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lakes made of salt & mormonz.
so i'm on a plane right now- but i'm also in the internet. who'da thunk. i am currently flying from salt lake city to the john f. kennedy international airport in new york city where i will then connect to burlington by 11am. the past week has been a blast and has gone by way, way too quickly. you see, the reason for my travels is my best friend, shannon, who attends westminster college in the sugarhouse district of salt lake. we've been best friends for the past five years or so and you may recall my post two months ago about booking the tickets i used to come visit her.
christopher dalglish (another great friend of mine and lover of shannon's) and i stayed in burlington monday and got a ride to the airport with our pal, bo around 3pm. boarding the plane last tuesday was one of the best feelings ever. i captured as much lifey footage as possible and finally finished reading twilight (which, may i add, is AMAZING.) we flew into detroit and caught our connector just in time, landing in salt lake city around 8:45pm. just barely dodged losing my wallet and then had the happy reunion with my best friend ever.
sleep came easy that night, what with the jet lag and fatigue from all the travel setting in. wednesday morning brought some typical college cafeteria breakfast and a little taste of home with green mountain french roast coffee. mmmmmm. we drove with two of shan's friends to park city that morning and the drive was incredible. salt lake is set between gorgeous mountains that, on a day with no inversion, are some of the most beautiful things i've seen in quite a while. the anticipation of arriving to snowboard at park city was set on a back burner while i admired the mountains and relished in the happiness of being with two of my favourite people in the world and finally being able to meet some of the people that my best friend gets to hang out with on a regular basis out in this western world.
when we arrived in the parking lot of the mountain it was sunny and warm and all-in-all amazing- putting our east coast weather to shaaame. chris and i didn't bring much money in way of tickets for riding and, luckily, were able to find two young folks willing to give us their passes as they left so we could enjoy the snow that they had already been able to shred upon. the conditions were awesome and being with my best friends was even better. afterwards cassi fed me mini raviolis while shannon was in class and they were soooo delicious. (thank you, cassi!)
thursday was a big day of classes for shan so chris and i ventured around downtown to explore the city a bit before heading back up to westminster to have some dinner with our roomies for the week. later that night came the first wild shenanigans for the best friend pair since summer time and i was more than excited because it was ladies' night.
i don't know if you are aware of this, but when be fri & st end are taking on a city, we go hard. jessica, shan, and i went out to a house gathering after probably an hour or so in the room to haang for a bit before going to a party. i was able to meet a few more of shan's better friends and then we were off and runnin'. the party we ended up at was full of people and everyone was in great moods- good vibes all over the place. shan captured some fantastic photos of all of us bondin' out on the town.
ahahah. so all in all, the night was definitely a success. fun was had by all. friday morning i woke up pleasantly in shan's bed and by ten we were having breakfast in shaw and getting ready to drive up to park city. around one was when my nausea hit and ended my snowboarding for the day- instead, i spent my afternoon with jessica in the lodge, scootin' outside to vomit every fifteen or so minutes. the rest of the day remained to be mellow and around eight i finally got some food in my stomach and got it to stay there. saturday was a day of exploring the city a bit more and i purchased a couple souvenirs. the best souvenir however, came that evening when shannon and i bit the bullet and finally got our friendship tattoos.
these were not just any tattoos, you see. we couldn't have any lame/girly tatz so we decided on the simplicity of just two lines. what those lines represent? that's up to you to take whichever way you may.
going out saturday night was extremely fun and the best way for us to show off our fresh ink. we were late to start because of our tattoos but by the time we got to the first house we were more than ready to go. shan, jess and i started off in the bathroom to get ourselves in the right party state of mind and then began the shenanigans. this did not last very long though because while we were in the crowded living room, we had just the right line of vision to see the uniformed officer banging on the door. we cleared out asap and hitched a ride over to a house closer to the university. highlights of the night- another girly bathroom sesh, traded one of my favourite outlandish rings for a beverage, saw some old friends i hadn't hung out with since i was probably thirteen.. and then comes my black wall of forgetfulness.
sunday gave us a day of recuperation because we were unable to find a ride to park city so instead, shan, chris and i roamed salt lake city and saw some of the sights. some of the special stops included the mormon temple, "slc pepper", the olympic plaza in a shopping complex, and (saving the best for last) the house of π. this was some of the best pizza i've ever eaten and because we had it on march 14th (3/14 = pi day) we got to have our pies half off! amazing.
sunday night was another mellow one and in the morning we were up at nine for my last westminster breakfast and the trek to park city for my last day of shredding. the weather was perfect, the company was amazing, the sun burned my face and i couldn't have asked for a better way to end my vacation.
i probably shouldn't have waited until after the trip for this post since it turned into a huge bombarding of way too much information but if you've made it this far, thank you for reading and i hope you had at least a little fun reliving one of the best weeks i've had ever. to really relive the action, check out our edit from the trip and prepare for the bestvibesever. you can also experience the essence of be fri/st end.
i hope everyone who reads this has a best friend in the world that they can get as excited about because i know it's not hard to find and it's one of the most important relationships you can have in your life. i never even thought i'd be one of those people lucky enough to have a best friend for years and years and years. it's the best feeling in the world to know that there's at least one person out there who thinks similarly enough to me that we can get the same stupid jokes and share the same morals (or lack thereof) but also thinks differently so we can both learn from each other and provide alternate points of view when we reach hard places. xoxo. maggie.
i love you.
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