Also this place holds happy personal memories for me. The first time I went travelling, in May 2008, my initial destinations were New York and Washington DC: the New York hostel was full of dodgy tramps, and the DC hostel was full of preppy political interns, and in neither case was there anything happening socially. So by the end of my first week I was feeling a bit isolated; and perhaps not entirely sure, with at least three months still to go, that this travelling lark was really my cup of tea. But then I got to the HI Hostel in Chicago, and suddenly found myself out on the drink with interesting people from all over the world, and I've never looked back since. Now I'm back at the very same hostel, almost exactly five years later.
My time here got off to a great start with a trip to the theatre to see a musical called The Book of Mormon. Most of you will have heard of it, but click the link if you haven't. As you might expect from the creators of 'South Park', it's not for the faint-hearted or the easily-offended. It gets going early on with a song called 'F*** You, God' and then it really starts to cut loose. Not so much 'close to the bone' as 'swimming in the bone marrow'. Overall it's a masterpiece from beginning to end, pant-wettingly funny, and I'd go so far as to say that it's funnier than 'Spamalot', which I saw in Glasgow a few years ago. My individual MVP prize goes to an actor called Ben Platt (he played Benji in the recent movie 'Pitch Perfect', if anyone's seen that): if he's not winning Oscars and earning $20m a picture within the next year, then there is no justice in the world.
The show is also an good example of something we Brits often forget: nobody satirises the Americans, or the various forms of American Christianity, with even half the wit and insight of Americans themselves. For all the crassness and ignorance you occasionally encounter in the USA - and having just taken the Greyhound through the Midwest, I'm not under any illusions about that - there is, at least in educated urban circles and throughout the counterculture, a genuine collective self-awareness next to which the cheap anti-American sarcasm of your average Guardian columnist or BBC rent-a-comedian looks really quite lame.
Enough ranting. For once I'm going to issue a spoiler about the next blog: it'll be from Chicago. I'm not going anywhere for a while. There's lots of food and beer I need to check out and then tell you all about. I do all this for my audience really, you know.
Just remember in the meantime: Salt Lake City isn't a place. It's an idea.
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| Downtown Chicago, from Grant Park. |
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| Looking west up the Chicago River, from North Lake Shore Drive |
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| Navy Pier. A reprise of a photo from my original 2008 blog. |
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| 5 years later on and I can STILL get a meatball footlong for $5! Admittedly that's now £3.24, whereas it was more like £2.54 back then. But one mustn't grumble. |
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| Edd vs Food #6 A restaurant called Yolk. As you might expect, they specialise in omelettes, crepes, etc... This is the Big Texas Fajita Omelette, containing fried chicken, with cheese and guacamole and sour cream and diced red potatoes and salsa dip. |
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| Something to brighten up even the rainiest of days |
