week 1

Our first week here in Denver is coming to a close... been a really busy but fun week. Got here on wednesday at like 11, and spent most of the day meeting new people and settling into my room. (which is kinda strange).. the beds pull out of this weird storage unit thing... odd but it works. I've met a bunch of really cool girls that are in my unit (the fire unit). which is awesome. Everyone here has been super nice. And the first night we were here was this girl Katherine's birthday, so we went to this shady mexican restaurant/bar across the street to celebrate.

The campus here is amazing.. with a great view of the Rockies from almost anywhere on campus. And the campus was built in the 1800s, so its all beautiful old buildings, with lots of open space and grass, everything that my college campus wasn't. Its been nice to be able to just hang out in the grass and watch the leaves fall and just hang out. So peaceful!!

Thursday was full of lots of lectures/meetings about policies, procedures, the AmeriCorps NCCC mission, and stuff like that. And then we were issued out oh-so stylin uniforms. Definitely not a fashion statement OR designed for females.. so all of our pants are huge and the crotch hangs down between our knees almost. The t-shirts and hoodie are pretty cool though. I guess it could be a lot worse.. its just taking getting used to. And most of us are switching to boxer briefs because the stupid pants are making our legs chafe. They are slowly taking away all of our femininity. lol.

Wednesday was meetings and paperwork all day.. getting our reimbursement for luggage, getting out ID pics taken, setting up banking, etc. Thursday we had a meeting in the morning followed by physicals, which were kind of amusing.. pregnancy tests, drug tests, vision, hearing, and a physical. Too bad I had to take the drug test twice after apparantly not giving him enough pee to test and having to start all over. I ended up chugging three bottles of water to get the test done and not hold up my team, just to have someone else do the same thing after me.

Today was the best day so far for sure.. we went to Red Rocks Park/Ampitheatre... which was actually built by the CCC (Civilian Community Corps) in the 1930s.. the program that the NCCC is modeled after. It was really awesome, its a HUGE ampitheatre build into the side of a mountain. Then we went on a hike up the mountain and took a Fire unit pic of all like 50 something of us. I don't have my camera right now so I don't have pics at the moment, but I'm getting some that other ppl in my group took so I'll post them soon...

I'll try to keep up with this so I don't write a book every day! post again soon!