Putri Exploring the Archipelago: Salt Lake City

Instead of the common panoramic view of mountain landscapes, we woke up in the train from Denver to Salt Lake City, realizing we were riding on the actual Rocky Mountains, and having an outlook from uphigh on the lowlands.

[Couchsurfing]

The three days spent in the quite big, but seemingly smaller town-like Salt Lake City was a wonderful reminiscence of Burlington to me. Our outdoor-spirited couchsurfhost Eddy, a freshly graduated from the University of Utah, lived in the campus district with four more roommates in a house with a porch, in the same street the only Hybrid card driving Democrat mayor in a Republican-oriented state resides. Our agenda was fully booked with hanging on the roof top, attending a bluegrass concert, visiting a typical open houseparty, climbing a cliff at a river, and hiking by night to observe the city under the full moon.

[SLC-view by night from Ensign Park]

[Climbing...]

[...and then chilling]

An amazing concept found in SLC is the One World restaurant that aspires reducing food waste by having the customers decide themselves how much they want from a certain dish and allow them to have more anytime. Depending on the available ingredients that are authentic organic and from the actual back garden, the menu differs daily or even by the hour. But the most remarkable aspect is that the customers decide themselves how much the dish was worth to pay. On top of that, the cook was a graduated student from UVM!

[One World Restaurant]

The Mormons, officially named The Church of Jesus Christ the Latter-day Saints, have originally established themselves, and are therefore concentrated, in Utah. In the literal center of the city on Zero Street is the Mormon bussiness district and the virgin white Temple, which is exclusive to the Mormons, where on that day sixteen marriages took place. At the museum-like visitor’s center the ‘sisters’ from all over the world who were on their optional 18 months mission (for the early twenty males it is mandatory) explained us about their Christian derived religion, intentionally to convert people. It’s an amazingly interesting and wealthy community and we were really fascinated by it. Their common present does give the city a somewhat different, not necessarily bad, ambiance; strange enough an affluently moderate one.