Park City - a mountain dream
We landed around noon in Salt Lake City, Utah. The weather was foggy and rainy, and we were all exhausted after so many hours of flying.
To tell you the truth, I would turn down a student summer job just because I'd have to spend 12 hours on a
plane again and change several more along the way. In a word, we had no idea how far away we were actually going, and to
put it in numbers - almost 10,000 kilometers. We sat there, and I can assure you everyone was hearing the same question in their head: 'What have I done, why did I come here?'. I can't name the exact reason I agreed to go so far - maybe because of my friends, maybe because I would have the independence that, unfortunately, my age didn't allow me in Bulgaria. I will never forget my mother's expression and answer when I asked her if I could go on Work and Travel. She looked at me, serious as always, and asked in a completely calm tone: 'Which bus goes there?'. And in her defense, I have to say that in the end her question turned out to be the right one, and it would have been good if we had asked it ourselves earlier. Suddenly we realized we had no idea which bus would take us to Park City, where we were supposed to live and work.
Let's sum up what you've learned so far:
1. I study mathematics and I'm very far from being a writer.
2. We're lost in a city of two hundred thousand people.
3. We don't know why we're here or what we're doing.
4. My mother doesn't know what Work and Travel is.
We decided to take things more seriously - we were far too worried - so we sat down to eat. I already gave you one reason why I wouldn't
go back to America; now I have to give you one reason why I would - His Majesty, the American burger. But let's get back to my story.
I knew a few important things from my parents: don't trust strangers, don't get into strangers' cars, don't even talk to
strangers. Ten minutes after I remembered this advice, my friend and I were already sitting in the most enormous SUV, carrying 4
dogs that, size-wise, I can only compare to Grandpa Chocho's donkeys. I tried to tell Ben (the driver) about Grandpa Chocho, but it seems we didn't quite
understand each other. An awkward silence followed, which Ben broke by telling us about the area, the beauty of the
mountains all around us, which peak was which and the history of the place. We fell asleep, almost immediately.
The drive took about 40 minutes, and Ben dropped us off right in front of our housing. At last we had reached the place we would
call home for a few months during our student summer job. When we saw what awaited us inside, we were left speechless, but more on that later.
To be continued...