Boulder, Colorado Travel Diary: Day Three

Alrighty! It is yo girl emilia and I am back with my final day in Boulder, Colorado! If you would like to read Day One you can click here and if you would like to read Day Two you can click here . Once you are caught up, you can continue reading and figure out how what fun facts I learned about cannibalism! Yep, we have some weird stories to tell in this finale of a series folks.

Monday, Day Three:

The dining hall was busier today when we went for breakfast. Students were scrambling for food before their early classes and some were talking and studying while shoving a bagel in their mouth. Today was a busy day for both my cousin and me, she had classes and an exam, whereas I had a college visit and a flight to catch. You see dear reader, I was not explicitly interested in attending or applying to CU Boulder, but because I was in town, it wouldn't hurt to visit to act as a comparison to other schools that I am actually interested in.

At nine in the morning, I had a college admission meeting at the admissions office building. For some reason, there were a huge amount of stairs and with being in high altitude and having a heavy backpack on, I was huffing and puffing by the time I got up to the top floor and the college assistants standing there looking concerned. But it was all good! Normally, at these meetings, you are given a folder with information about the school and then a postcard. The photo on the postcard determines what groups you will be separated into once the student-led tours begin.

I sat in the small auditorium that they had and awkwardly watched as families came in and had intense discussions. I wasn't expecting a large crowd because not all schools have President's Day off, but WOW it was packed. When the admissions meeting began and the guy giving the presentation asked us to raise our hands when he said which region of the country we were from, I was surprised by how many out of state people there were. It was funny because he was stating regions of the country, but then he just let Texas be its own category, because well, it is.
The meeting was quite standard, the presenter went through the colleges at CU Boulder, what it is like to be a student at the school, and what is near the school when it comes to nature, such as skiing, hiking, and how close it is to Denver and other cities. When the meeting was over, a group of college students holding different posters came out and revealed who would be in their groups for the student-led tours. The leader of my group was a guy who was a Colorado native and a History or Literature major I believe. He was a pretty entertaining leader because while also sharing the facts and information that the school probably provided, he also included facts and personal experiences to entertain us.

One of those facts that he shared was how one of the dining halls/food grills is named after Colorado's first cannibal! True story, when the school was building the dining hall, they allowed the students to vote and come up with a name for it. The students all decided on Alferd Packer, and Boulder was like "Awesome, we're gonna go make the signs now." (A little while later, when the signs are already made) "Oh, uh, who is Alferd Pecker?" "Oh you know, the first cannibal in Colorado." And THAT is how a ban was placed on the student body forever naming anything! Here is an excerpt from the Alferd Packer Wikipedia page:

In 1968, students at the University of Colorado Boulder named their new cafeteria grill the "Alferd G. Packer Memorial Grill", with the slogan, "Have a friend for lunch!" Students can order an "El Canibal" beefburger, and on the wall is a giant map outlining Packer's travels through Colorado.^[14] It has since been renamed the Alferd Packer Restaurant & Grill.^[15]    

Also saw a Lego model of the school!

I thought that was funny, there are even photos of him inside. The tour guide also shared how naked protesting was a common occurrence on campus during the 70s, and we visited the school's museum where I learned that Steve Wozniak, one of the founders of Apple, hacked into the school's system and was expelled! Towards the end of the tour, I was getting uncomfortable because I could feel the blisters on my feet and I was scolding myself for being an idiot for having a heavy backpack. While my cousin was finishing one of her classes, I went to one of the library's on-campus and sat on a chair in a corner, surrounded by books. When looking at what kind of books were there, I saw that there were a bunch of Catholic Theology books and I was like, "Huh, this is an odd coincidence." I honestly nearly opened one up just to see what interesting stuff I might hear at mass next Sunday. 

I eventually met up with my cousin and she said that her exam went well. We walked to her next class, which I was joining for the day! It was her Psychology class in one of those 100+ auditoriums for huge classes and we sat near the front. There was a guy with a service dog next to us and he was such a good boy <3 While people took out notes for their class, I took out my AP US History notes and tried to read about the Red Scare that occurred around WWI after the Bolshevik Revolution. Suddenly, in the middle of the lesson, the professor had technical difficulties and was unable to pull up a video displaying synapses between nerves. So he made us do the wave! Not kidding, we all put our stuff down and stood up to represent synapses between nerves. 

Pretty interesting day. We went back to the dorm to grab my suitcase and start planning for which bus we were gonna take to the airport. We grabbed lunch at one of the dining halls, and no not the Alferd Packer one, but when we were there we ate at a weird in-between time of lunch and dinner, so a lot of the food lines were closed. We still had some good food, I had some soup and made myself a sandwich. We played cards and I checked my flight status because there was a snow storm coming into Denver that night.

We had some time to kill before the bus came to head to the airport, so I went to go visit the campus bookstore. You know, I am always a little irked on why they call a store dominantly filled with sports merchandise and technology a bookstore. Maybe that is the nerd in me, but I've been to several college bookstores that hardly have one row of books inside. (Shoutout to those schools who actually have their school bookstore in a Barnes & Noble where there, dare I say it, are books) Anyways, me being wise, immediately went downstairs to see if I could find a sale section. It was tucked away in the back and man, I was ecstatic. For those of you who do not know, I have been bullet journaling for almost 4 years now and I have always wanted to get my hands on a leuchtturm1917 notebook. These notebooks come in bright colors and are sold around $20. Guess what I found??? I found a purple one that had a logo of CU Boulder on it for $12! I was excited. The lesson for this blog post dudes: Always check the sale section. 

Anyways, we walked over to the bus stop and you could feeeeel the storm rolling in. The wind was getting stronger and the temperature was dropping. My cousin and I were hiding from the wind and trying to move to try and stay warm. It was about a 15 min wait, and unfortunately, we witnessed a lot of people miss their bus :(  When our bus made it, we put my suitcase underneath and immediately headed to the very back, where there was a full row of connected seats where we could lay down. Surprisingly, the bus was pretty empty and pretty quiet. The weirdest part of this bus drive was me and my cousin trying to play cards on the angled seats in the dim blue light over our heads. We were playing this game where you had to lay out your cards to win, so we had to figure out how to place it on the chair without falling off or sliding away. It was fun though!

Here is us ATTEMPTING to play
cards on the bus in this weird
blue light

When we got to the airport, you could tell that it had dropped another 10 degrees, yet I wasn't too concerned. I was already checked in, and I had already printed out my boarding pass at a kiosk. My suitcase was a carry-on, so we just kinda hung out in the main area of the airport because it was warm. I will now talk about Denver Airport, and why it frustrates my cousin and me very much. So, a couple of years ago the airport went under construction and decided to have an architectural heyday. The part of the airport that you check-in, put your bags away, and go through security is all under one tent. Yes, TENT. My cousin says that it is supposed to represent "mountains" from the outside, but 1) no. 2) I feel like a tight rope will just be placed across the top and then Delta Airlines will award anyone with a year of free flights if they can successfully cross it. Definitely one of the more interesting airports I've been to. The cool part of this airport was that you take an underground shuttle to the gates, meaning that the two buildings are separate. 

Before going through security though, I gave my cousin a big big hug, saying goodbye because she had to head back to her dorm soon. She waited and watched me go through the line at security and waved at me one last time. Little did we know that the world was going to change drastically within the next couple of months, unaware of how the coronavirus was gonna change the way we will forever travel, go to school, and simply live our day to day lives. I am getting too deep there, but it's true, this was the last trip that felt "normal". The next trip I went on was a cross country road trip with my family to visit colleges and family on the east coast, and that was when everything shut down in the US. Anyways, this time when I went through security, I remembered to take out my calculator and I took off the layer of coats I had on. Later, I packed them into my suitcase because who on earth needs a winter coat in Houston. 

As I stood in front of the tunnel where the shuttle would come and pick you up and then take you to your terminal, I texted my mom and cousin about getting out of security and heading towards my gate. I stepped onto the shuttle and then sat down on the bench at the end of the shuttle car because I knew how fast that thing could go. Everyone else was standing and holding onto the rails, but when the shuttle started moving and grooving, suitcases starting rolling around everywhere and people were wobbling like toddlers losing their balance. That is how fast this thing was. My terminal was the last stop, so I watched people step off with their things as we whizzed off again. When it arrived at my terminal, I stepped off and immediately looked up. A huge plane greeted me and I could see that the area where you enter and leave the shuttles was an interior garden. After walking down the whole entire terminal, passed many gates, I finally arrived at mine. Strangely enough, it was the exact same gate I arrived in! 

 So, it was time to head home. I had a Snickers bar from my Valentine's Gift (love you Lauren) as my pick me up (because you're not you when your hungry, lol) and I sat at the gate just doing some more reading and homework for school. I walked over to the window and I noticed that it had started snowing outside. I got really excited and just sat there and watched it fall for a bit, turning the cars and tarmac white with a thin layer of powder. 

Unfortunately, I was the last boarding group and one of the last people on the plane, so I was slightly panicking on the plane a bit, but it was all good because a nice couple moved so I could sit in the very back. Thank you! I continued to watch the snowfall, and I then realized that we weren't taking off as normal. We pulled up right next to another plane and I realized that we were waiting to be sprayed with anti-freeze. I was honestly kinda fascinated with it because as someone who lives in warm Texas, you don't see snow or your plane get sprayed with a foamy, white liquid often. I watched the clouds from the spray float into the sky and reflected on my trip, thinking about how I am going to be going to college in a year. It's crazy to think that I am already this old, applying to colleges (while writing this in July ;) and getting ready to start my last year of high school. I thought about traveling in general, and how it honestly is very harmful to our environment based on the amount of fuel we use in our planes and cars. 

I realized that I wanted to pursue Chemical Engineering in college. Helping out with improving our fuel by making it greener and reducing carbon emissions. Also improving renewable energy sources is so interesting and I really want to help the planet. I went into more detail in my college essays and a Youtube video I did as a school project, but that's the gist of it. My late airplane flight was filled with me reading textbook pages and dosing off before landing. I made it home around 1 am and went to school the next day. 

Well, that's it! I know this is 5 months later than when I was in Colorado, but alas, COVID, online school, working, the whole shebang. As I work more and more on my laptop due to applications and online school within the next couple of weeks, I will try to write some more here! I would like to thank you all for reading, and I would like to thank my cousin for letting me come and visit her! I will end this with some lessons I learned from this trip: 

• Pack a second pair of shoes gosh darn it. 
• Take out your calculator or else TSA will think you are hiding top secret info on an iPad.
•  I miss Public Transportation. 
• Always check the Sale Section. 
• And just enjoy the time you have with your family and enjoy the places you visit, you never know when you will be able to travel again. 

hope you all have a great day!

love,

yo girl emilia 

follow me on Instagram @yogirlemilia