Closed on Sundays!

It looks like Denver is closed on Sundays. They should have told us this on the train when we got on in Chicago. Its lucky its a beautiful day here and the sun is out otherwise i'd be really pissed off. I spent the first 4 hours walking around just looking at all the closed shops and tourist sites. I walked all the way out of town to the closed box office at the closed Pepsi Sports centre. I started my closed voyage on the main street, 16th street, at the Information Centre which is closed on weekends, so I tried to see a map they had on the wall inside because I didn't have a map of the city and the hostel had not a single map. When I asked the guy at the reception if he had a map he said, "a map of what?". I thought he was joking, but he wasnt. I said, "of Denver".

Speaking of the hostel, if the city wasn't so closed today, this whole post would have been about the hostel. My hostel, Denver International Hostel, is the crappiest, dirtiest and scariest hostel I've ever stayed at. I am really lucky that I have just a night there otherwise I'd be worried. On entering the hostel there are two doors which are seperate from one another. I didn't see the first one and instead entered the second door which is facing the street when you walk to the hostel with the directions they give you. I walked in and there were no signs for the reception. It was dark. I tried the three different doors in there but there was no signs and they were all locked so I tried upstairs. The same story. So I walked outside thinking there might be another entrance which there was and I walked into the tiny room they called a reception. The guy working at reception looked and sounded exactly like the serial killer Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, which wasn't a good start. I gave him my details and my passport and he gave me sheets and took my money - $13 for the room and a refundable $10 deposit for the key. He walked me up the dark rickety stairs to the room and showed me inside.

The first room was dirty and had a light which worked and one which didn't along with 2 bunk beds. The floorboards were dusty and misformed and the curtains looked like WW2 blankets. He said that there was no shower but a toilet, and there was another shower I could use downstairs. The room was more like an apartment, a really dirty old apartment, in that it had 3 rooms with bunks, a smelly kitchen, and a bathroom with a bath that was so dirty I couldn't see where the drain hole was located. I will post photos as soon as I find a place with basic internet facilities. But when you see the photos you will feel sorry for me and be afraid for my safety.

My final rant about Denver will be about all the homeless and poverty stricken people I have seen on this brief morning of walking. Before I start I must preface by saying that it is a Sunday and it is Winter so the amount of people walking the streets at 9am on a Sunday are probably somewhat limited to those without a warm house or similar situation. I have been surprised on this trip by the amount of homeless people and poor people I have seen while walking around the cities. Up until now the worst was Washington DC, but obviously New York and Boston had their share too. I have become accustomed to a degree of homeless people while traveling throughout Europe, particularly in Paris and the other major cities frequented by high numbers of foreign tourists, but it has been more confronting in America because there are more per area and they are aggressive. When I say aggressive, I do not mean physically in the form of hitting or attacking, I simply mean they talk with you, harass you, and on occasion deliberately get in your way when you are walking. And this is to the regular citizen, not just those who look or act like gullible tourists. The amount of homeless people I have seen today in Denver has been striking. While walking along the main street, 16th, I saw about 8 people who did not look homeless, and another 20 or 30 who sat on the benches, or to the side of the street, or stood and walked, all carrying a little sleeping bag, or clothes bag, and many of which had a little cup with a little bit of change tinkling around in it. As I walked out of the touristic area and into the surrounding suburbs, looking for something interesting which might be open, I saw even more, not as condensed, but they were still there. I saw 2 different people asking for change at stoplights. Then as I neared the library at about 12:30pm, the place was surrounded by them. It was intense. Many speaking to themselves, looking tired and dirty and weighed down. I watched as the people poured into the library when it opened its doors at 1pm, many going straight into the bathrooms and spreading to the free internet or upstairs to the couches. It was an extraordinary sight. I'm still not sure what to make of it all.

I leave the city at 7am tomorrow, to Reno, and perhaps a nice upright city like Reno will me forget about people who are down and out on their luck.