Surreal Mile High Club

Right, so we had our IB conference in Denver last week-end. I had not previously been to Denver and had only been to Colorado for the occasional youth ski trip. I found Mile High City to be an interesting place, surreal even. The following is why my trip to Denver was oddly surrealistic:

1. We (11 of us from AHS) tried to travel on the one day a year that winter weather is an issue. There is only one day every year.We don't usually get snow; it's mostly sleet. Sleet was, in fact, what was happening on the day we flew. Our flight was delayed a couple of hours then we got to spend 3 hours sitting on the plane on the tarmac waiting to de-ice. The flight was 2 hours long, so added together and on a normal day, with the amount of flying and waiting, I should've landed in London, not Denver. (sigh...London...) All of our plans were hosed up because of the delays which meant that we had more delays when we landed. It took 1 hour (at least) to get a ride to the hotel. In the mean time, we saw:

-A man who looked like Kid Rock in 10 years

- A man with an extraordinary handlebar mustache. Here is a picture of Christine and me acknowledging this mustache. Well done, sir. Well done.

2. The airport (which is supposed to look like the Rocky Mountains) has this mural in it:

There was much discussion about what this mural represents. I can say that it is a bit unsettling to see a soldier in a gas-mask with a scimitar slaying a dove over children sleeping in rubble. Mr. A looked this up and found out that this mural is formally known as "The Weird Ass Mural in the Denver Airport."


3. Delirium set in after the long day of travel. Here is a picture of my professional colleagues pretending like the shuttle from the airport to the hotel is a roller coaster (and yes, this is a most unflattering pic of me, but in my defense I was also the photographer...):

4. Day 2: We were going to breakfast via the hotel elevator when we came upon this:

Again, unsettling. What you don't know is that prior to this photo, the fireman was looking down an empty elevator shaft. He told us that yes, people were stuck in the elevator; yes, they were out now; and yes, this does happen often with these particular elevators.

5. All was fairly normal the rest of the day: eat, conference, eat, conference. We got to go into the city and see the lights and that was fun. Mr. A and I bonded over beer and a conversation about the validity of war, what it truely means to be free, and whether or not Charro counts as an entertainer since all she does is wiggle and speak in broken English. (OK I made-up the last one, but the point is that it wasn't all serious.)

6. Food poisoning OR airborne virus? Christine is hit first, followed by Frau West, followed by Mandy, followed by 1/2 of the conference. The symptoms? vomiting, diarrhea, fever, and overall ickyness. I managed to get away unscathed, but that meant that I attended the rest of the conference without my partner in crime, Christine. It might have been BORING, but my boss, Mr. A was well and was stuck in my conference, so we were smart asses together. We did productive things like count how many times people got up to "go to the restroom" and we determined that the leader of English A1 IB from Wales looks like the mascot from Notre Dame University. (Secretly, though, I thought this man was nice to look at, and even nicer to hear.) At least it snowed this day. There was some redemption.

7. More conference, yadda yadda, we returned home with sick people. Blech! This time the flight back was smooth, though delayed an hour due to weather in the East. We did, however, see a person whom we deemed Charlie Manson's grandson.

8. Bonus pics: Here's me in long, long underwear. Sexy! (seriously, who makes this?)

Here's Natasha on how to be a proper spy (who likes Fullam):

***For more pics, visit the flicker.