Let me start at the beginning. On Tuesday I was enjoying a hike and cookies with a friend in western Nebraska, when I got a call from my sister in Denver, where I was planning on heading the next morning. She said I should think about heading there sooner, like NOW, because a snowstorm was quickly approaching and that if I waited to leave until the morning, I'd get caught in it. So after arguing (I really don't understand the ways of snowstorms), I gave in and packed up. As I drove into Wyoming, the sky turned strangely light. I turned onto I-25 South, heading toward Denver, and immediately the heavens opened up, dumping rain all over the place like someone had popped a water balloon. It took only three hours to get to Denver from Nebraska, but in that short time winter hit. As I parked my car in Denver and ran up to my sister's door, fat snowflakes began to fall, mixing with the rain and forming a cold, miserable sleet. Huh, who knew my sister would be right?!
We spent the next few days basically snowed in. I eyed my car suspiciously (something about the California Malibu buried under two feet of snowdrifts looked like a cruel joke), we played card games, watched movies, drank beer, and laughed. All in all, a jolly time. All of the schools in the Denver area, including CU Boulder, were closed. But my sister (and the weathermen) promised me that by the weekend it would be 50 degrees and sunny. Ok then, I thought, let's see what Colorado has in store. After the storm.
I set out to tour the university, which was the entire reason for my visit (aside from some sisterly love). But I swear a conspiracy was in the works: CU Boulder made it damn near impossible to do. Lets begin with the tour. In order to reserve a spot for a campus tour, one has to create an online account with the university. Here are the options: Freshman undergraduate, or Transfer undergraduate. Well, I do not fit into either of those categories, so I emailed the school to see if graduate students were allowed to attend tours.
Two days after the campus reopened, an admissions representative responded to my email, and said that she had reserved a tour spot for me, all I had to do was show up on Saturday morning at 10:30 am, park in the visitor's lot for free, and be about my business. The tour was to begin in the main student union building on campus. Easy enough, right?
She neglected to mention that Saturday was homecoming at CU Boulder, and that the big football game between the Buffs and Mizzou was taking place on campus, kickoff scheduled for 11:30 am. So that visitor's parking lot? Aside from being full, required $20 cash to park in. Uh, no. I am cheap. And was mildly irritated, by that point. So my sister and I drove to "The Hill," the college-town residential neighborhood, and parked fo' free. And hiked to campus. All the while calling CU Boulder information lines to find out the admissions telephone number so we could inform them that we were on our way but running late, since we had encountered MILES of football game traffic leading to their very door, but alas, nobody answers at CU Boulder on a Saturday. (We later learned they were all at the game.)
Once we found the building we were supposed to be in, although already a bit late, we rushed inside, silenced our phones, and prepared to be wowed. Wait.... nope. The receptionist informed us that the tour was actually taking place in another building across the street and down the block. Ok. So we finally found the place, rushed up to the door, double-checked our phones, prepared to be wowed, and.... nope. The doors were locked. Oh, we could hear people talking inside, and could even see the hand-written tour sign, but could not actually get in.
So we snuck around the building and found an unlocked side door, which led us through a maze of janitor's closets, stairwells, locked offices, and so on. By this point we were giggling and laughing and yelling (mildly), trying to figure out where the hell to go for the promised tour. We stopped short when a short, dark-haired woman with a thick southern accent informed us that she was in the middle of giving the pre-tour information session to about 50 prospective students, and that the entire room of highschoolers and their CU-gear clad parents had been able to hear all of our escapades. We politely informed her that the doors had been locked and we had damn near broken into the place trying to find her, and oh were we so glad we had!
"Ha'ave a seat, then."
Yes ma'am. We then listened to the last ten minutes of the pre-tour information session, which outlined the cost of attendance, admissions guidelines, and housing information requisite for attending CU Boulder. Not a word on graduate studies, off-campus housing, or academic programs. During the presentation a giant bug landed on me, my sister sat googling graduate tuition fees, and the parents in the room shuffled anxiously because the power point was cutting it pretty damn close to kick-off time. As I shrieked at the obviously man-eating insect, my sister announced that she couldn't find any helpful information on CU's website whatsoever, and furthermore, was starting to think that maybe this wasn't the place for me.
I agreed. But I tried. Why? Because I love Colorado. I enjoy every minute I've ever spent in Denver. I have wonderful memories of family reunions amidst snow-capped mountains and rocky outcroppings. Despite the massive dumping of snow, Denver has the most sunny days of any US city (over 300 per year). My sister was married in Boulder, and the place is sweet: a college town in the mountains, cyclists and hippies, the Pearl Street Mall (which is where we fled to for lunch and beer after deciding on the spot NOT to get divided up into tour groups and snuck out the way we'd come instead). I could live happily in Colorado. But I will not give CU Boulder the benefit of being the reason I end up there: the anthropology program is weaker than the others I've been looking at, and 75% of the reason I looked into it at all was my sister's proximity. Do I want to settle? No. Besides, their football team blows.
(The traditional running of the "Buff" up to the CU Boulder stadium was, admittedly, entertaining to watch.)
Aside from the CU fiasco, I had a marvelous time in Colorado. The snow is treacherous but beautiful, Denver is full of cool stuff to do, and the state possesses a unique feel that is like nowhere else. I took many chilly walks through snow-covered neighborhoods, explored the layers of culture and community, and am happy that I stayed long enough to reconnect with the place. And that I got there early enough to beat the storm.
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