"You Talk Funny."

Here is my final post on Salt Lake. I was only there for four days. It's not like that many amusing things happened. Well, maybe to me there were, since I was kind of looking at this trip cynically to begin with. So I have four different stories to share with you.

While I was in Phoenix, I couldn't find my gate, or really any gate, that wasn't U.S. Airways. And, since my connecting flight to Salt Lake was on Delta, and boarding in about an hour, it was somewhat critical. I stopped and asked an old man who worked for the airport where to go. I apologized, explaining I'd never been to the Phoenix airport before. The man smiled and asked, "Where are you from?"

Thursday night I had the rehearsal and dinner afterwards with everyone in the wedding party, which included the groom's family and the bride's family. I was the only person that knew no one and was from another part of the country. Also, in Utah, when you tell people you're from Minneapolis, they seem genuinely impressed. Also, apparently in Salt Lake, calamari is still that unusual, crazy thing no one eats. My friend bough me a shirt, to fit in better I think, that read in large bold letters: SL, UT. Amused as I was by it, I didn't wear it.

I spent the night with my friend on Thursday. Honestly, I wasn't sure I would live to see the next morning. I know it gets hot in Minnesota, with humidity, but I have never experienced heat like I did in Utah. When I got into Salt Lake, it was 93 degrees F (which is almost 34 degrees C for all you non-Americans out there) at 2:00 in the afternoon. And for those of you that know me, I can get sick in the heat when it's only 78 F (25 C). By the time we got to her apartment after dinner, it had cooled down significantly outside. It was really quite pleasant. She opened the door and a wave of heat came out of her apartment. I looked at the thermostat and it read 96 F (35 C). Their air conditioning was broken. They didn't have any windows open, and the ceiling fans weren't running. Maybe these things don't help the heat there. I'm not sure. I took two showers before midnight to cool down. I turned the water on as cold as I could get it. It was the coldest water I'd ever felt; it hurt so badly to stand under that water. I dried myself off, put clothes on, opened the door and was sweating again. At midnight or one, we finally relocated to her mom's house. We slept in the basement with the air conditioning running. I almost cried out of happiness.

I realize now that I do have a Minnesota accent. Originally, I had been lead to believe that I spoke fairly close to standard American English. The guy on the right is the one that said I talked funny. He posed like that in the picture on purpose. He thought he was incredibly amusing, or that I was really attracted to him, or something that he and I both clearly weren't. For some reason, I'm not especially concerned with what he thinks about how I talk.

Here are the most common things I heard over my four day stay:
1. "What just came out of your mouth, that was all Minnesotan."
2. "Say 'crayon.' Okay, now say 'milk.' Now 'boat.'"
3. "I like listening to Maggie; she's so Minnesotan."
4. "You don't have as much of an accent as some people from Minnesota do."
And my very favorite:
5. "You're a disappointment to talk to. You have almost no accent."