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Denver - Day 1
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I awake to the first day of the month to discover bright sunshine pouring through my window. I also discover that breakfast finishes at 9am, and it is 9:10am. Bugger. No breakfast for me today then! I had a look through some tourist guides to see what to do today and decided upon a self-guided walking tour of the city.
I set out at about 10:30am and walked first to the Convention Centre to find out where my conference was going to be. As it transpired it was all of 3 minutes walk away, so I needn't have worried about finding it! Oddly enough, the Convention Centre has an enormous Blue Bear built up against the side of it, so it looks like the bear is looking in. Most strange. It also takes up about 483000 square metres of space, although it didn't look *that* big from the outside.
I made my way to the Civic Centre, which is a lovely building with parkland in front of it. There appeared to have been some function going on in the park because there were lots of tents up and people slowly clearing things away. I walked through the park, looking at some of the huge bronze statues before coming face to face with the State Capitol, designed to replicate the Capitol in Washington DC. It was an amazing building with a gold dome - real gold too. Am surprised no one has tried to get up there and remove it!
The Capitol is open to the public so I took the opportunity to go in. On the way up the steps there are three different markers indicating that the step is a mile high. You'd think they would decide on just one of them! There were a few tours going on in the building and I realised if I followed just behind, I'd hear all the information but get rooms to myself afterwards for photos. Sneaky! It was a fascinating building, not least because people were working in it - representatives and senators etc. I went on a tour up into the Dome itself, which involved climbing a lot of steps. But the view over Denver made it worthwhile.
I had a wander around the Senate House and did a bit of filming. I did get chucked out as a meeting was due to take place in there, but that just added to the fun! I went down into the basement for a drink (there was a cafe there) and ended up chatting to this really interesting guy. We grabbed some food and sat down and it turned out he was a Senator! Chatted over lunch for about an hour before he had to go back to work and I continued with my tour. Amazing what an English accent will do for you!
So I left the Capitol and headed round past the Colorado History Museum, on to Denver Public Library (engraved in the wall with 'I'd always imagined Heaven to be some sort of library') and then to the Denver Art Museum - a truly spectacular piece of architecture. I sat in the sun by this building for a while just looking at how well made it is, and how it looks fantastic from every angle. Excellent planning.
From here I headed over to the 16th Street Mall. This is a mile long pedestrianised street full of restaurants, cafes, and shops (little independent ones and touristy ones rather than your normal shops). I walked along here, stopping at various souvenir shops for a few little bits and bobs. I also came across Jamba Juice, a truly fabulous smoothie and juice bar. When you ask for a drink (which are all 100% fruit) someone actually makes it from scratch - throwing a load of fruit in a blender, adding some ice cream, mixing it all and adding a boost of your choice (a boost here being some random collection of vitamins). I opted for energy boost in a Pomegranate Paradise. It was divine. Really good.
I carried on walking down this street before reaching the street my hotel was on. I popped in to drop off my souvenirs and check out where I could have dinner and what I could do later on. I saw the Aquarium was open until 10pm so thought that was certainly an option after dinner. I headed back along the 16th St Mall until I happened upon a Cheesecake Factory. Those of you who followed my Boston travels will know about Cheesecake Factories! This time I went in for dinner, not just cheesecake. I ordered a Chicken in a Marsala sauce with Mushrooms. They brought me a basket of bread to munch on whilst waiting - had I have known how much dinner was going to arrive, I would have passed on the bread!
The plate was no less than 16 inches across and had enough pasta to feed a small country. There were three chicken fillets (each about 6inx4in) placed on top, with a small field's worth of mushrooms piled on top of them. I felt about 2 stone heavier just looking at it! Anyway, I made it just over half way through before giving up, totally unable to eat any more! In any case, I needed to leave a little room for dessert, which turned out to be a Strawberry Shortcake that was also far too big. At least with the dessert I got them to box it up so I could take it with me!
So, me and my dessert took a long walk to the Aquarium, which was further away than it looked on the map. Good job I don't mind wandering around in the middle of nowhere in a city I don't know! I arrived at the Aquarium at about 6:15pm, which fortunately meant I got in for a cheaper evening rate. Excellent! I was told I was not to feed my dessert to the animals, which I would have thought was fairly obvious!
The Aquarium was really interesting, particularly when I wandered into the rainforest section and found Sumatran Tigers. An obvious choice of animal for an aquarium. Still, a very bizarre collection of fish and sea creatures, and an enjoyable trip. I stayed for about an hour and a half before heading on out. I certainly didn't want to be doing the return journey in the dark. I got back to the hotel at about 8:30pm and felt really tired. I faffed around for a bit and watched some real rubbish on TV before heading to bed.
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