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| The view from Maja and Shehzad's front door! |
After leaving the farm, I drove across the bottom of Wyoming
to Salt Lake City. While, I had done a
majority of this drive just a few weeks ago, I was again struck by the beauty
of the landscape! It’s not a section of
the country that most people think and about and then think, “Oh, it must be
beautiful there!”, but it really is!
When I got closer to Salt Lake City, I was amazed by the beauty of the
mountains that are everywhere you look!
They were especially beautiful since the leaves were all yellow and
red!
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| Statue of Mormon pioneers pulling all their possessions across the country due to the fact they couldn't afford an ox! Intense! |
I was very excited when I finally found Maja and Shehzad’s
house. Maja is a friend that I worked
with when I was an R.A. It was really
wonderful to see her! It’s been really
long since we’ve seen each other, but once we started hanging out, it was as if
not a day had passed. It was also really
great to get to know Shezad a little better. . .he’s totally hilarious and wonderful! It was also delightful to be their practice
child! Let me explain. . . First, you
need to know that Maja is pregnant and about a month away from her due date, so
the topic of children and parenting was coming up naturally before this
incident. So, the three of us went out
of ice cream. We were sitting outside
eating and chatting when one of Shehzad’s coworkers came up to us. He reintroduced Maja to him and then introduced
me. The coworker didn't listen to the,
“this is our friend” part of the introduction, and asked, “Oh, is she your
daughter?” which is totally ridiculous because Maja is only two years older
than I am! So, from that point on, there
was a running joke that I was their 14 year old daughter.
Maja and I went and walked around Park City one
evening. It was so beautiful with the
fall colors all the over the mountains!
We also had fun looking at some of the cute shops there too. She also showed me where the Olympic ski jump
took place, which I very much enjoyed since I am huge fan of the Olympics! She also made me totally delicious dinners
over the course of my stay! We ate
Croatian food one night and Pakistani food the other! Both treats were new to me and completely wonderful!
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| The temple |
While, Maja and Shehzad were busy being productive citizens
during the work day, I had time to explore.
The first order of business was to go see Temple Square. I was wandering around and looking at and
reading the plaques next to the statues dedicated to the Mormon pioneers when
two girls came over. They awkwardly struck
up a conversation then explained that they were on their mission and would like
to show me around. I took them up on
their offer; after all, it is not every day that you meet Mormon missionaries
from China and Norway that want to show you around Temple Square. They took me around and shared some
interesting facts such as the fact that the pioneers used really plain wood for
the columns and the pews in two of the chapels, but they wanted it to be fancy,
so they painted the wood in the columns to look like marble and painted the
pews to look like they were made out of fancy wood! We also got to hear someone play the organ
that accompanies the Mormon Tabernacle Choir! Then, when we were in the
basement of a visitor center types place, they tried to convert me. They felt strongly that I should get the Book
of Mormon to take back with me to Chicago.
I politely said, “Thanks, but no thanks” and moved on.
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| Antelope Island State Park |
After walking around downtown for a little while, I decided
to go see the Great Salt Lake. I went to
Antelope Island State Park. The park is
on a large island that is in the Great Salt Lake. It’s rocky, wild, and totally beautiful! There were tons of buffalo wandering around.
I hiked up to a bluff and just sat and soaked up the beauty of the gorgeous,
salty lake with the mountains in the distance.
The next day, I went to Provo. I wandered around the BYU campus for a
while. It was extremely scenic! It’s right at the foot of the mountains! I was surprised by how big BYU was. After my collegiate adventure, I enjoyed one
last meal and even with Maja and Shehzad.
We went to a Croatian restaurant and enjoyed some goulash. It was excellent! The Croatian version is a most delicious
soup!
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| Antelope Island State Park |
While, every bit of northern Utah is totally gorgeous, there
didn’t seem to be too much going on unless you were involved in the Mormon Church. Also, it seems as if the places where the
culture is significantly different than the rest of the United States have
crabbier than normal citizens. It was
like that in Louisiana and it was like that in northern Utah too. On the whole, most people were less than
pleasant, and those that did interact with me had strange social skills. For example, when I was looking at the temple,
a family was gathered for some major life event (I wasn’t clear one which even
had taken place) and were all standing on the steps and taking pictures. Then, someone saw me and yelled to the person
taking the picture, “Get in the picture, she’ll take one of all of us” and pointed
to me. Then, after taking the pictures,
they gave me a round of applause instead of saying thank you. Strange. . .
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