Staying Sundance

When I arrived at the Salt Lake City airport, I met my dad and Angela, Cristina, Emily, and Lisa, our roommates for the week. We piled into a rented SUV for one of the most cramped car rides of my life and drove to Park City where we checked into our condo and spent a few days eating, skiing, chatting, and watching movies together. I enjoyed their company so much I've decided to profile each of them below.

The living room of our cozy condo

Angela - The connections between our companions were complicated, and they all start with Meredith. My dad volunteers at a spina bifida clinic a few times a month, and there he met a neurosurgeon (Meredith) from Fresno's Children's Hospital there. Meredith is great company, and she also skis at about the same level as my dad. They go on ski trips a few times a month during winter, and Angela sometimes joins them. Angela is a plastic surgeon from Colombia. She is about 4'11", or possibly even shorter, and is very sweet and funny. She came to the US for medical school and has been here on a work visa ever since. In Colombia, her mother was a governor, then a senator, for 20 years. She remembers that bodyguards always surrounded her family, but in spite of this, her father was once kidnapped for several months when she was younger. She's been going to Sundance to ski and see films for four or five years, and we have her to thank for my dad's initial interest in the Festival.

Cristina - Cristina is Angela's partner. She's from Spain, and although she's not a skier, she gamely bundled up and took a lesson on the first day we headed out. Her undergraduate degree is in hospitality, but now she's working towards a second bachelor's in psychology in Fresno. Apparently they didn't let her keep any of her credits from Spain, so she's had to start from scratch. She has a great sense of humor and is only an inch or so taller than Angela.

Emily - Emily is an orthopedic surgeon, so between her, my dad, and Angela I was pretty confident that any skiing injuries I sustained would be taken care of pretty quickly. She and Angela met in Massachusetts during their residencies and have been friends ever since, keeping in touch through the years. She lives in Ojia where she has a reputation for being a no-nonsense surgeon. She is absolutely hilarious, though, very sarcastic, which of course I loved. She hates flying and getting up early.

Lisa - Lisa is Emily's partner, and, like Cristina, is going back to school to be a "therapist" (not physical; the other kind). She used to be a chef and owned a restaurant in Boston for a while. We talked about running quite a bit, as she's done several marathons. She is obsessed with oral hygiene and we got to hear a pretty funny story about a mishap involving Listerine (long story) during our first night. She and Emily brought a bottle of Fireball, a cinnamon flavored whiskey, to share with everyone, which we drank straight, from tumblers, on the first night, so I knew I liked them immediately. Unfortunately, they were able to stay only three days.

We stayed in a conveniently located condo in Park City in an area called Prospector Square. There were two movie theaters within easy walking distance and we were also close to a few bus stops. The buses there are free and were our main source of transportation to ski slopes, movies, and everywhere else.

The FREE bus that we took to get almost anywhere. It wasn't the fastest mode of transportation, but the price was right, and there were heaters set up at many of the outdoor stops.

 Dad and I also met up with Bill and Loris, once by accident at the base of the Park City resort and once on purpose when they invited us over for wine and tasty appetizers one evening. Bill and Loris are my friend Shannon's parents. The last time I saw Shannon, we discovered, to our horror, that we've known each other for more than twenty years. She joined my second grade class when we were 7ish years old, and we've been friends ever since. Yikes. It was great to see Bill and Loris, who were very gracious hosts. They've retired and moved to Park City permanently, where they live in a fantastic house with a beautiful view of the town nestled below the mountains. Both work at Park City resort, and Bill also manages some very high end properties owned by obscenely wealthy people who like things to be just so when they arrive for occasional trips. He arranges for firewood to be on hand, transportation to be in place, etc. He told us some pretty outrageous stories about the requests he gets. One house has the thermostat set so that the air conditioning goes on at 70 degrees and the heat goes on at 68. Loris said they saw Oprah's helicopter circling the private landing pad at one of the houses recently. And there are children starving in (wherever)...

Main Street in Park City, which has an old, mining town feel. At least, it would if all the stores weren't pricey boutiques and restaurants.....