The conference was held in the building on the left which is the Grand America hotel that was created for the Olympics. The building on the right is the Little America hotel where I stayed along with all the other student volunteers.
The two hotels were across the street from each other. The UTA train ran down the center of the street and also there were flags provided to use to cross the street and make yourself more visible.
There was snow on the mountains around the city. The city itself is at a high elevation of 1288 m, so none of the mountains around it have any trees on them. It's quite different from the Vancouver area.
On the third night there (Monday) some other students and I checked out a place called the Bayou. It was a cajun restaurant (think New Orleans) with a huge beer menu (Beervana they called it) with 255 beers from around the world. The only strict drinking law left in Utah is that you can't have a double shot. I tried some local beer and some Czech beer and Andrew bought me a beer for my birthday. We all split a slice of alligator cheesecake which was an appetizer, not a dessert. It was not that great - it just tasted and felt like cornbread.
On Tuesday at lunch time I went to check out the University of Utah disc golf course. Unfortunately I missed the train and unlike the skytrain they only run every 15 minutes. I decided to walk and it took me about 50 minutes.
The disc golf course had a great view of the city and I could see the conference hotel waaaay off in the distance. The baskets on the course looked almost brand new but I was the only one on the course the whole time I was there.
I really sucked at the course but it was still lots of fun. I played through it quickly, jogging up to my disc so I could head back to the conference at the end of the lunch break.
The park it was in was right next to the last train station so it was easy to just catch the train after I finished playing.
After I got off the train I took some photos of the city-county building which was a block from our hotel. There were many buildings in the city that looked like castles (most of them churches or temples).
That night I went back to the Bayou, but this time with some professors and a guy from Boeing who we work with. When we left the restaurant it was snowing! Here's the view from the balcony of my hotel room. The snow melted over the next couple days.
On Wednesday morning I got up a little earlier than I needed so I went and took some photos in the courtyard of the Grand America. The hotel was very fancy!
That night a huge group of mostly students went out to a bar called the Beerhive. It had a decently big selection of beers and there were pool tables and a foosball table. We played many games of foosball and I improved a little bit on defense, but ultimately let in a very weak goal and then decided to retire.
When the bar was about to close up, the only three students left, Alex, Andrew and I decided to walk a few blocks north to see the big temple since I hadn't seen it yet. This is the train going by as we walked.
Here's the temple all lit up and looking like a disney castle. It's pretty intense.
When we got back to the hotels Andrew decided to be very safe in walking out onto the street. I'm not sure why, since we didn't even need to cross!
The next morning I took a photo from the balcony of the 2nd floor of the Grand America.
Thursday evening was the student volunteer party. It was on the 9th floor of the Grand America and this is facing north from its balcony towards the rest of downtown SLC.
The party was a really good time as they gave us lots of pizza, wings and beer, and of course we had the good company. There was much mingling and meeting new people.
There was also a little bit of dancing but it never really picked up. It was always just a few people dancing with everyone else watching.Before the party I went in the pool of the Little America which was half indoors and half outdoors. You could swim under a divider to get to the other half. It was quite chilly outside but the pool was on the 2nd floor and I watched the sun set. I also went in again the next morning really early. The pool hours were 4am-11pm.
After the conference ended in the early afternoon we got a taxi to the airport and then a flight back to Seattle. Overall the week was a lot of fun. Next I'll have to post about the work and school portion of the week, which was the reason I was there!
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