On Wednesday, I got homesick. I do not know if it finally hit me that I was away from home and not going back any time soon, or it was the usual curve descending after the initial excitement at the beginning of a new experience those who have been on an exchange year with YFU know well. I think I was heard because as from Thursday, Helen, Tracy and their families opened their homes to us for a weekend in Utah that not only cured my sorrow but also taught us so much about this country`s places and its people.
We landed in Salt Lake City and Helen, Clerg`s host Mom from sixteen years ago welcomed us at the airport that in some ways reminded me of Tallinn (size!) and Samedan (mountains!). We had packed our winter jackets but the weather was incredibly warm and sunny. Tracy, Helen`s husband and our all-knowing guide drove us to meet the city that a group of Mormon pioneers led by Brigham Young had founded in 1847. It is impossible to overlook the city`s impressive Temple Square, for its center - the Salt Lake Temple that the Mormons started to build in 1853 - quietly and powerfully reaches above it.
The beautiful parks and gardens of the Temple Square offer a great venue for those to get married in the Temple, and those who would like to (as seen on a young woman`s face the way she looks at her boyfriend deep in his eyes as they watch the bridal parties take cute posed pictures)... Glad we are done with it.
Helen and Tracy took us to lunch at the Garden Restaurant in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. This was a great idea - the restaurant came with class A views on downtown and the All American Burger with crispy French fries. After the meal we took some time to look around in this beautiful building that until 1987 used to be the exclusive Hotel Utah, and still looks like one, but is now owned by the Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints and used for their Family Search Center for genealogy, church activities in some of the beautiful re-modeled ballrooms and of course, for wedding receptions. Here, it almost makes you want to go through another reception yourself.
As the afternoon gets chillier, the lights on building become brighter. On Thursday evenings, the famous Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir holds his rehearsals at the Temple Square Tabernacle, a round building with an excellent acoustics which is also a part of the complex the Mormon pioneers built in the nineteenth century. Soon we would see people rushing to the rehearsal, hours earlier, to get a good seat.
The sun was almost set when Hal, one of the 500 missionary guides of the Conference Center took us for a free tour in this massive building that, besides an 850-seat theatre and a roof-top wood and park (!) ...
... also hosts a 21,000-seat conference hall, where twice a year general conferences of the church and other appropriate events take place. The place is like the Estonian singing festival arena with a roof. The children in the photo were practicing for the Christmas Concert to come early December. As Helen and Tracy told us, the children had to audition to participate alongside the above mentioned Tabernacle Choir and some of nation wide well known opera stars, and getting tickets is a Christmas miracle itself.
When we finally headed off to Orem, a village in the mountains that reminds me of my dear Engadine so much, we left Salt Lake City behind us gleaming in the last sun rays.
The next morning, our energetic hosts took us for a small hike in the area that includes famous places such as Sundance (the film festival!) and homes of famous people such as Robert Redford. However, we were much more impressed by the wild turkeys paying a visit.
The hike was wonderful, warm in the sun and so, so quiet, compared to the Chicago lifestyle we have been living the past weeks.
The warm sun and the snow (we were about 2000 meters above sea level) created big snow crystals and so hemmed the muddy paths.
In the afternoon, Clerg took me to see his former college that used to be called Utah Valley State College and that now has been upgraded to Utah Valley University. The building is very cosy with its mall-like ground floor, and because he could not really buy anything from the bookshop being a former college student and now a student at the Chicago University, I bought a pair of green, warm socks. The universities of the valley like to paint huge initials on the mountainsides, the best visible monogram Y belongs to the Brigham Young University in Provo, a private mormon university with a great football team called Cougars. Yet another, the University of Utah owns the monogram U.
In the evening, we were invited to have dinner with Helen`s oldest daughter Heidi and her lovely family. When Hannah, 15, taught me and her youngest brother Zachary, 5, to make the American apple pie from scratch, I paid good attention and took lots of notes so that I can make one for Thanksgiving myself, when Nänni and Parentis are coming. The apple pie turned out delicious and made a yummy leftover for the next evening`s Cougars versus Idaho State Vandals game. We won 42-7 and really lived America this weekend.
As if to proceed with my homesickness-therapy, on Saturday, Helen and Tracy took us to Midway - the Swiss Village in the Utah`s Rocky Mountains. We saw lots of Swiss coats of arms, chalets and flags. It was all there in their own artistic twist - Berne, Lucern, Emmental. Also buildings bearing the names of Zermatt, Monte Generoso and similar, and last but not least, a car with a number plate that says Interlaken on it.
We then drove on to Park City - a cute ski resort with small colorful houses that is also home to the famous Sundance Film Festival. The main street goes straight uphill and very appropriately, it started to snow just as we entered the parking lot.
At least the locals were perfectly prepared for the winter.
We spotted what looks like a genuine Banksy amidst several arts galleries in some warmer exhibits. According to some googling, it does seem to be a real Banksy, appeared in the main street of Park City during last year`s film festival.
But to my greatest delight, we also spotted the hat I had been dreaming about ever since Riin and I saw it on the Michigan Street in Chicago a couple of weeks ago! I could not help myself and under Clerg`s and Helen`s approval purchased the last item missing in my get-ready-for-the-Chicago-winter list - the husky hat. So happy!
On Sunday morning, we had the honor of accompanying our hosts to the service in their church and to the following lesson that Tracy taught. For us, a Catholic and a Lutheran, it was a very fascinating experience, especially because it explained many things about Joseph Smith, but most of all because Tracy turned out to be an outstanding teacher who created an atmosphere so welcoming that we did not feel like complete strangers at all.
No words can express the kindness and generosity that we felt with Helen and Tracy this weekend, nor can photos really do justice to this beautiful place on earth. So soon it was time to leave for the airport again, and fly home, to Chicago. We are full of new experiences, memories and warmth, rested and ready to go back to work and school again.
This is of course because taking photographs runs in the family. Very strongly. Very.
I am sure you will have to see dozens of photos of the famous Egg, Bean or, officially, the Cloud Gate, but they are just so cool.
This one is especially to Riin - taken in the reading room of the Chicago`s Visitors` Centre, former City Library. The cafe there became Parentis` favorite and they often went there for maps and leaflets for Daddy and American coffee for Mami and lunch and it was quiet and nice.
Quiet is not something you can say about the rest of the Thanksgiving Chicago. The Magnificent Mile had just started the Christmas season with the Lights Festival and the streets look very cute now with millions of lights lit on the fences and trees along the street. 
Shopping or, in the case below - finding new friends, took us another half a day until we...
The next days were full of entertainment as well. You have already heard about the Aquarium. Then there was the girls day that ended late in the evening with Nänni and me getting a spontaneous manicure in the Old Town. The place looked less fancy than some in its neighborhood but therefore just like in movies, and we were the only customers, and there was a very cool nail fan that fully justified the 12 dollar treatment.
The boys, too, had their day and went to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Among the hundreds of school kids to spend their few Thanksgiving week school days at the city`s museums those two must have made an impression, and seemed to have enjoyed at least as much as the little boys did.
On Thanksgiving evening we were kindly invited to dinner hosted by the Dean of the Law School.
Not only was the food totally self cooked by some of the Faculty`s staff members but it was really so very delicious. Everything we had only read about so far was there - the turkey, the stuffing, the gravy, the pumpkin pie, the sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Well, of the latter I had never heard before but it was yummy, too.
Julietta said Thanksgiving is her favorite festival because it is not about receiving but about giving. And as she so nicely put it that evening - we have a lot to give thanks to.
