First Week in Americorps- Denver,CO

Hello all!  I figured it might be a fantastic idea to start a blog to keep everyone updated as to exactly what I am doing!

So I have oficially been here for one week! I left Wednesday morning from Portland and flew into Detroit.  On the plane to Detroit, I met 3 other people heading to Denver for Americorps!! So we helped eachother getting around the airports, which was a comfort.  When we got to the Denver airport there were people with signs to help us get our bags and get us on our bus to our campus which is about 45 minutes from the airport. 



 

The campus is pretty cool, I live in Walsh Hall and the rooming situation is much like college, my roomate Missy from Wisconsin.  That is one the most fantastic things about this experience so far is meeting all these people from all over the country!!  Our room is pretty decent sized and we have our own little areas and theres a sink in the room which is very convinient.



Desk area in room



Our beds

Our view from the dining hall blew us all away.  It is pretty intense going from all ocean to all mountains.  Doesn't this seriously look like a painting?? It's surreal! And I get to wake up to it EVERYDAY! Ah.mazing.  So along with rooming we get fed food in the cafeteria.  Food isn't that spectacular but I can say I'm very ecstatic about being able to wake up and eat scrambled eggs every morning.  You can basically expect to eat pasta or a mystery meat for lunch and dinner, but they have forced me to eat a lot of salad from the salad bar.  Some days we have to pack lunches and make our own sandiwches, but let me tell you that sandwiches get pretty darn old quickly.



Red Rock Ampitheater

So in NCCC Denver campus there are about 300 people broken up into 4 "units", Water, Sun, Earth, and Fire.  I am in the Fire unit.  Withing our Fire unit we have 7 "Team Leaders" who are in charge of around 10 corps members.  For the first couple of days I was in Danny's team Fire 7.  The first day was just a business day, get your paperwork in, get uniforms etc.  Then on Friday we had to learn how to drive a 15 passenger van!! Yikes, not quite as small as my Ford Focus, but I didn't do too bad!  But this meant that we were stuck in the van for 5 hours while everyone took a turn driving!  When I drove I got to drive up to the Red Rocks.  SO beautiful!!!  We also went up to a lookput on a mountain where Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane's graves are.  Our team found an awesome rock to get a group picture on!!




Fire 7 (my first team) at Red Rock







Fire 7 at lookout



So needless to say I spent a lot of time with this team and we bonded very well, but we transition these teams so that we can get to know more people in our unit before we are placed in our permanent teams that we will go on our "spikes" (projects) with. 

On our first Saturday night here we decided to hit up downtown Denver and see what they had to offer! The majority of people here are recent college graduates which is great because they are in the same place in life as me and the same age!  Then there are some high school graduates and some in between.  So we went to some bar/restaurant chains to check out the scene.  Denver is an awesome city!  





Cheers!



Out and about downtown Denver!



Sunday we had off and me and a couple of girls went back downtown to check out the 16th St. Mall area which is pretty cool! Very touristy but I like that coming from Portland!!  And the next day for work, they actually took us downtown Denver so I had 3 days in a row going downtown!

Tuesday we got to go into Boulder and we took a hike, I was a dummy and didn't bring a camera, but if someone else uploads their pictures I'll be sure to share!  We then went into downtown Boulder which I absolutely fell in love with!!! It reminds me a lot of the Portland feel which of course is comforting.  We ate lunch at this place called Illegal Petes which has mexican food, I tried their taquitos and ate them with guacomole DELICIOUS.  Then we wandered around the stores for the rest of the day.



Kelseu and I eating at Illegal Pete's



Walking around Boulder



Found this pretty sweet rocking pig!!



So this is all I have for now!  Pretty long, but I know a lot of people are interested in how this whole thing works!  I had a second team this week, but we're already switching again tomorrow!!  Friday we get to go to a park and do a community service project with some 6th graders so I'm very excited for that!!!  More to come!!! :)