72 hours in Boulder: Abridged

I arrived, I stayed a few nights in a hostel, I found a place to live, it’s right in the heart of things, I talked to lots of people, I’ve met some amazing people many of whom are now firm friends, I’ve marvelled at the warm sun that shines everyday through a cloudless sky. I’ve viewed the Flatiron mountains in awe. I’ve felt very relaxed, I’ve felt very uneasy- the pace of live is slower and their seems a disconcerting lack of dirt, grit, drug addicts and the general edge of London.

I’ve seen how Boulder’s post-hippie liberalism is a finely balanced gloss atop an upper-middle class affluent conservatism, I’ve attended an exclusive film preview, I’ve met a ex-military music entrepreneur in a bar (also the only black man I’ve seen), I’ve met a crazy divorcee who told me without irony that she could see the future and that I had pink light shooting out of my third eye- she also referred to herself in the third person, I’ve befriended a homeless pirate who wouldn't tell me his name and a Vietnam vet called Wolf who looks a bit like Willie Nelson only in combats and with black eyes that could cut glass. I’ve visited a bicycle shop that had more bikes under one roof that I ever thought possible, I’ve seen more grown men in spandex than I ever wanted to.

I now live with a guy who crafts incredible industrial metal structures as both art and architecture, and a college girl who manages to construct entire sentences and paragraphs using only the words; ‘so’, ‘like’, ‘yah’ and ‘whatever’. I live in an apartment or ‘unit’ that doesn’t even have a lock on its front door, I have visited coffee shops that have a greater variety of fruit teas that they do flavours of muffin- which is an awful lot, I can pick up free wi-fi everywhere I go including bars.

I’ve been moved by the respect that people show to one another on an everyday basis, I’ve found refreshing the manner in which friends are made and met publicly. It seems that everyone knows one another, and that they desire to help their neighbours not because they’ve been asked to but because they can.

I’m excited about the prospect of going hiking this weekend whilst trying to avoid bears and mountain lions, I’m disappointed that there isn’t a pub at the top of the mountain to toast one’s success at having climbed that far. I’m looking forward to cheering grown men trying to control a live buffalo as they let it loose on the football field before Saturday’s college game. 'GO BUFFS!'

Most of all I’m looking forward to starting work on Monday and the adventures that the next few months will inevitably bring. Over and out.