Adventures in Albuquerque

Well, I must say. I am tired. After a 4 a.m. wake-up call, two flights, running around Albuquerque and our first conference event: an ACT pool party, I am finally ready to get some shut-eye.

After we got situated into our hotel rooms, Marilyn, Breanne and I hit the town to find some lunch. The concierge at the hotel suggested a Mexican restaurant a few blocks over so we decided to give it a try.

It turns out this little place was featured on the Food Network channel!

Afterwards, Breanne and I decided to tour Old Town, an area with lots of touristy gift shops. The lady at the front desk said the best way to get there was by city bus, so we decided to give it a try. Boy was that an experience! First we walked the two-and-a-half blocks to a bus stop, then discovered we were at the wrong stop and ran across the road when we saw the bus pull up. The bus driver was super friendly. I'm sure he thought we were crazy, these two girls who were obviously not from around here. We explained where we wanted to go, and when our stop came he kindly told us. When we got on the bus to go back to the hotel, I really wished he was driving our bus! More on that a little later....

So we meandered along, looked at the selection of New Mexico goods and stopped to watch a little concert going on in the park. It was original music written by a lady of Native American heritage in the traditional Native American style. A man in traditional Native American clothes danced to the music, and in some cases played a supporting instrument. It was very neat to see, though unfortunately I didn't get very many good pictures of it.

The architecture in Albuquerque, and I'm sure many other parts of the American Southwest, is so beautiful! The heavy dark wooden doors, the black iron fences, the stucco, the bright pops of turquoise... it's absolutely gorgeous. Also, I noticed it was warm- the sun was shining brightly and I even got a little burnt, but the heat was bearable because it was just heat. None of that sticky humid mess we've been having at home!

When we finally had our share of old town Albuquerque, we decided to head back to the bus. We hopped on the bus at the stop we'd been let off at. Away we went, and we kept driving and driving. No longer were we in areas with lots of big stores, we were in areas with little stores and construction. Eventually we stopped. But we stopped at the bus station. The bus driver got up from his seat and told us we had to get off. Uh oh, spaghetti-os! I think my face must have turned pale white...

The bus driver had a little mercy on us- he said his shift was up but another guy was coming to take over the route so the bus could still take us back around the loop. We breathed a sigh of relief and waited for departure. We lost a bit of time, but everything turned out ok. And we got to see more of the city than we'd originally planned!

Looking back, we realized we should have crossed the street to the bus stop on the other side of the road so we wouldn't reach the end of the route, but hindsight is 20-20, and we got an adventure out of it. This is just another of those memories I won't soon forget!

When we (finally) got back, Breanne and I met one of our roommates. We attended our first conference activity: an ACT pool party, and now we are both trying to catch up on our blogging. Check out what she's writing about at traveling-aggie.blogspot!

Well, tomorrow is when everything really starts! And we have our first working assignment, so I think I'll turn in for the night!