Quiet nights and dreaming

Boulder, Colorado... 

I am trying to figure out what exactly I would like to say about Boulder.

Boulder has the kind of charm you can’t capture in a photo (trust me I have tried) and can’t be put into a funny story.

Life in Boulder is just relaxed. Its quiet, its sunny, and it may sound funny but it gives of energy of joyfulness.

There is no need to lock the doors, no need to lock your car and everywhere you go people are friendly and just relaxed. There are a lot of athletes going around on there bikes and running. I’m the odd one out not having a dog.

There is a creek that runs all the way through the centre of town (with a separate cycle path obviously) right up into the canyon as far as you are willing or able to go, grab a Boulder chai tea  (best chai tea I ever had) and pack a sarnie and you will be amazed! You might even see the wild prairie dogs!

 I attended a weekend at Naropa University in Buddhist meditation and the happiness in a still, kind, sweet, and sane way was infectious, no one ever appeared to be thinking or doing a thousand things at once, everything was far more gentle and clear. It was like no college I have attended in the UK and much to my delight unlike my studies in the UK the balance of men and women was great. The male intelligence and logic is something that I always value in my studies (as its so different to mine!)

I have never been able to sleep so well, dream so well and rest so well and after the somewhat embarrassing amount of altitude induced nose bleeds have worn off and I feel a little less like I am living in an aeroplane, Boulder is starting to grow on me!  And the fresh air is like no other place I have ever been! Boulder may not have much in the way of culture diversity, or liveliness of other places, but it has calm, it has peace and it has mountains and that’s wonderful in its own way.

From a very relaxed and rested me,

Be Inspired,

LB xx

Nederland, Colorado

  Whilst in Boulder, Colorado (which I appreciate I have been very quiet about) I attended a Buddhist Meditation course and met a lovely lady who very kindly offered to drive me up into the Rockies to where she lives in a old mining town (tungsten) called Nederland (Ned to the locals), so how could I refuse. It went a bit like this...

  The old bookstore, and now my friend’s wonderful Mountain home. The outside of the build is made of tin. Unfortunately due to all the new healthy and safety regulations the bookstore is no longer open but the books are still great!

In Ned there is no rubbish or recycling collection so you need to take it yourself to the local depot. This can either be done by car or our way of choice, 40 mins by backpack and foot through the forests, tracking the elk and rabbit foot prints on our way (we didn’t see any this time!)


It looked a bit like this....

  Sadly due to the economic crisis a lot of the businesses are been sold and been replaced with hotels and kwikmarts, however this used to be the local pottery studio, Magnolia Pottery, the lady who ran it has passed away, but her husband apparently comes back to look after the property.
This would have been my favourite place.

Buffalo Bill's Coffee (although now days they have a liquor licence too)

SO in the town of Ned they have a carousel. Its not just ANY carousel, hand built in Nederland it is the one and only ' Carousel of Happiness' and for 1 dollar, you can be happy too! The animals have been dressed up for Halloween...

 So inviting....















  




but mine was a flying pig....

   
 Nederland is not only infamous for their wonderful carousel but also for the music scene.
The Caribou Ranch which is just on the outskirts of Ned, (on the way to the now, ghost town of Caribou) is famous recording studio which recorded albums for the likes of Elton John, Michael Jackson, Frank Zappa, John Denver, Billy Joel...to name a few and this is where they would come to party at the Pioneer Inn Saloon. So I thought best to go for a beer!
Lets just say this really was a saloon! I met some more locals. 

One guy offered me some recently hunted squirrel meat,  (I never doubted the authenticity, apparently his son also hunted an elk with a bow and arrow) I politely refused along with the buffalo burgers...but the beer was good, apparently they didn’t take too well to the attempt of introducing a bit of reggae music, but I have no doubt that the Bluegrass music and the Mountain hip hop is that happens every night is well worth another trip!

Nothing was always that lovely though...
 Being an old mining town during the 70's the town population boomed when a few hippies started coming to town. During that time there was only one police sheriff and on his death bed he confessed to along with some other locals killing some of the hippies and dumping them down the old mining shafts.

  So just when you thought WOW this town cant get anymore interesting... well this little building here hold a dead frozen guy (don’t worry he has now been moved to a smarter facility nearby)
Frozen Dead Guy was originally from Norway and his son moved him to Nederland (post freezing).
Frozen Dead Guy now has his own musical festival in Ned which is apparently pretty great and you can see Frozen Dead Guy been paraded around town... So if you are interested... http://frozendeadguydays.org/


Whilst waiting for the bus, the only bus, back into Boulder we met a man from Midland Texas, who had come to Nederland, as it was the home of the lead singer of Clear Water Revival, he said he had come to work the day at the ski resort but hadn’t quite made it.
  He was however familiar with the local pub and had a clearly quite badly swollen bleeding lip...I later over heard him on the bus telling some local boys from Ned that he was staying in a homeless shelter but actually in Europe they call them hostels, and so he prefers that. They reassured him that nobody in Ned is homeless; you might not have a home per-se but that Ned will be your home.  I had to stop listening when they started to discuss hurricane Sandy and how this may be connected to the wrath of God.

Thank you Belinda and Stevyn!


Be inspired,
LB xx

This.

Drop off zone....

You can take a girl out of England but not away from her tea!

Dashnanbe Tea Room, Boulder, CO

If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty. ~Japanese Proverb

 

 Dushanbe in Tajikstan is the twin town to Boulder, CO and as a result they donated this wonderful tea-room to them! http://www.boulderteahouse.com/ 

'The ceiling of the Teahouse was carved and painted with intricate patterns traditional of Persian Art. The teahouse ceiling was originally built, carved and painted in Tajikistan. Absolutely no power tools were used in the original construction. The work was crafted by hand exactly as it was centuries ago.
Inside the Teahouse, there are 12 intricately carved cedar columns. These, were sent from Tajikistan with the original gift. No two columns are alike.'

Philly Guavas ...

So I am currently on my first flight to Philadelphia, although apparently no one calls it that (according to the “I”, has anyone heard of this paper?), I have to overcome my fear of sounding a bit to American hip and called it Philly.

After getting my knickers in a twist this morning with the idea that now suddenly because I have a boyfriend I am apparently unable to deal with small tasks such as carrying my bag down the stairs at Brixton station on my own, asking my boyfriend to abandon all work commitments to accompany me (there is a lift and I always knew that but my some what ‘weird’ boyfriend seems to think the Brixton lift is a crack den?! I shared it myself with an elderly businessman, I appreciate this could still involve crack, but it didn’t). I have previously been far more interested in the idea of lone travelling than having a travelling buddy, previously travelling across the US on a train or around Europe with a tent, much to the shock of my parents, that a girl from a private school in Berkshire could separate herself from her organic muesli and honey. Strangely German beer was working well for me until I got bronchitis and had to be escorted through Venice in a horse drawn cart to the hospital…. (So maybe I am more of a private school girl than I’m willing to admit)

Anyway rush hour London tubes (the underground to all non British) dealt with, with surprising amount of lifts available I make it to Heathrow Terminal 1. Oh and my bag is actually so light I casually can lift it with one hand it appears.

My flight appears to not contain very many tourists…. Clearly they are missing what I have just read in the personalised “I” paper for American travellers the ‘International Culture hub’ that is Philly? So far my excitement in regards to Philly have been, is the airport in West Philadelphia…because that would be cool, even if I wasn’t born and raised (think about it, yes unfortunately that is pretty much my only Philadelphia reference), and will the restaurant suggested to me at Philadelphia airport called Guava and Java fulfil my constant life long dream of fresh pink guavas washed down with a pint of fresh (Rubicon doesn’t count) pint of guava juice, and if this does happen where will I stay if I miss my flight ( strangely enough instead of originally writing ‘flight’ I wrote ‘life’ …..My psychotherapist self doesn’t think so strange) Maybe they have churros in Philly… anyway for someone with so little self-proclaimed excitement I seem to have masses. FYI I will be there for two hours where I will have to collect my luggage take it through customs and then re check it in, old school style.

Last night I felt genuinely terrified at my sheer brilliance in organisation and packing I was unnerved to find myself washing the toothpaste marks off my toiletry bag to cellotaping my toiletries up so they don’t leak and placing it alongside my small travel essentials bag and of course my travel bands…

Good thing I packed my headphones too as apparently on US airways you have to buy a pair if you fancy watching anything, I’m not sure how I feel about that, this lunch better be good.

And yes before we get ahead of ourselves yes I am currently sitting on board my flight, with my mac, my water, my book, in my comfy attire with travel bands on full display. If someone asked me how exactly travel bands work, I would probably mumble something about pressure points and then boldly state they always help me…however I have no idea if they do work or how the work or even why the work and feel a bit like one of those poor sickly children whose mother fusses over them with inhalers, emergency medicines, probiotics, and now some kind of new age travel bands (I have all of those things) is this going to far, or have I become anxious over anxiety.

Nevertheless I have worn my travel bands before, on a ferry not on a plane, I didn’t get sick on the ferry and as my family can adhere to that’s pretty miraculous…nevertheless this is not why I wear the travel bands. I wear them because the first time I ever put them on, on a ferry to Holland, they felt so weird and I felt so weird that that I laughed so uncontrollably my boyfriend had to help me take them off. Unfortunately that have never again filled me such level of euphoria or even a mere giggle, but I live in hope. As a result I continue embrace the embarrassment of looking like a neurotic traveller for now.  Because I will look a lot saner when I wear travel bands and laugh hysterically whilst alone…(John that’s a joke). Ok now I am actually starting to laugh.

( I went through the seven concourse airport in search of Guava and Java only to find they had no guavas or guava juice, and I am not exactly sure what java is, other than some secret code language, but they didnt look like they had that either. )