All the buildings on campus look the same. Though inside one we saw a state of the art black box theatre, but only because of Kurt's VIP status. Special and secretive, yet it did not require a retinal scan to enter, which according to Kurt is needed to submit a thesis at Arizon State. In another building, though I could not point it out to you if you asked, we found an ice rink, and a very talented practically Olympic ready skater performing her routine to music.
Kurt's whole family is very active and in between fits of hyperventilation Amanda and I discussed whether he or his sister Sara was the faster walker. We had a nice lunch at a downtown brewery and argued about what constitutes "outdoorsy." Kurt maintained it was not merely going outdoors, but must involve a strong risk of death. For example, he said, if one of us were to pass out as we were walking (there was a high risk of Amanda or I doing just that) we would wake up in a hospital and not not wake up, as might happen in the mountains. Don't worry Mom, despite all the National Parks, we are not at all outdoorsy.
We headed back to Kurt's and met his friendly and funny roommates and had a nice time talking with them. Eventually Kurt had to study, which gave us a chance to explore town-feet free, by car. Though we drove around for a bit, we ended up where Kurt did, at the Starbuck's. We met his barista friend who is moving to Portland and who warned us to be careful of the looming blue moon when strange people do stranger things. We later saw pictures of her suspended in the air, hanging from the ceiling by way of hooks pierced into her back flesh. Keep Portland weird indeed. We stayed in that night. If she was worried, we we're terrified.
Kurt in a supreme act of generousity gave up his brand new bed for us to sleep on. He downgraded significantly and spent the night on our squeaky air mattress.
Friday began with a cantaloupe feast for breakfast (we we're pressured into them by Kurt and glad he was so insistent) and then said our goodbyes to Kurt and headed out for a tour. No, in case you're starting to think us drunks, it did not involve beer. We got chemically adjusted with buckets of caffiene on the Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory tour.
Boulder is home to the only Celestial Seasonings factory in the world, where they mill and package all of their tea (except their mint teas which are too sticky and pungent. The three types-spearmint, peppermint, and...catnip. If they start marketing teas to cats I wonder whether tension tamer cat tea will be made out of speed) As we learned on the free tour all types of tea, be it white, black or green actually come from the same plant: Camellia Sinnensis. Herbal teas would more accurately be described as tea infusions as they don't actually contain any of the tea plant and therefore aren't tea.
The company impressed us as they actually let you walk through the factory. You can trust their tea is clean (Yeah, they made me not only cover my head, but wear a beard net too. I was not happy the costume was mandatory as stated in tour rule number 6. I was overjoyed at rule number 7-"no pictures allowed") The best part by far was the tea tasting. Both before and after the tour you are given a sampling cup and allowed to try as many of their teas as you would like. For us that meant three bathroom visits worth of tea. They have over 80 different teas, many exclusive to their store, and we tried to try them all. Never before have we been so amped up on failure.
From there we attempted to explore the city of Boulder but ran into excessive traffic and little parking. Driving through various states we've seen a pattern, so much so that when we were in say Wyoming or Montana and got cut off or saw something crazy on the road, we could expect to see the green and white of a Colorado license plate. Our beer teacher confirmed that Colorado has some of the nation's most aggressive drivers, more so than New Jersey even. In Boulder we found out why. When turning, green lights last 3 seconds. Yellow barely registers. Exasperated with Boulder I ate some bull testicles and we turned around.
Tea pot on display at Celestial Seasonings
Tea pot on display at Celestial Seasonings
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