Luggage

Believe it or not, but I think that Saturday was finally the official end of the airport saga.  Of course not many of you know that it continued on that long...  If you didn't know, let me fill you in.

If you didn't already read about my day/night on Tuesday, this will be confusing to you.  In order to catch up, please read this.

I did  end up sleeping, from about 4:30 to 6:00, when I woke up by chance just in time to catch the first bus from the airport to Broomfield.  As soon as I got on the bus, I fell asleep and woke up by chance just in time to get off of the bus to hop on the other bus to my house.  

There was slush everywhere.  It was nasty and cold and gross.  The bus driver let me off just past the bus stop because there was a mountain of snow in front of the actual stop.  I stepped off into a puddle of slush.  In my ballet flats.  That are about as far from waterproof as shoes come.  It was cold and wet and gross.  And I had to walk 3 blocks in that.

By the time I got home, my jeans were wet to the knee, and my feet had hypothermia.  If that's possible.  And I was still so so so tired.  I plugged my phone into my car charger, went inside and emailed my parents to inform them what had happened, and fell into my bad.

A few hours later, I woke up and began the process of getting my luggage and $200 back from Frontier airlines.  I don't want to get into all of the gory details, but let's say this: I made probably 30 phone calls, talked to 5 different people, spent literally hours on hold, and left lots of messages and emails.  Nothing was more frustrating, though, than trying to get in touch with baggage services.

I called and called and called and called, and they would not answer their phone.  Sound familiar?  Yeah, sounds exactly like when I lost my keys and called RTD endlessly to no avail, right?  Apparently Coloradans, along with being flaky, don't answer their phones.  After trying ALL day Wednesday, and all morning Thursday, I gave up and decided to just go back to the airport to talk to the baggage people in person.

Kenny, being the smart guy that he is, suggested that we take the bus and drink on the way.  So we did.  Nothing over-the-top, mind you, but we did drink.  I was normal while I talked to the lady at baggage services, but it took a lot of fortitude not to freak out when she relayed what she knew: Despite the fact that I had canceled my flight long before then, and the fact that I wasn't even supposed to be on the flight, they sent my bag to Fargo at 11:00 Wednesday morning.  I understand that they were probably trying to save time and money by sending all bags to Fargo on one flight, but that is really not helpful to me, seeing as how I canceled my trip.  Then, after I had given her my information, she told me that they wouldn't be able to deliver my bag.  Why?  Because I was late arriving to the airport.  Never mind the fact that the bag never should have been sent or that I had called her office 30 times trying to tell them not to send it, or even just to talk to a person...

Whatever.  Finally, on Saturday morning, they called me to tell me that my bag had come back.  5 days after I was scheduled to fly.  So I took the bus to the airport one last time and got my life back. 

And I think that's the end.  I think.

The Worst Weekend of My Life

Okay, I might be exaggerating a little bit, but actually, I'm not.  Last weekend sucked my life.  Seriously.

Let me start at the beginning, which actually was really good, and didn't really allow me to predict how bad the rest of the weekend would be.

On Friday night, I learned that my friend Katie's friends Kyle and Samantha were meeting up in Denver in order to celebrate what is apparently famously known as "Fake Patty's."  I would liken it to Jamestown's yearly "Running of the Green," except that in Denver, there's a 4-hour parade and no one really runs through the streets getting excessively intoxicated.  Instead, they just hang out at bars and get excessively intoxicated.  Because they're cool kids, they invited me to join them.

Now, the only problem with their plan, which wasn't exactly a problem, was that they wanted to start drinking at 7:00 am.  Considering I've never had a drink before noon in my life, to start drinking that early would probably kill me.  Instead, I agreed to meet them at 9:00 am, which also ended up being a problem...  More on that to come.

So Friday night, the boy and I headed to Denver with a friend and her friends in order to go clubbing.  Please note that Raissa had, until then, never really been clubbing before, and she was a little nervous about it.  I mean... I hate dancing.  Unless I'm drunk.  And it's a part of "cultured" society that I've never experienced, so I wasn't sure what exactly to expect.  It ended up being a fine experience overall, although not something that I'd like to do all the time.  As I tell people here: I prefer trashy small-town bars.  

We were at the bar until about 2:00, and didn't get home until 2:30.  I did have a few drinks while we were out.  Nothing excessive, just enough to make me comfortable dancing in front of people who I know.  By the time I had wound down and actually could sleep, it was probably 4:00 am.  Needless to say, I probably wouldn't make it back to Denver before 9:00 am.  Instead, I got up at about 9:00, and after weighing my options, decided to take the bus to Denver.  Pasha and I had plans to see CU's most recent opera production, Don Giovanni, on both Saturday night at 7:30 and Sunday afternoon at 2:00.  In order for me to have a few drinks while in Denver, but still make it to Boulder in one piece, the bus would be smartest.

I arrived in Denver shortly after noon, and, after a bit of searching, I found Kyle and Sam.  Drunk.  I was way behind, but wasn't really ready to play catch-up.  After having lunch, I began to drink with them.  We spent some time in the Sports Column, where they totally randomly ran into the same random guys who they had been drinking with in that bar the year before.  The guys kept buying beer, and we kept drinking it. I had 3 beers-ish and one shot before we had to leave when one of our party was kicked out.  I was still feeling fine when we landed at The Fainting Goat, but by the time we left I had had 2 long island teas and was feeling gooood, if you get me. 

Kyle and Sam dropped me at Union Station a little before 6:00.  After wandering around for quite some time, I finally found my gate.  The bus was scheduled to leave at 6:02.  I looked down at 6:00 and realized that I had no keys, which also had my bus pass attached.  I searched through my purse and pockets at least 8 times, but had no luck finding them.  I had no idea if I had left them on the bus on my way down or if I had lost them somewhere in downtown Denver.  I immediately started freaking out.  If I missed that bus, then I might miss the opera, for which Pasha had bought the tickets.  In addition to really wanting to see the show, I didn't want it to have been a waste of his money.  

After thinking for five seconds, I realized if I had lost my keys that meant that I couldn't get into my car.  My only spare keys were in my house, which I was locked out of because Kenny was in the opera and was already in Boulder.  Then, I realized that I had no cash and therefore no way to get onto a bus if there was another one coming that would get me to Boulder on time.  And even if I could get cash, it would be a $20 bill and bus drivers don't dispense change.  Needless to say, I was freaking out and had no solution.  And was tired.  And was tipsy.  All of these things together resulted in tears.  Lots of them.  

I called Pasha to see if he had an easy solution to my problem.  Being the nice guy that he is, he called RTD Lost and Found and learned that if I had left my keys on the bus, I couldn't find out until Monday because it was presently Saturday and they don't catalog lost and found from the weekends until Monday afternoon.  So I was still freaking out.

I saw a cute old security guard who I approached and asked for advice.  It was at about this time that my phone started telling me that it would die at any moment.  I said to the nice man, "Excuse me?  Could you possibly help me?"  (Keep in mind that I was still crying.)  He said, "I can try."  I said, "Okay, here's my problem.  I think I left my keys on an earlier bus, and I now have to get to Boulder.  I have no cash and have a time limit.  I can't find an ATM, and even if I find an ATM, I have no way to get change."  And started crying even harder.  He pointed me toward and ATM and suggested I ask the Amtrak man to give me change, considering my situation.  He also told me to stop crying.  I followed half of his advice.  Not the crying part.

After finding an ATM and getting change from the Amtrak man, I found the next bus to Boulder, which left at 6:36.  Pasha and I had called back and forth 4 or 5 times, trying to find the fastest and most economical way to Boulder from Broomfield.  I was still crying when the bus showed up.  I asked the driver what the fare was, and successfully boarded.  And cried the whole way to Broomfield, where Pasha picked me up and very kindly produced a meal for me.  We made it to Boulder with 5 minutes to spare, and enjoyed Giovanni mucho.  That is, I enjoyed what I saw of it; I probably slept through half.

After the show was over and we had congratulated the performers, we headed to a house party.  I had had enough to drink in the afternoon, and refrained from drinking that night, but still didn't get home until 2:30 am.  If you include the time change, it was more like 3:30 am.  I had to be in Denver by 10:00 the next morning to sing for a church choir.  And I couldn't skip because they were paying me.  In short, I got about 5 hours asleep total.  Again. 

And slept through about half of the opera on Sunday afternoon.  Again.  And went to an after-party.  Again.  And had nothing to drink.  Again.  It was snowing on Sunday, and I had worn heels.  There was a secret back entrance to the house that consisted of 12 or so wooden stairs.  When it came to be time to leave, I offered to give two unsighted individuals a ride to the bus station, since I was dropping Pasha there, anyway.  I didn't want them to go down the crazy secret stairs, so offered to take my car around to the front of the house to pick them up.  I left out the back door alone and began the descent.  As soon as I hit the first step, my heel slipped on the ice, and I slid down the remainder of them, with my left leg tucked under me.  My shin hit every step on the way down, and when I finally reached the bottom, I had lost one shoe, my pants were soaked, and I could hardly place all of my weight on my left leg without assistance from any nearby sturdy object.

Thankfully, no one saw.  I successfully made it to the bus station, where I realized I didn't have my cell phone.  I assumed that it had fallen out of my pocket during my tumble down the stairs, and headed all the way back to the party location.  There, I found my cell phone on the ground.  Once I finally got to driving home, I texted Kenny to see if he was still home.  He and I had been keeping in good touch in order to know whether to leave the door locked or unlocked, or where they key had been hidden, etc.  After the opera, he had gone home to shower and I assumed he'd know to leave the door unlocked for me.

He didn't.  He had assumed that I would be at the party all night, and I didn't tell him otherwise, so I was locked out and had nowhere to go.  Except to Pasha's.  Which wouldn't have been so bad except that I had homework to do, but it was locked in my house, along with my computer and more comfortable clothes.  I had planned to do homework, laundry, and clean my bathroom, and now I couldn't do any of it.

By the time I got to Pasha's house, he wasn't home yet, and I waited in my car for 5 or 10 minutes.  I was sad.  And tired.  And frustrated.  So when he arrived, we went in, and the combination of frustration, exhaustion, and overwhelmed-ness led me to cry.  For over an hour.  Without stopping.  I ended up falling asleep in all of my clothes until 6:00 am, when I had to drive home, take a shower, do homework, and get to school.

All that was left was for me to hope like hell that the Regional Transportation District (RTD) had my keys.  When a person calls RTD, they get a message that tells them something like this, "If you've lost something on a Denver bus route, call this number.  If you've lost something on a Boulder bus route, call this number."  Okay, well, the bus I took to Denver sounded a lot to me like a Denver bus route.  So between the hours of noon (since I couldn't call until then) and 3:30 pm, I called the Denver RTD Lost & Found a minimum of 30 times, and No. One. Answered.  EVER.  I was very frustrated.

Finally, at 3:30 pm, I reached a live person.  Me: "Hi, I think I left my keys on a bus on Saturday."  Him: "Sure, what bus?"  Me: "The L between Broomfield and Denver."  Him: "That's a Boulder route, so you should call the Boulder number."  Me: "Really?  Even though I took it to Denver?"  Him: "Yes."  Me: "Okay. thanks."  

To this day, I don't understand why my keys would be at the Boulder station, but I don't care.  If they would be there, it would save me a trip to Denver to get the keys.  So I called Boulder.  "Hi, I think I left my keys on a bus on Saturday."  He asked me to describe them, I did, and he had them!  I heard the "Hallelujah Chorus" from The Messiah in my head and told him I'd be right there.

End story, right?  Wrong.

The Boulder RTD office is Downtown.  On a Monday afternoon, it's impossible to park downtown without paying, which I expected, so whatever.  I drove there while talking to Jettie, found a spot, got out, walked to the parking meter, put my money in, and went back to my car to put the receipt into my window.  While I was there, I crawled into the backseat to get my wallet out of my backpack, in case they wanted me to prove that I was me.  I locked the doors and walked away, still talking to Jettie.

Ten feet later, I let out an expletive, and started walking back to my car.  Sure enough, there were both of my spare keys in the backseat next to my backpack.  Locked in.  Because I'm that smart.  Thank goodness that I was downtown to get my keys, because the last thing I wanted to do was pay a locksmith.

In the end, it all worked out, I guess.  The process of getting it to work out was not fun...  Let's hope I start using my brain more efficiently. And SOON!  So that I no longer have such awful weekends!

Vacation Weekend: Denver

Yet another sober weekend for Raissa.  I'm starting to like this more and more, strangely enough.

But just because it was sober doesn't mean it wasn't fun.

On Friday, Dennis and I headed down to Denver for some people watching and hanging out.  We started out at Rock Bottom Brewery, then watched drunk people and ate gelato on Larimer Square.  Kenny joined us, and we hit up a new (to us) bar on 16th Street called Tilted Kilts.  Pretty nice place, if you don't mind staring at practically bare-chested women for the duration of your stay.  Ironic that I was there with two gay guys...  While we were there, I ran into a kid from Jamestown who lived in Watson. I was his RA...

Saturday, Dennis, Kenny, and I went to Longmont for our studio teacher's housewarming party.  It was a good time, with mostly faculty and a few students mingling and eating some delicious curry chicken on a stick.  Mmmm...

Saturday night, Pasha and I had plans with the girls we met at International Coffee Hour a few weeks ago.  We hit up a Chinese restaurant in Boulder, then headed to Denver for the highlight of my weekend: Asian-style karaoke.  I'd never actually experienced Korean karaoke, but having had many friends from there, I more or less knew what to expect.

In Asian karaoke, instead of singing for a whole bar full of people who you don't know and having to wait 2 hours to sing,you can sing for only your friends and as often as you want to.  Each group gets its own room, and each room is stocked with books, a TV, a sound system, microphones, couches, and the like, and the people in your group are the only people who hear you.  You can all sing together, dance around, laugh, sing every 5 minutes, and have a great time.  It was totally worth $5.00 for 2 hours!

The people who we met at the karaoke place wanted to go clubbing in Denver.  I wasn't given that memo before we left, so I was not appropriately dressed for clubbing.  Instead of clubbing, Michelle, Marcus, Pasha, and I walked around downtown Denver, enjoying the crowds and some conversation.

On Sunday, I was completely unproductive.  I got up at noon, watched Season 2 of ER, went to church, and hosted a movie night in my apartment.

Now I have to get to work: blech.

The Jettie Journal: Days 2, 3, and 4 (Because we were so busy I didn't have time to write while she was here)

I got absolutely nothing accomplished this weekend, which actually ended up to be fine, because I planned on that happening.  And Jettie and I had tons of fun.  I kept saying to her, "Jettie, you would have to spend 6 weeks here in order for us to do all that we want to do."  But we crammed as much into 4 days as we possibly could. 

Friday began with some shopping at the UMC and a mini-tour of campus, followed by Jettie sitting in on my intro to music history class.  Jettie is a teacher, and the stupid kids in that class made her mad with their constant texting and game-playing.  She was actually more angry with the teacher, though, for letting the students get away with what they did.

Next, we headed to Longmont for a job interview, some shopping, and lunch and drinks at Chili's.  We headed home to cook dinner for my friends who are in the opera.  Giuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata" opened on Friday, and I planned a dinner for 6 or so of my friends who were involved in the show.  I cooked some Italian food, and everyone hung out until they were called.  Then, Austin, Jettie, and I headed over to the beautiful Macky auditorium for the show.  It was amazing.  I laughed, I cried, I got the goosebumps.

After the show, we headed downtown for drinks and snacks.  Lots of people around, having a great evening.  Jettie and I asked for shots of Crown Royal and Peach Schnapps, but they forgot the schnapps, and we were pretty tipsy.  We went to the bar and lost our buzz, which was pretty sad, then went home and went to bed.

Saturday morning, we got up early to head to the great city of Denver.  We were there by 11:00, and found a parking garage.  We decided to walk to Coors Field, but weren't sure of the location.  We saw a large building in the distance and decided to walk in that direction.  We got about a quarter of the way there, after walking about two miles (I'm not exaggerating), then realized it was actually Invesco Field.  Oops.  We turned around and headed back to town.  We walked the 16th Street Mall for hours, and ate a delicious dinner of nachos and pretzels at the Rock Bottom Brewery.  I drank a WHOLE beer.  By myself!  Yay! 

Me and my whole beer!

 We walked more and more, then took a nap in my car with the radio on.  The battery died while we were sleeping, and we had to have it jumped.  Thank goodness they had a jump box in the parking garage.  We walked some more, and had drinks at the Rialto Cafe.  A nice old man sat beside us at the bar, and paid for our drinks before he left.

We hit up "Wicked," which was amazing.  No complaints.  We had good seats, it was great entertainment, and I loved it.  We went back to the Rialto Cafe to visit out new favorite bartender, Lucas, (Sorry Jamo and James!) and to eat supper at 11:00 pm.  We were exhausted after having walked ALL day, so we went to bed.

Sunday morning, we woke up early enough to head to the Original Pancake House, a Boulder staple, for breakfast.  We then sent Jettie on her way.

It was an amazing weekend, and it was so fun reminiscing and being crazy (although we never got as crazy as I hoped and expected).  Friends are always welcome here! :)

A very Denver adventure

Last week, I learned that Jen had friends coming from Connecticut.  The plan was to head to Denver on Friday night to party it up downtown.  No one said anything to me about the plan changing, so all week I assumed it was the same...

Then, on Thursday, I asked Christina what the plan was for Friday night, and she said, "Oh, well, I'm going to stay at Jedd's and go to his parents' house on Saturday, and Jake and Holly backed out, so I don't know what Jen and her friends are doing."  Basically, they decided not to go to Denver, but forgot to inform me.

Kenny and I had been looking forward to going to Denver all week, so we decided to go without them.  We invited a bunch of our friends from CO and just hoped someone would come with us.  But even if no one else wanted to come, we were still going to go.  

The afternoon began with us heading to the largest video rental place in Boulder called "The Video Store."  We have to watch five operas for our Italian diction class, so we rented two, and decided to buy a bottle of wine to get a start on drinking before we headed to the city.  We found a liquor store (where someone asked us if we were "together"...haha), hoping to buy some Asian plum wine that Kenny likes, but they didn't have it.  We settled on a red blend and some vodka, and hit the road.  

Neither of us had really eaten lunch, and we still aren't used to the eleveation, so starting to drink at 5:00 while I was making supper probably wasn't a great idea, but the idea of wine and "Tosca" just seemed too fun not to drink. 

I decided to make a dish my mom used to make sometimes, but hasn't in a while.  I had some stovetop stuffing and chicken breasts, so I thought I would bake them together to make a delicious supper.  Then, after reading the recipe, I realized I didn't have any cream of chicken soup.  I was really worried about the stuffing getting too dry in the oven without the soup, so I used the best substitute I could think of that I had on hand: ramen noodles.  (I may not have been sober at this point.)  So I added a batch of chicken-flavored ramen to the the stuffing and chicken and popped it in the oven.

In the meantime, Kenny and I were still lining up people to come on the trip, trying to find what buses to take, how to get to the bars we wanted to go to, etc.  And kind of watching opera.

Before we knew it, the whole bottle of wine was gone, and we were definitely not sober.  It was like 6:30.  Very easily the earliest I've ever been that drunk.  The chicken/stuffing/ramen went well with instant garlic mashed potatoes (or so I thought).

Finally, after me taking a shower that I've been told was the longest shower in the history of the world, which to me felt like the fastest shower I've taken since I moved here, Richard, Kenny, and I headed to the bus stop. 

The bus ride to Denver took about an hour, during which time we may have been those people, talking loudly and joking around a lot.  When we finally arrived at Union Station, and it was cold.  I mean cold cold.  With flurries.  Soooo windy.  Kenny, our navigator, led us down the street.  After about a block, he was like, "I think we have to go the other way, because I'm not sure we can cross the tracks here."  Okay, turn around.  We finally crossed the tracks and backtracked about a block.

We had distinctive plans to go to Sing Sing, an infamous dueling piano bar, and we knew it was on 19th street, just not exactly where on 19th.  So we got to 19th, and turned right.  And walked 3 blocks before Kenny knew that we had gone too far.  Thank goodness I keep my GPS in my purse.  We soon became those people on the street in Denver, not knowing where they were or how to get to where they needed to go and using Mr. TomTom for directions. 

Mr. TomTom told us that we had to go 3 blocks in the direction that we had come from.  Yes, that's right, we basically walked right past it.  So we had to turn around (again) and walk INTO the wind to get to Sing Sing.  It was F-ing freezing.  But it was warm in Sing Sing!!

After paying the $7 cover, we chose a table directly underneath a fan blowing cold air.  Not helpful.  So we moved again.  And again, we were right under the fan.  So we moved again.  And commenced drinking long island teas.  Again.  haha... 

Let me tell you more about Sing Sing, the dueling piano bar.  Tons of fun. Two pianists take requests (and tips) to play whatever song.  Usually, they have raunchy versions of the songs that have the whole crowd cracking up.  They invite people onstage for their birthdays, anniversaries, etc, and sing to them, make them do crazy things, etc.  Very funny.  Occasionally, the waitstaff jumps on stage (and onto the pianos... ack!) and dances to a choreographed song.  Hilarious.  And they have buzz buckets, which are exactly what they sound like.  I didn't get a picture of one, unfortunately, but I did get a picture of the boys drinking from one:

Richard, Dennis, and Kenny with their buzz bucket straws

Eventually, as you can see, Dennis joined us, and we took Jello shots from giant syringes.  Shortly after, Liz and Will joined us, and we became those people in the bar, who were singing really loudly and were the only ones standing up and dancing.  Thank goodness we were kind of in the corner.  In true Raissa fashion, I took my stupid heels off in the bar because my feet hurt.

At some point, my phone died, so I have no clue what time it was when all six of us climbed into Dennis's little car to go to Pete's Kitchen, an all-night diner on Colfax that's pretty popular with the bar crowd, I guess, considering the police were just hanging out there.  We ate some 4th meal, and Dennis agreed to drive us back so that we wouldn't have to take the bus back. 

A pretty fun night, considering it was planned on such short notice.  We plan on doing it again.  When it's not freezing cold.

I woke up at 1:00 this afternoon to see an inch of snow on the ground here.  Lame.