Wealth of Utah

Woke up, returned my key to the hostel and walked to the bus station. Sleeping in a wheelchair like that doesn’t look nice at all. I still haven’t received my key money from the hostel, but I’ll update this once I get it. (Update: I got the money back after a while.) What I really liked with the hostel is that they had no “resort fee”. The latter is a second hotel price that can sometimes be as high as 50 USD and is supposed to cover all kinds of services at the hotel. All hotels in Las Vegas have it. But you can’t say no to it, so it’s just part of the room fee, but could be a pain in the ass for people who don’t read the small print. I booked a bed at Las Vegas Hostel for example, who didn’t publish anything about their resort fee, and then I got an email saying that they would add 20 USD per night. Sin City Hostel was the only one that had none of that. Showers were hot, people were nice, and I’d recommend it. If I get my key money back :p [EDIT: And yes, I got the key money back :)]

Arizona

Utah

I have no idea what this structure is.

Salt Lake City train station!

It’s good that we’re not here on a Sunday, since that’d mean that I’d be in church instead of taking a train to the board games.

The difference from Las Vegas and Los Angeles is striking.

Bicycles on the subway, like in every civilized country (unlike for example Stockholm).

Rainbow missing the church! That’s the symbol of Mormonism. Because first, Jesus was born in Palestine. But later, after getting killed, he came to America and told them what to do. So he went a bit west of the holy country, before returning to heaven!

The subway!

I came to the house of David, Amy and Kajsa, and got meatballs – and a dog!

Here’s the recipe, as well as a recipe for Swedish smörgåsbord, including pickled cucumber, dill potatoes and cloudberries.

Here we’re playing Candamir! A game in the Settlers series. Once a village is built, everyone is their own adventurer and tries to enrich their village, getting points for what they do. I bet 100% on just getting animals and won. I was too greedy to think about all those getting resources to get stronger things. What’s a partly Swedish family doing in Utah by the way? Well, the grandfather of David was convinced by those Mormon missionaries in Jönköping and went to USA right after World War II, bringing David’s dad. So they have some Swedish traditions and invited me to come and play board games which I’m very grateful for. We also played Wealth of Nations, which was a fantastic game.

And the dogs loved me, wanted to sit on my lap the whole time. Of all the great dogs that I’ve met on this trip, these might be the most catlike. Despite being totally addicted to me, which cats aren’t, so very doglike after all. But super nice dogs. And they helped me a lot in the games, and whispered to me what to do. Although Wealth of Nations was just a tiny bit too complicated for them, so I lost. The game was simply too fun that I forgot about the victory conditions. But if I ever get to play it again, I’ll beat its ass.