A new blog begins... about my life Up in the Air

I decided to start blogging again. There are just too many crazy things that happen on the road and up in the air that I simply feel I must share them with someone... or at least for me, blogging is a way to spit out all the random thoughts that are in my head. If nothing else, I know my family will be reading my blog. They happen to think my life is interesting. I'm glad somebody does. :)

So, here I am at the Denver Airport, sitting at the bar with a pint of sundance amber ale (very nice actually) and a plate full of chips and guacamole. All diets go out the window when you are traveling. Just when I lost the 7 pounds or so I packed on during Fall Semester's every-week-on the road crazy recruting schedule, now I'm back up in the air and consuming beer and chips.

This week has been especially rough. I looove my job, I really do. I get to travel around the country recruting college students to study abroad in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. And when I'm not traveling, I get to work from home! I do love my job.

The only thing is I don't love Colorado. I know this isn't a popular opinion, and my friends from Colorado might hate me for saying it. I've had good visits to CO I guess. I came out here with my friend Kat for a ski and spa trip that her company paid for... and that was nice. Really nice, actualy. And I came out to Denver on a trip that UCLA paid for when I worked there. And that was nice. But this trip.... not my favorite.

First off, I spent all day in San Diego working at a study abroad fair from about 9-3. Then I head to SD airport (which is amazing - I love small airports).... and head to Denver. I get in around 8pm to Denver and take a shuttle to the Hertz Rental car shop, where they have no record of my reservation. Having recently decided to become very organized, I pulled out my print confirmation form, highlighted in yellow, and show it to the agent. She says she has no record of it, makes a phone call, huffs and puffs and moves slower than a turtle... and an hour later I have a freakin car. It's now snowing and nearing 10:00pm and I have to drive another hour or so to Fort Collins. Did I mention it's snowing? And I'm in a rental car that I don't really know how to drive, and it's really dark (in LA we have really well-lit freways, probably because there are constantly people driving at any time of night). In Colorado, it's a very dark highway from Denver to Fort Collins and I'm tired and it's dark and it's snowing. grrrr. About two hours later I get to Fort collins. Ok, I drove realllly slow because of the snow. And had to stop and get coffee. So, it's almost midnight and I check into hotel and pass out.

The next morning I wake up and I am soooo light-headed. I still am by the way. It is now two days later and I am still completely spacey from this damned altitude. Anyway, the Colorado State Fair went really well and I loved the campus. CSU is beautiful. Snow and all. :) And the students were really great too. I do love Colorado people. I just don't really love it here. Mostly because I really don't like being super spacy and having zero energy. But the fair went great, and I decided to get back to Denver while there was still some sunlight, because I wasn't crazy about driving that highway in the dark again. I get back to Denver and find my way to my hotel at about 6pm. Ordered room service and fell asleep at about 7:30. too tired to stay up and work. And too spacey. Did I mention that the altitude is affecting me?? grrr... goodnight.

So, that was last night. I tried to sleep in, but knew I had to get up and work. Room service was 45 minutes late with my coffee and breakfast so I got it free, which was nice. Wow. I'm not sure if they make coffee stronger here or if it was (again) the altitude, but that coffee made me high as a kite! I stayed at the hotel until the very last minute before check-out time, tried exercising at the gym to see if that would help (it didn't - have you ever tried working out in high altitude?)
Bumbled my way through the streets of downtown Denver, and finally found Metro State (two failed attempts with wrong addresses on blackberry, and one phone call later to get the correct address). Believe it or not, I was on time for my 1pm meeting. And the meeting was great! Met an adviser who had lived in Barcelona just like I did, and she was super cool (most people in education abroad are pretty cool, by the way... we've all traveled and lived abroad and have tons of great stories). Two hours later, we're still gabbing and everything is cool, and I am starting to think that maybe I could learn to like Denver. If only I could adjust to this altitude.