Tropical icy icy

A hoi hoi!

Fairbanks is cold.

Like...really cold. I'll put some pics up soon proving it. It's -20F today, which is like, -27C. That's officially the coldest place I've ever been. Colder than the -20C freezer at work. It's freaking cold. I like it, it just will take a bit of getting used to.

There is lots of snow around here, unlike in Anchorage-which gets snow and then when it gets trampled or cars go over it, turning it to mush and slush-the snow here stays frozen. It's like permanent powder snow everywhere. Ice crystals fall like snow but they are so small you can't see them land on anything and it just looks like you're walking through a glitterstorm. It's very pretty but I kind of worry about breathing them in.
The inside of my nose froze...my eyelashes froze together...when I took off my scarf that I had wrapped around my chin I discovered it had ice crystals and frost all over it from the condensation in my breath!

Fairbanks is a difficult city to get around if you don't have a car. And even if you do have a car the ice and snow on the roads makes it a challenging place to drive in. There are no buses on a sunday so today I just took a walk down the road to the cafe/bookshop. They are looking for a permanent staff member but I don't want to work in Fairbanks.

The hostel I'm in is nice, but there is only about 4 people here at any one time. So I'll call it cosy (cozy?). I'm going to Coldfoot tomorrow, which is above the Arctic Circle. Will hang around there for a few days then check out the Yukon River and the Arctic Circle proper on the way back down. The Yukon will be frozen though-everything up here is frozen. It's cool though because around town there are these ice sculptures that are just sitting around. The Uni down the road has one out the front of a polar bear.

I will put some photos up very soon-if you have any suggestions for what I can take pictures of please let me know. I'm at the stage where alot of the stuff I'm seeing isn't too unusual to me anymore but I take pics wherever I can. My poor little camera battery isn't liking the cold too much though. I think the memory card is screwing up the camera too. Often I will turn it on and it will just be frozen-won't even let me turn it back off, I have to take the memory card out to make it shut down. It only happens with that card, too. But because the other one is full I have to deal with it. My phone has also somehow semi-broken. The other day in Anchorage I found that a few of the keys on one side weren't working-which was quite frustrating in itself-but now only one key is not responding...unfortunately it's the one I need to lock the phone (and turn the alarm off) so that's pretty annoying but I'm not too fussed about it. As long as it doesn't get bumped and call some random number without me knowing!

Did I mention it's cold here?
Take care, and enjoy the heat (haha)
-Lisha

oh and p.s. I saw a MOOSE yesterday!!! 3 of them, in fact!