It was the spring of 2005 and I was at a destination wedding on the Caribbean island of St. John. My friends and I were out for a walk in the blazing sunshine. It was as hot as a plate of crab callaloo as we passed the ferry dock on Cruz Bay.

One friend pointed toward the dock and said, “Hey, isn’t that Michael?”

As we got closer, I saw that it was indeed Michael, an artist friend from our hometown who’d relocated to St. John some years before. He was dressed in head-to-toe black. Long-sleeved shirt, long pants, moto boots. He looked like a guitarless Johnny Cash about to check in to Folsom Prison.

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“Aren’t you dying?” I asked, as my friends and I stood there in our shorts and tank tops, sweat dripping down our spray tans, our painstakingly straightened hair frizzing in the midday humidity.

“I’ll tell you what I’m dying about,” he said sarcastically. “People have no idea what it’s really like living here.”

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He launched into a tirade about the traffic, the crowds, the noise, the soaring cost of living. I think I zoned out after the first minute or so. All I remember thinking is WTF is he talking about? We’re literally in paradise. And we’re on vacation, for chrissakes! The last thing we want to think about is death and taxes.

But now, living here in Park City, I think I get the difference between visiting paradise and actually living there. It’s easy to get caught up in a bitch-and-complain mentality when you work in a place where so many people come to play. Every paradise has its pitfalls.

At least that’s what I thought until I had the chance recently to see Park City through some visitors’ eyes and my view changed completely.

A couple hailing all the way from England, Mark and Sarah, are close friends of a friend I met on a cycling trip in Europe a few years ago. A friend of a friend is a friend of mine, I always say. So when Sarah messaged me on Instagram that they’d like to meet up while they were here, I was all for it.

When we met at High West after their first day of skiing, I was eager to hear their impressions of Park City.

“Well, it wasn’t exactly a promising start,” Sarah said. “Our driver from the airport complained the whole way up about how tourists are ruining her town.” As they pulled up to the Montage, the driver rolled her eyes and sneered, “Welcome to your palace.”

But after that first day, it was all uphill from there — in a good way. Sarah later told me the welcome they received throughout their visit couldn’t have felt more warm or genuine.

“I was struck by how many lift chats we had that turned out to be with people from Park City or Utah in general,” she said. “All the locals we chatted to were so authentic and proud of their town. It honestly made us feel like we were part of this place, too.”

One thing that surprised Sarah and Mark were the long lift lines.

“Being British, queue etiquette is very important to us,” she said. “But I reverted to a surly teenager and huffed and puffed my way through the first few really long queues.”

They soon noticed that “nobody was getting really arsey about it.” Instead, people seemed to be making the best of it, chatting and laughing rather than bitching and moaning.

“Once we did the same, the lift queues were far less of a problem,” Sarah said.

The long lines on Main Street didn’t phase the duo, either.

“We learned to get in early, occupy a space and stay there—something the British have historically proved rather good at,” Sarah said. “We’ll always remember sitting on the patio upstairs at No Name listening to country music — Mark in his regulation-tourist KemoSabe Stetson. As we sat there, a bluebird day turned into a full-on blizzard, all in the space of one pint of excellent pilsener!”

Mark and Sarah loved the local restaurant scene.

“The tartiflette at Courchevel was among the best I’ve ever eaten in my life in many European ski resorts including the actual Courchevel,” Sarah said. “And the brussel sprouts at Grappa were one of the top five things I’ve ever put in my mouth.”

The “Utah quirks,” as they called them, made some experiences extra memorable. “Like the time I had to down a pint in a hot four seconds because the server said we couldn’t move alcohol from one table to another,” she said. “And the look on Mark’s face when they told him he couldn’t get just a drink in the Irish bar.”

“Well, in my extensive experience in Irish pubs,” Mark added, “you can usually drink until you’re kicked out. But the last thing you’d ever want to do is eat the food served there.”

For Mark and Sarah, the best thing about Park City was feeling like “we were dropping in on people’s real lives and you all opened up your arms and were happy to share your time — and your town — with us.”

On the last night I saw them before they headed home to England, we met up at the Spur. I walked upstairs and spotted them sitting at a high top in the corner. As I approached, I noticed that Sarah and I had on the exact same outfit: jeans, flannel shirt, sweater, even the same beige baseball cap. Twin sisters from another mister. The circle was complete. In Park City, a town of mine is a town of yours.

The server came to take our order and I could think of nothing more appropriate to share with my new friends than a burger and fries. It would surely be a cheeseburger in paradise.