of my paranoia of sleeping through my alarm, i pretty much didn't sleep at all so wasn't feeling so good! i tried to sleep on the plane but we still ended up in bed by 9pm last night cos we were so tired. i was on a separate flight to trace and mel, so waited round at the airport for a few hours til their flight came in. tracey's family are lovely, and it's nice to see where they live. colorado is actually really dry compared to what i was expecting, but it's cos the snow kills the grass so when it melts everything is brown. this morning we went out for breakfast, and this afternoon we are going to the outlet mall. we've been enjoying watching amusing ads and shows on cable tv! tonight we are celebrating christmas cos tracey wasn't with her family at christmas, so that should be fun! i'm here til australia day when i fly back to vancouver - i'm looking forward to coming home now (except if it's too hot there i might change my mind and stay in the northern hemisphere for a few more months...) see most of you soon!

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