oldskool

The only downside I had when I was there was that on occasions where we didn't feel like taking advantage of the outdoors and didn't want to go downtown to get drunk at the Port-'o-call bar...we would struggle to think of things to do. We used to BBQ in the sun on these days and just relax.

However, that was before I had a kid and now any 'bored' time is no so much like that.

Actually, in Winter we never had an issue as we always went skiing.

Since I lived there the city has changed a lot too and as I understand it there are more things to do on the summer days when the outdoors are not beckoning.

Perhaps after my visit next week I will tell you how much I think the place has changed (for better or worse) in the 7 years since I left.

Weasy

Thank you so much for your comments and nice that they are from someone who has actually lived there. I agree with what you say about Mormons (sorry LDS as neighbours as I lived next door to some in Connecticut. The alcohol thing doesn't bother us at all as we don't go to bars very much any way and I've lived in a couple of places already where you can't buy alcohol in supermarkets and that's fine.

What you have said pretty much echoes word for word what the guy who wants my hubby to move there has said so nice to know he's not painting an over positive picture.

It would be very interesting to hear what you find on your visit if you wouldn't mind coming back on and posting. Do you know what the public schools are like?

Lou
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sambapink

My sister lives in Park City.. I have been once.. It truely is spectacular! I have no knowledge of Salt Lake really - just went shopping there! My sister has lived in Park City for 20 years and they love it.. Park City itself though is VERY expensive.. because of the Skiing etc its fairly touristy and therefore expensive.. They get an unreal amount of snow.. infact my sister said this past season they got sooooo much snow that it went as high as the fences in peoples yards and dogs were roaming the streets because there was nothing to keep them in!!

I personally can't wait to go back and visit... beautiful, beautiful part of the world..

ddagmar

My mormon brother-in-law knows several ladies who do.

oldskool

[QUOTE=Weasy;6225872]Do you know what the public schools are like?/QUOTE]

Personally I don't know, although I'll be finding out in a few years time with my little fella.

However, we did move out with a bunch of ex-pats to all work for one company and two of those workers had families. They always spoke highly of the schools, but one of the kids (the older one) had issues fitting in as the high school they were in the catchment area of was one where more LDS kids went too. Amongst teens, if you are different then it can become an issue. The younger kids has no issue at all. Even with the issue, the older teen did well at school, quickly got on the honor roll and all that. I think he was just singled out by a small group of peers...can happen to any kid with a different accent. He was popular with the teen girls for the same reason from what I recall.

There is good diversity though and plenty of schools to choose from. As I heard it they are mostly very highly regarded and all the kids who went out did well. The kids in Salt Lake Valley are good kids, form good families who study well.

YankeemovingAbroad

I want to qualify my opinion in a posting from earlier.Again I want to repeat that just about anyone can fit in to a new place if they try hard enough.Mormons are not known to be bad people at all.I have personally spoken with several young men in new jersey who were doing their missionary work trying to encourage others to join the Mormon religion.

I have taken the time to learn abit about that religion and find some of their beliefs abit strange but then again there are contraditions in most every religion.SLC is a beautiful city and my family who have personal knowledge of the place enjoyed their time there.

They found the people to be friendly once you get to know folks better.Keep in mind that ethnic diversity is very very small in Utah,so if diversity is a important factor for you, Utah may seem limited.On the other hand if cold weather sports are seen as a big plus there are few places better than Utah.

It really depends on what is important to a new resident.Main thing imo for someone attempting to immigrate to America is to recieve a job offer in any state. Regardless if that place turns out not to be the idea city/state to live long term.You get here find out if you like it, build up senority in your company while establishing residency status and then work toward becoming an American if so desired.Later on you can allways move else where if that desire is stronge.

As an American I prefer living in places that offer diversity on many levels including entertainment,education opportunities(would not want to go to Brigham Young University nor would I send a kid of mine there),ethnic diversity is very important to me because I want to be around all ethnicities and don't want to live in a "only _____" community.

So I would say move to Utah establish your self over time and if you don't like it there at least later you can migrate to a different American state.America is much closer to England than Australia, which is a big deal when visiting family back home.

Sally Redux

Oh! It doesn't look as restrictive as I thought.

YankeemovingAbroad

People still wear underwear?

Thydney

Isn't it Dolly Lhama?

Ray

It is ....She likes the underwear ...

oldskool

So I have been in SLC since Saturday...

On the day of arrival you couldn't see much of anything, the mountains or otherwise. Someone did tell me that SLC suffered from a great smog nowadays. When I lived here 7 years ago there was no such thing and I doubted what I was told, but for Saturday I was quite worried this might be true. The fog might have been caused by an inversion of some sort, but it wasn't smog by any means and it cleared up by the end of the day. Since then the weather has been good although we had rain and v.small hail in the valley today...the mountains have been pasted white with snow. It's very pretty.

A lot has changed since I lived here 7 years ago, very much for the better I might add although a number of old haunts I had are no longer there, eateries more than anything. I used to regularly go to Frontier Pies, Tucci's, Dee's and the Black Angus chain.

F. Pies was a locally owned place that had many home cooked dishes, always served the tastiest corn bread and desert pies. From what I read, the owners couldn't compete with the many newer chains moving in on the city. It's a pity as this place was a gem, but it never looked like much so I can see why it wasn't doing the numbers.

Tucci's (Italian) is down to one location now. I went there tonight and it was okay, but not as good as I recall. Seems like it is under new ownership. I don't like the idea that my old Tucci's in the Fort Union area is now something else. I will miss that.

Black Angus pulled out of Utah completely it seems as both places are gone. I know, it's only Black Angus but it was a good place for cheap meat and veg meals. We asked in the Fort Union Starbucks about it and they didn't even know it had closed, apparently saw people at it a few days prior. Seems it may have closed in the last week or so.

Dee's is like Denny's, but locally owned and quite good. They still have three eateries here, but sold most of what they had as the family was looking to get out of the business and the land was more valuable than the business. They sold sites to Walgreen's. A great shame. I only saw Dee's in a film the other week, can't remember which.

SLC's electronics store, Ultimate Electronics has gone. The struggling chain pulled out of Utah too it seems.

Anyway, these probably aren't things anyone else is concerned about so let's discuss the changes that are useful...

The shopping is better, mostly in part due to 'The Gateway' which was built in time for the Olympics (just before I left). A lot of chains that were never in Utah are now here. This is a good thing as some of the more upscale chains were not here before and shopping could be a little restrictive. I don't think this is the case now.

Starbucks has sprung up everywhere. Now some people might say this has happened in every city, but the reason it is important for SLC is because it shows how much change there is in the acceptance of non-LDS in the community. True LDS do not drink Caffiene you see.

There are a lot of bars downtown now. There were good bars before, but so much more now. The drinks code is the same although it isn't really an issue anyway. Nevertheless, the fact that there are more bars again demonstrates that acceptance and diversity is on the increase.

I've seen a lot more indian eateries here. The one's here previously were crap, few in number and it wasn't the most popular food. While there are LDS people from all over the world I doubt that every Indian here is LDS, in fact I would guess mostly otherwise. Again...diversity is on the increase.

Best Buy and Ikea are here now. I guess it was only a matter of time.

There is a cool British good shop opened. Don't know if the old one is still here, but it was limited anyway. This new one is the best stocked I've seen in the US. Right next door, they've opened a british tea shop too...one of the rare places in the US you can get pasties, sausage rolls, bacon butties, cream tea and so on.

There seems to be many more local brews on tap now. The Porcupine, an old haunt of mine had pretty much all breweries and their beers represented - around 20+ different microbrews. These beers are good too...I've never had better microbrews in US or Canada. SLC is the place for tasty beer it seems.

They are building a soccer staduim for Real SLC, which is apparently drawing crowds of 16,000 to each game.

More churches of different types have sprung up. They are still vastly outnumbered, but its a good thing. I'm not religious at all but I like the idea of the religious diversity further breaking down. The hotel we are in listed churches in their handbook and I was surprised to see that one of the alternatives has managed to put a church up on the same street as the mormon temple, about a block down. Quite frankly, this is amazing.

Walking and driving around, plenty of new buildings and homes have sprung up or are still in development. Downtown has changed a lot, with many nice buildings up.

Nope, didn't see any fundamentalist mormons in those dresses and with that hair those polygamists have on the TV. When I lived here before I saw those types a few times a year but for the most part people still look like normal US citizens and even when talking to them you can't often tell if they are LDS.

There's a 'gay area' and a Utah Pride parade every year now. Let me tell you why this is a shocker to me. When I lived here previously, there was one gay bar had opened the year before and was promptly destroyed a few months later by a hurricane. Nope, you don't get those very often here, decades apart really and what was even more unusual was that despite striking downtown and doing some small damage to surrounding buildings the only building with real damage, enough to destroy it was the gay bar. It was seriously spooky in that it felt like some sort of finger of god had come down and crushed something it felt to be undesirable from the holy city. Honestly, I nearly signed up for the church there and then it was such a coincidence.

So the town never seemed really gay friendly. In fact, the only gay I knew here at that time was the worlds worst car salesman. I went for a test drive and he promptly told me he was gay and sat in the passenger seat jabbering on about his lifestyle. I had the test drive and drove back to the sales lot, but he insisted we should drive around some more and chat. He really just wanted to talk about being gay and I'm sure he was trying to hit on me. Anyway, I went back the same place to perhaps buy a vehicle a month later and he wasn't there. I was told he'd been fired and I could see why as he wasn't really trying to sell cars, at least not to me. He meant no harm though...he was just very outgoing and friendly. I'm sure some of their customers would have complained though.

Anyway, I went to a Depeche Mode gig about six months later and he was there. I couldn't believe he remembered me and again I really think he was trying to hit on me. The funny thing is, I'm the straightest guy on the planet really and I was totally embarrased by the whole thing. I had told my Wife about this car salesman before and she was getting a hot dog and beer at the time 'Jake' had found me at the gig. Guess what the cow did? She came over, instantly figured out using her gaydar who this guy was and then stood aside. I was hoping she would come over and do a 'come along dear' type of thing, but the devious cow decided to let me stew in the mess I was in.

Anyway, seems to me it's a good thing to have that extra gender diversity going on. I really think this place has loosened up a lot and I'm beginning to think the 'finger of god' was indeed just a coincedence.

Property seems cheap to me, coming in from San Francisco. As I heard it recently, in one recent years things jumped up 20% but now its heading down like everywhere else particularly west of the I-15. $400k will get you a five or six bedroom 'mansion' with a yard the size of nothing I've ever lived in. Plenty of reasonable houses at $300k and down to $200k. If I pay the equivalent of what I would pay in San Francisco for a townhome I really would be looking at something like Southfork Ranch from Dallas.

There are many new houses on the market for $300k with about 3,000sq ft. Really nice looking properties. There's a whole new community built around these called 'Daybreak'. Very nice tidy residential area no more than 3 years old. This could be tempting.

All the new houses still have basements...I always found this a good thing due to the extra room and storage possibilities.

Went around with two different realtors. Second one was a train wreck and got lost driving to every house. On two occassions we stopped at the house recognizing we were 'already there' in our car while she drove right past it and continued oblivious. Last house took her an hour to find, with us telling her where we felt it was...which proved to be right.

The sad tale is that she had in car navigation and we didn't. She also asked us if we were familiar with SLC's grid address system. We were. She should have been. You don't really need a nav system in SLC anyway.

Here's the other thing...she also locked me in one of the properties. After we looked around the downstairs we went upstairs. We hadn't been upstairs, but she thought we had and must've assumed we had left the property. When we came down, she had left the house, locked the front door and got back into her car. She had no idea we were still in the house and not in our car behind her. She had locked me in someone elses house. Even when I managed to let myself out and walk down the drive she didn't realize what was going on and I had to go and tell her that I had just let myself out and the place was unlocked as a result, she had to go lock it. Utterly clueless.

We've decided we're moving back with a hope of settling here. I'm already looking forward to getting a season pass to ski at Alta. Gotta get a job first though. Can't wait to see Jake the failed car salesman again too.

Ozzidoc

Fantastic post! All sounds very exciting

Weasy

Thanks for that oldskool.
Lou
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JAJ

If you are permanent residents in Australia, you should have a think about whether you are ready to abandon your status in favour of what may be a less certain future (at least in visa terms) in the United States.

Would you want to have the option of returning to Australia later on?

And what would be the timescale for obtaining a green card? If you did get a Green Card, it would then be 5 years to wait for U.S. citizenship.

In fact, you also need to ask what non-immigrant visa your husband would be on (probably L if he has worked for the company for 12 months). Australian citizens in professional occupations can now work in the U.S. on the E-3 visa but that does not apply to you if you are only permanent residents.

Weasy

Hi Jeremy, yes, I have thought of little else over the last few days. We have PR and would have until the end of 2011 before our visas expire and we've read that we would have to spend a further 12 months here before we'd be eligible for citizenship.

We've also been told that the L1A visa is the visa we need the company to apply for as green cards come through quicker with this visa. My hubby has worked for his company for over 12 months.

I must say I do have severe doubts about this move but if we turn the chance down it could be missing a great chance for him to move on in his career. I also have severe misgivings about the schooling in Utah. So many things to think about.

I guess we could say (to ourselves) that we'll go for 3 years max so that his resume has taken a big leap on and then come back here....

Decisions, decisions..

Lou
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