I'm in culture shock. Really. I didn't expect it to be quite so different. We speak the same language, but that's really where the similarity ends. (Although I've already been told to remember Utah is not the US. Of course I'm cheerfully ignoring that and doing my usual generalisation thing.)So... in Salt Lake City, you'll find..... cars. But no ordinary cars. Monster trucks, more monster trucks and yes, more monster trucks. Fancy a little stroll down the High Street for a coffee? 
Forget it. People literally drive everywhere, including from one end of the parking lot to the other. It seems so quiet in the streets but people are around, just in their cars and in the malls. Crossing the road is an adventure all by itself.
Forget it. People literally drive everywhere, including from one end of the parking lot to the other. It seems so quiet in the streets but people are around, just in their cars and in the malls. Crossing the road is an adventure all by itself. Salt Lake City is huge. It just sprawls for miles and miles along the valley. You can really see why America is so worried about the lack of oil - if we don't find alternative energy sources, they will have to completely rethink their urban planning.
It snowed a couple of days ago and there's a big storm coming this weekend so we're all getting overexcited. I'm still holed up in this crappy motel with my new roommate Spencer; we're getting along just grand considering I'm waking him up every morning at 5.30 to go to work and he's bugging me with (fortunately) mild snoring and a bit of late night post-beer stumbling. Jane arrives in a few days and we'll be camping in our beautiful 5 bed house with garden by Friday. Oh, and I forgot to mention my lovely little job in the mountains where I get to talk to people all day and use the posh spa for free. It's all coming together nicely, just as it always does!! I'm a very lucky girl.
4 comments:
WOW! Look at all that snow! :-) Am wondering if my shit flat would be any better if it was dusted in snow instead of porously leaking rain from every orifice. Ponders.
Are you ever coming back to England?
I liked your reflective blog entry by the way. It was me who said that blogging was self-indulgent. Or at least, I said it's sometimes people's secret way of asking for attention from their loved ones. But I have changed my view on that now that I'm 18 months in to regular blogging. I think it's just a good way to get things off your chest. Maybe like a techno-version of Speakers Corner? Perhaps bloggers were all town criers in a previous life? :-)
Tx
Wow! Looks amazing. Perfect for Christmas. Just a shame about all them damn yanks! Minus 5 here today so definitely getting there. No snow as yet. And already getting Christmas fatigue (too much booze, chocolate, going out, general Christmas tat on display, crowded shops etc etc)
Have a fab Christmas Hannah!
Love Linsey xx
"Utah is not the U.S.", you said it yourself, but the fact bears repeating. That must have been a strange introduction to our Yank side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Utah is a geographically isolated and eccentric place where the culture is based partly on the teachings of a cult-like 19th-century religious group. There isn't really an equivalent phenomenon to compare it to in the UK.
Sprawling metropolitan area based on unlimited optimism in the availibility of fossil fuels: this is a common feature of cities in the American West. The "monster trucks", that is partly for practical purposes, but partly just for status/cultural reasons in rural American areas.
Excellent skiing locale and scenery, but not a lot more can be said in favor of Utah, so please don't assume the rest of the U.S.A is similar.
Hi Andrew. How nice you find this blog 3 years after I was there, allows me to re-live the experience now I'm back at a desk in the city. I loved my time in Utah, admittedly it was a snow-coated experience, but the people were lovely, even though they didn't understand the concept of walking. I've only been to Vermont, Nevada and Arizona as well as Utah, so I dont have a very rounded picture of the US, I'll admit that... Oh, and Iowa for work! A strange mix of states, isn't it?
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