Tall Bikes, Bars, Crusties, and Cowards

So I shouldn't have written so early on Friday. I missed out the best part of my day.

I've been trying this online dating website (don't judge me) to meet people in Utah, and I met up with one of those people the very first night I was in town. We went to dinner at this really decent Indian place. Totally tacky decor and really rather tasty food. I had this very nice veggie dish with a lot of coconut. Anyway, he told me he'd found out about this tall bike jousting event, which sounded intriguing.

We went, and met in the middle of this plaza thing I'd wandered around in during the day. There were a bunch of hipsters and crusty kids wandering around with bikes, and we talked to a couple of them, and I was in full form, as I'm sure you can imagine. For some unknown reason, I am completely incapable of making a sane first impression on anyone, more on that later, I'm sure.

There was a guy there with a tall bike with a basket on the back, playing "ironic" hits of the eighties as skinny little cooler-than-thou kids danced. The bike had Christmas tree lights wrapped around it, and he was wearing a sheet and calling himself "Tall Bike Jesus," and barking away on a megaphone he thoroughly abused for the whole night. My friend and I sort of stood around feeling awkward and I took tons of pictures none of which are any good. Eventually, the pack took off, headed for an underpass, and we the miserable walkers got left rather in the dust. We put the motor to it, and wound up on the wrong side of the train tracks which run through town, so we had to double back, but by this time we could hear yells and broke into something of a run.

When we got there, they'd formed a ring around two skinny little boys (and occasionally girls) mounting these absurd bikes (they even had squires to hand up their lances and hold their mounts, hah) and then riding towards each other as fast as they could with stuffed animals duct taped to the end of what appeared to be telescoping broom handles, and trying to knock each other off.

A word about tall bikes for the unaware: tall bikes are essentially what they sound like. Two or three bikes are welded together, one on top of the other, so the bike becomes two or three bikes tall, approximately four to six feet. The pedals are on the top bike frame, and the chain goes all the way down to the bottom, and connects. I think they tend to be one speeds, but it looked like one guy was shifting gears, so maybe I'm wrong about this.

The whole thing was alternately hilarious and blindingly awesome. Occasionally both at the same time. Hipsters apparently don't believe in safety gear. It musses their hair.

Yesterday was uneventful. I thought I'd found the perfect apartment, but alas, it was not to be.

Today, I went for brunch with another gentleman from the internet (I appear to be quite the online hussy) at a very nice place, again FRAUGHT with hipsters, all of whom had marvelous tattoos, and then went for a walk in the park where I played in a stream and got properly sunburned. Farmer's tans R us, apparently.

I then hunted for apartments and met some sketchy people, and generally began to despair.

I took myself to a movie tonight, and got stuck going to Applebees, because by the time I got downtown (I got lost) it was a little late to go looking for something better. No matter. My waiter was the king of all waiters. Attractive, intelligent, charming, inclined to losing battles with Pepsi machines... The resturant was pretty sparsely populated, so he spent a fair amount of time, leaned up against my booth, talking to me. Eventually he even sat down. I was smitten.

So of course I did what I always do. I panicked, became incredibly awkward, tipped far too much, and left without giving him my number. Or getting his.

And now I'm weighing the merits of going back. On the one hand, I might actually luck out and have him as my waiter again (not that I can even remember his name accurately) and we can contuine to talk about how Pepsi machines can prove very deadly, and how he has a degree in environmental science (sigh) and how we both like to hike and blah blah blah. Or things could turn out as I'm sure they must. He'd get a little creeped out by the fact that I'm back, I'd feel trapped, and unable to flee, and would spend my whole meal staring at my food or pretending to read and then run away as fast as I could. On the other hand, it is Applebees. I don't really want to go back. At all....

What is a cowardly girl to do?

-Rachael

Land Ho!

So I'm in Utah.




Finally.




Anyway, today is the first day in a long time this has felt like an adventure. Flying over Utah today I couldn't help but get excited. The American West is an exhilarating place. What with the mountains, and flying over the Grand Canyon and all, I just wanted to jump out of the plane right then and there, I didn't care where I landed. That's the first time I've ever felt so excited to get off a plane. Between the huge mountains and the beautiful lakes and the hot sun and the two crazy European men sitting on either side of me, I was totally freaking out to get here.

Now that I'm here, I'm not quite sure what to think. Utah feels very different from home. The city kind of peters out in weird ways. One second you're in the middle of downtown, and the next you're in this kind of vacant looking wasteland with myriad buildings and broken down looking train tracks, and the next second you're in a pleasant suburb. The funny thing is that it doesn't feel like encroaching poverty, it really just sort of feels unfinished. Like someone forgot to keep going with the city.

Another odd thing is that there are construction sites EVERYWHERE downtown. I thought the recession was supposed to be affecting the southwest more so than anywhere else, but it seems that Utah is in the midst of building skyscrapers and fancy looking buildings downtown. The construction is active, too. There are men in hard hats working, and those enormous multi-story cranes moving around in ninety something degree heat.

I'm not sure what to think of the downtown area. It really feels unfinished somehow, unlived. Not like Pittsburgh, which feels past its prime and dead somehow.

I loved the temple, though. I went on a tour with two very cute little missionaries, a girl from Mexico and a girl from Taiwan. Sisters Rodriguez and Lee. They were earnest, sweet, dedicated to what they were saying, and a little overly enthusiastic about my project, which is funny, because I wouldn't say my project is striving for evangelism, or even striving to be particularly pro-Mormon.

I'm trying not to really worry about my project for these first few days, though. I'm really just cruising around in my rental car, taking tons of pictures and trying to find places to live, and to learn my way around. I think I'm going to try to abandon the car tomorrow, though. I want to learn the EXTENSIVE public transportation really well.

The hostel I'm staying in is very cute indeed, but I think the walls are paper thin, so I'm going to have to keep the old headphones on at all times. I'm not sure how best to utilize it. I think I'm going to have to be a good deal more friendly than I have been recently. Isn't it funny to hear me say that? I am like the friendlyness QUEEN.

I'll tell you more about it tomorrow. I think I really need some time to internalize it all. And make lists. I need to make some really bitchin' lists.

-Rachael