Sundance baby, Sundance.

Today was my first day back at work after a beautiful weekend in Utah. While in the beehive state, my time was evenly divided between Provo, home of my alma matre, and Park City. For the last 4 years of my life I have attended the Sundance Film Festival. Until this year, I have hosted friends from across the U.S. at my apartment in Provo durring the festival. This year I have returned to Los Angeles and thus, traded in my status as a Park City Local for a tan and blonder hair.

Needless to say, I was not about to let the distance nor the cost of the trip detur me from returning once again to Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. For me, the experience is not so much in the films, parties, celebs or music. It is the reunion of good friends and conversations shared amidst the cold air and chaotic mess of Hollywood vacationing in Utah.

Personally, I take advantage of the location of the event and spend most of the day time snowboarding at Park City Mountain Resort. Along with my regular attendance to the festival, I am a regular season pass holder at PCMR and as such, make as much time as possible for riding on the mountain. With the extreme cold and large volume of snow to date, I really enjoyed the beauty of the outdoors streaking into my peripherial as I tore down the mountain.

I only saw one movie and spent one and a half days on the mountain. I had a toothache on arrival to Utah. I blew more money on food and other people than I probably should have. It was cold and I came home without my snowboard. I slept on a mildly comfortable couch for four nights. And even though I make mention of these things, they are not the things I most consider. What has remained in my mind and migrated into my heart, thus becoming part of me, is the time spent with my brother. Getting to know his girlfriend and the things that make them happy and laugh. Seeing my other brother enjoy himself in a way only a young man who is only now becoming a man can do. Bumping into old friends on Main St. and making festive promises of future, out of tradition, meetings and outings. Making unlikely friends with unsuspecting fellow wait-listers. Listening to a good friend pour his heart out about his family and other things personal to him. Attending church in Spanish. Eating dinner with loved ones, old and new. Speaking Portuguesse with Brazilians on work exchange programs. Hitch-hiking around Park City. Walking across campus with a backpack on and feeling like a student again, with a hunger for learning that I could only get in a University setting. Sitting in on a class and taking notes. Congratulating a long time friend and his wife on their recent conception. Loving, laughing, sharing, sleeping, listening and growing. It was all I wanted it to be.