Salt Lake City

I am now in Salt Lake City for the next couple of weeks while Dazza finishes the end of his training. There are the most beautiful mountains on either side of the valley. Last night we went up to Park City which is a small town in the mountains reminiscient of Aspen but not quite that rich - yet!! We had ribs at a local restaurant and wandered about. This morning we went hiking for the first time (for me not Dazza) and saw a MOOSE!!! - that's the big hairy kind with antlers not the scottish small rodent kind that I co-habited with in Edinburgh for 5 years!! It was a magnificent animal and quite happily munched on some flowers as Dazza and I ummed and awed. The views up in the mountains are stunning and if it weren't for all the ski parifinelia then you'd feel wonderfully in touch with nature.

The most bizarre happening was on the way down. We met a long crocodile of young girls being frog-marched up the mountain by a blonde woman dressed as snow white!!! I kid you not. We felt so sorry for all these prepubescent girls being tortured by camp leaders who think nothing of dressing as though they work at disney world and stomping up mountains in Utah.

So, a lot has happened since I last wittered on this site. I had a fantastic time helping my friend Kristen move from Houston to Nashville with the added bonus of having her sister Sara along for the ride too. It took us 18 and a half hours to get to Nashville and I think such craziness deserves a post of its own - watch this space!!

Then I went to Miami to meet Dazza to look for apartments. This turned out to be much more of a saga than first anticipated.

We had set up a plethera of realtors to meet, apartments to see and also a girl to meet to see if sharing would be a good answer to the thorny issue of how expensive everything is in Miami. The first day, Thursday, we saw a bunch of yuechy yuechy beside D's work, we saw this girl, Monica's not quite finished 2 bedroom apartment and a few places in south beach. We didn't really want to be in south beach because of the commute to work for D but the cost for having a non-yuechy place near his work in Pinecrest was proving very difficult. So ... it was coming down to south beach or if this girl Monica was nice then a room share near D's work.
Monica hadn't been able to meet us to see the apartment that morning so her Mom did it instead. So we met her that night. She is a pretty girl with long dark hair and eyes. She has just graduated from Columbia with a comparitive lit degree and is currently working for one of the democratic hopefuls for Florida governor. She is lively and intelligent and talks a mile a minute. We hit it off immediately and thought our prayers had been answered. Dazza felt exactly the same - I was somewhat surprised as he'd not been keen on sharing again as its been 6 years since we last had a roommate. So we called Monica and said we'd like to take it. Great she said and arranged to meet the next day, Friday, in the evening to discuss furniture and moving arrangements.
So we had a great day on Friday driving around Miami getting to know the place. Both of us have jaws that are kind of dragging on the ground at the realization that we will be living with palm trees!! Anyway, that evening at 5 we went back to our hotel (doubletree in coconut grove - awesome by the way found on priceline for $100 a night) to get a snack before meeting Monica.
The phone goes..... its Monica. She tells Dazza that she's decided to go with someone else for the apartment. They apparently could pay more and after discussing it with her parents and she had to think of herself blah blah blah... We were gutted!! Here we thought we would have a great new friend and have our apartment stuff sorted all in a one-er. But instead we had to scramble to find places to look at on a Friday night in Miami ....aaaaaAAAAAAAAArrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhh!!!

We got on craigslist (thank god for craigslist) and set up 4 places to see that night. The first was a studio in South Beach. It was on the pricey side but the photos looked great. We were not disappointed. It is only a year old and has stainless steel kitchen and a washer and dryer in the apartment. It is small but not too small and feels safe. We took it. So we will be in the north of south beach in prime position to watch all the craziness - the movie stars, the body builders, the tanning obsessives, the transvestites, the tourists, the multitude of bright colours everywhere. Although the apartment situation with Monica was a terrible thing to happen, I think we will enjoy south beach much more (her apartment was in dadeland across from the biggest mall I think I've ever seen.....!!!).

So now we just have to decide how much of our stuff to take and how much to leave in Indianapolis. Until that time though we have two weeks to hang out with mormons (we are going to visit the temple), climb more mountains, and chill out before the craziness of moving and realty hits.

(PS apologies for typos and just my weird and wonderful spellings - just in case anyone wanted proof that I am actually dyslexic or as I prefer to term it dephlumphlic - but this library computer won't let me do spell check!!!)