I’ve visited Denver once before but I spent most of my days in a conference on the 16th Street Mall. This time was much more exciting though because I got to hang with a group of my best friends over the next three days. I visited during a major transitional time in my life so being surrounded by their support, jokes, and encouragement distracted me from the reality of moving abroad.

Just after arriving, I caught happy hour and dinner at vegan-friendly City O’ City and then tagged along to a Misfits concert at an outdoor stadium. I especially remember how pretty the sunset prior to the show was and in retrospect, it felt like a warm welcome but also some type of a “goodbye” as well. The show was great too of course!

I spent the following day with another amazing friend grabbing brunch and later drank beers into the rainy afternoon. The Snooze has a major wait time but is definitely worth it for breakfast. There’s complimentary coffee while you wait and I think some people were playing games to kill time as well. Later, over in RiNo, we went to Ratio Brewing and Finns Manor. These are in an arts district and it was pretty lively for a Sunday night. You’ll definitely stop to window shop or look at murals as you walk through.

On Monday I celebrated my birthday a day early since my flight was on the actual date of it. We spent it in the downtown area and hopped to more food and drink places again. An excellent place for tacos and margaritas is at Machete in LoDo. They were surprisingly very filling and we made it in time for food and drink happy hour! We later hit up a record store with a bar called Bowman’s and then went to a rooftop to end the celebrating for the night. My friends recommended all of theses great places so it really made for a solid final weekend in the U.S.