The Common Grounds Cafe

am at the common grounds cafe in downtown denver right now. its a cyber cafe like any other in singapore 'cept the people here really look relaxed.

so this morning andy sent me down to the inn @ the rockies just outside colfax avenue. its a pretty nice location(at least i thoguht it was, more on that later) and its about a 15min walk to downtown denver. the place is kinda lock-cock, but for us$16 a night its nothing more than i would expect. at least the toilet's working, there's an attached kitchen and there's tv! there're 4 people to a dorm and there's this uzbekistan guy along with this 50yr-old american man(who claims he's in town to start a business) living with me. kinda shady i'd think. but then again the old man whose name is tom is a pretty nice guy. he know singapore is not in the middle of china and he's been to asia before so there's something to actually talk about. he's warned me that the streets outside colfax are filled with druggies at night and they shoot at anything when they're high, and told me to come back before it gets dark so i guess i'll heed that advice.

the guy who owns this joint whose name i do not know looks like a nerd and a complete pushover. anyway he's pretty nice lah but looks like a bumbling idiot. so i shall not bother mentioning about him anymore.

the lucky bit for today so far is meeting merijcke from the netherlands, this woman in her late 30s who happened to be heading downtown as i was on my way out. i asked if i could follow her and she jested that she would probably end up following me instead. anyway she's in denver to stay for hte night before going up to the rocky mountains to do some camping. pretty nice woman and we had a ball of a time yakking about singapore(she's actually been there before) and i asked her stuff about holland(i've been there before) and i found out she comes from utrecht, this city of 300,000 of which the only time i've heard of was when i was betting on them during the last uefa cup(they're a pretty good outfit). anyways she's a technical director of her own theatric firm and makes big bucks and loves to travel alone(not married) and loves camping out. she's a pretty amzing woman and she speaks with a very deep british accent owing to the people she worked with. so once agian there's alot to talk about between us.

so together we both set off to downtown denver. walked to the 16th street which is a mile long shopping area. its really quite cool! and its like a business district and shopping area rolled into one. the downtown area looks pretty safe, people are educated(89.5% have high school diplomas) and its got this city-spring to it that i missed while in camp chief ouray. the people are of a good mix of hispanic and whites, occasionally a few blacks(they make up only 5.1% of the denver population of 2.4mil) and when i actually do see an asian(yes there are a few here), i have this unnerving tendency to stop and stare. dun ask me why. i'm just weird. i just feel like walking up to them and ask them if they're tourists too, or something. well there's nothing more comforting to see your own kind mixing up with the rest of the norm sometimes isn't there?

so we're at the common grounds cafe right now. its bloody expensive using this dumb pc(us$2 for 20min - so thats how they rob people here) so i gotta end liaoz. been planning the places i wanna visit tomorrow. will be walking down here again, the lodo, the coors field(homoe of the rockies), cherry creek and larimer. so excited. will post pix up if time and finance allows.

watch this space.