Far from giving me time to recharge, my time in Denver was so frantic that it left me exhausted. Good thing I have a “Good Bye Mexico City” party tonight and have to leave for the airport to fly to Bogota around 2am this morning. I packed in the morning and then stepped out to Streats to satisfy my craving for chilaqules. For our departing celebration we took a bus down to the canals where I early traveled with some folks to search for the creepy island of dead dolls. In navigating the traffic and small streets around there the bus that we were on tried to make a turn that was too narrow. Instead of giving up we got creative and literally picked up the parked car that was blocking us and moved it out of the way. We got a bunch of boats and lashed them together and partied in typical fashion out on the canals for the evening. I even managed to get two or three hours of sleep before we had to leave for our flight.

A real last minute catch up this morning on the way to the airport as I stopped into Lucile’s to meet some of my political friends. Cajun food is also impossible to find outside the U.S. so it was great to hit up Lucile’s before I left town. My buddy Jack has hung out in South America a lot too so it was good to catch up with him before I head down there. After breakfast it was off to the airport where I ran into another Remote (literally can’t go anywhere these days without running into people) who was also flying back to Mexico City. The rest of the day was planes and cars.

Last full day in Denver and I still have errands to take care of as well as cramming in last minute catch ups with friends. I went and worked at my old Starbucks in the morning before heading over to get a haircut. So nice not to have to try and explain across a language barrier what I want. Also good to catch up with the girl who cut my hair when I was at home. In the evening it was back to Teller’s to meeting one of my friends who had just gotten back into Denver for the holidays. After that I headed back down to meet one of my friends who I haven’t seen in… years. We had dinner at Hillstone and then went over to Second Home for a drink. Despite not having seen her in so long (and her being a liberal terror) catching up with her ended up being one of the high points of my trip home.

More errands to get done in a different part of town today so I set out to do that. Since being back in Denver I’ve been surprised at how it really hasn’t even felt like I’ve left at all. Being back and going about my normal Denver routine before heading back out has just felt like business as usual. That started to break down around lunch when I met my friend and her new baby. The last time I saw her she was sans babe and meeting her baby for the first time six months into her life was a big reminder of how quickly things change. That lunch was one of those moments where I wavered about heading back on the road. I had more errands to run after lunch and then on the way home I swung by my other favorite place, Teller’s. The radio in my rental car had been on a country station all week and it was really putting me into a country music mood. I texted my fellow country music loving friend and it just so happened she was going to see her friends band that night at the Grizzly Rose so on the spur of the moment I joined up for her with that which was excellent. I’m not a wild country music fan but I do love it and that has been one thing I have yet to encounter in the rest of the world and I was missing it!

There’s a lot of stuff that’s just plain simpler to do or to obtain in America than abroad so today was dedicated to running errands and gathering some more supplies for the second half of my trip. In the evening we went to dinner at another one of my old haunts, Gordon Biersch. After that we saw Rogue One. I like Star Wars but I wouldn’t characterize myself as a wild fan by any means. That being said this movie is for sure going in my top 3-5 of all time.

Christmas is one of those things that definitely becomes a smaller production as you get older. A far cry from the days of waking up at dawn to tear into presents, now we get a much more leisurely start to the day. Have to make sure everyone has their coffee before we can tear into gifts. It was a pretty low key day and for the remainder of it we just lounged around the house.

Over the course of my childhood my Parent’s Christmas Eve open house became a greatly anticipated party. As we got older and started traveling around Christmas more and more the regularity and intensity of the party has ebbed and flowed. There was a small revival this year just for the simple fact of my being back in Arvada so some of my other Arvada/High School friends stopped by for a bit to catch up. It was great to see everyone but it was also Christmas Eve so folks had to move on to other family engagements before too long.

I keep falling off the wagon on the whole daily update thing. I was doing so well there for a while. Alright, first full day back in Denver. What’s the first thing I should do? Go get more Mexican food obviously. It’s off to Santiago’s to pick up a pile of breakfast burritos. Days when I’m on the go always present a real setback for my productivity so I had to use the rest of the day to get caught up on the work that I was supposed to be doing yesterday when I flew back to Denver. As luck would have it some of my friends from business school were back in town for Christmas as well so I met them in the evening for a drink at the old standby Charlie Brown’s.

It was an early start today. My roommate and I were both heading back to America this morning so we headed to the airport around 4am. Her flight was leaving right away but I had some work to do before mine so I posted up at the lounge to get some work done. During a lull I tried to go to my gate which was one of the more frustrating experiences of my life. Every time I passed a gate board by gate seemed to change! I walked up and down the whole terminal probably four times before finally seeing Denver on a gate sign just by luck and stopping there. On the upside the experience in Denver was excellent. I downloaded the new mobile passport app and submitted all my documents right as the plane landed. When I arrived in the line at the express lane a girl even sought me out and brought me to the front of the line in front of everyone. I think I waited a cumulative 30 seconds at customs and that was the time it took for them to scan me in.

Naturally I had some political/work meetings scheduled for as soon as I landed so I headed over to my favorite Elway’s for that. Then afterwards I had dinner at Fruition and finally made it home to see the family around 9p.