Well, the world is still turning and like the last time I was overseas a major political event has taken place. When I was in India in 02/03, Saddam Hussein was captured. Now it is the assassination of Benazir Bhutto that is the main focus. Americans are taking it very seriously as Pakistan is an emerging/established nuclear country and the US gives them about $10 billion in aid each year (I think that's right...) and is considering dropping $50mil from that if Pakistan doesn't do anything about the terrorists (if they are behind the attack, which the papers today say they are). It's kind of insular though-all the Americans care about is what this means for them...if they are at risk or what it means to their economy.
And back home, David Hicks has finally been released. What will the crazies harp on about now? I hope the hundreds of 'Free Hicks' banners and placards will be appropriately recycled. Maybe they could add a 'C' to Hicks and go protest battery hens?
And of course the NYE I won't be in Stralya to see is tipped to be 'the one that people talk about for years to come' or something like that. (SMH.com.au) Even with hundreds of cable TV channels, there is still no window to the outside world here so all that is on TV is American material. It's pretty funny, (I might have already mentioned this) on one of the news reports they crossed to 'World' news and all it consisted of was news from different parts of the country. I never knew that Michigan was international to Anchorage? It's far enough away but not technically international news...not even intercontinental. I miss SBS world news and the World section of the papers back in Australia. It's not hard to see why Americans may not be that knowledgable about the outside world-unless something big happens they simply don't get exposed to it! The amount of times I have been asked if Australia uses 'dollars' and what season it is down there now and one guy even thought to get from Australia to New Zealand was a 3hr ferry ride!
Anyway. I went to another hockey game last night-don't get me wrong the last one I went to was cool but this one was AWESOME. There were fights galore, and the mascot game skating out with fireworks strapped to his skates and lit a big A (for Alaska Aces) in burning stuff on the ice...there was even a part in the game where two of the players (one from each team) shortly after the start of a new period threw off their gloves and started facing off. It must be something in the rules because all the other players backed off and let them punch on...it was so bizarre but engrossing at the same time. Maybe these were the mysterious 'enforcers' that I had heard about before? I really need to look up the rules of hockey. Anyway, it was a great game there was blood (which had to be scraped, frozen, off the ice) and stacks and stacks ons and one guy even fell so hard he snapped his stick in half! It came down to a penalty shootout because with TWO SECONDS to go, the Utah Grizzlies scored and made it a tie game. Talk about exciting!!!
Tonight I'm going to see 'Into the Wild' because the reviews in the papers have actually been pretty good for it and after reading the book and seeing an independent documentary about it, I'd like to see how Sean Penn handles directing a big screen adaptation of it. I'm not going alone, don't worry. One thing I haven't done yet and don't plan on doing is going to the movies alone. Everybody has their limits, hey.
In other news, I am all but guaranteed a job here if I get a visa-which is bittersweet in a way because I am fairly sure the US won't give me a visa. I can try to apply from Canada but I don't have the time to get to a consulate when I am there. I can always go back later, don't get me wrong, it's just funds that are constricting me. Anyway, fingers crossed that the US actually doesn't mind me working here and 'stealing a job' from one of their workers. It's not like in Alaska the foreigners are taking anything that the locals don't have access to-it's just that the locals are too lazy or don't want the jobs. The locals get $1600/1700 a year just for living here, and if they are natives with land that has been used or affected by oil drilling companies then they get stacks of money and shares for that too. It's possible (and is happening) to be a native here living in a remote village and earn over $50k a year. Without lifting a finger.
I'm in Kaladi Bros Cafe again BUT it's not the downtown one, I took the bus down to Northern Lights Blvd to Barnes & Noble to get some more books (Sorry, Shane, I got another Bill Bryson one. Your favourite.) and then took a trudge (through the brown snow) down the street and it's awesome down here I haven't been this way before. Went into REI sports, and now am at the Kaladi Bros here. It's packed and full of people-totally different to the downtown one! Next stop will be Play It Again Sports (checking the price of ski gear still) and then maybe a hairdresser if they have cheap cuts. I seriously need to get this damaged crap cut off the bottom of my hair. Just because I'm a backpacker doesn't mean I have to look like a hobo!!!! I painted my nails the other day too, bright festive red ('Big Apple Red') :-)
Hey just because I write big novels in here doesn't mean you should stop posting comments!! I love getting comments so show me some love and hit up my comments page ;-)
Have a happy New Year and if anybody knows how I can see videos of the fireworks from over here please let me know.
I'm off for a walk in the snow.
xxx leash
Saturday, 29 December 2007
Friday, 28 December 2007
Yay Anchorage!!!
I am back in Anchorage and I am so happy to be back here let me tell you!!!
It's 9.20am and I'm in Kaladi Bros Cafe (where else?) drinking a watermelon latte-I told you I would get one before I left here!-and they've put on classical music this morning. There are cops or something in here talking to someone...I wonder what all that is about. Probably just collecting a drunk...they have this thing called CPS here, I can't remember exactly what it stands for but basically it's a booze bus that goes around collecting drunk people off the streets and out of public places and taking them somewhere to sleep it off. Wow there are 4 cops here now...hmmm
Soooo from the last time I wrote here nothing much had happened and my mood was deteriorating so I decided to cut my Fairbanks jaunt short and get the van back down to Anchorage on Boxing Day (Wednesday), instead of Friday. They don't really celebrate Boxing Day here at all...
Speaking of Boxing Day-I missed the cricket and I miss leftover mince pies and ham and cherries (although there are rarely any leftovers of those at my house).
But Christmas Day warrants a mention, before I go getting ahead of myself. My Christmas Day was pretty low key. I slept in, and went for a walk to 'downtown' (3.6 miles!! That's like, 5km?) and it was lightly snowing. White Christmas!!! On the way to downtown I stopped by at the Arctic Cam site (the physical site...not the website, duh) and called home to tell them to check out the website and they could actually see me! So that was kind of cool. >1200km (7500 miles) away and they could see me-albeit over webcam. You can tell I also stopped by at the Golden Heart Plaza where there is a signpost marking the various distances to worldwide cities :-P
Got back to the hostel via a cab because by this stage it was cold and dark and I didn't really feel like walking all that way back. The cabbie was cool, he was 81 years old and had all these stories about being in the war and all the places he had travelled to on tours of duty. He never made it to Australia though, which he really regrets. That's probably the most common thing I hear from people over here. "I've always wanted to go to Australia". Almost every single person who I talk to about Australia tells me that. If they have been in the military (which a surprisingly large amount of people I meet have) they will then tell me that they were supposed to go there or could have gone there but something came up and stopped them. I suppose it's nice that Australia has an international reputation as a desirable place to go. Anyway-back to the hostel! I got there and some of the others were hanging around and a local guy who had made friends with one of the guys staying there came in and asked if we wanted to go to his sauna. He had built this sauna himself and all the other guys from the hostel were going so I went along too. It was dark inside (save for a torch), about 210F inside and cramped but it was fun! I was dying though it was so hot...I came to Alaska to be cold, not to be hot!! But when the heat got too much for me I could just go outside and roll about in the snow then come back in and be glad for the heat.
One of the other guys staying there is a pretty experienced/accomplished hiker and camper out in the wilderness so he said he'd take me and another guy, Jaycee, up to Deadhorse/Prudhoe Bay. It was getting all planned out and we were getting really excited to be going on this trip-but at the last minute he changes his mind and can't/won't take us. Lame!!! Man up and say you don't want to go if you don't want to go...just don't go making lame excuses to try and weasel your way out of it. So that was disappointing for me, because I really really wanted to go to Prudhoe but I take this as a sign that I am not meant to go there just now. Everything happens for a reason!
I got the van back to Anchorage (via Tok) the next morning, and it was a nice drive down even though I was in vans from 9am til 10.30pm. I did get to see a moose walking by the side of the road though, which is the closest I've seen one so far. As usual, I was the only passenger, sharing the van with cargo until Tok. After Tok I changed vans and got a new driver-a friendly talkative guy called Don. But I was still the only passenger until about 6pm! He was a great driver-always talking and telling me about the landscape and telling me awesome stories about his life in Alaska. Very entertaining! I didn't sleep the night before and I was glad for his stories and conversation otherwise I would have slept and when I'm the only passenger I feel rude for sleeping. Plus I would have missed out on some great scenery. We saw some more moose (at a distance) and caribou. At one stage a whole herd of caribou ran out onto the road in front of the van and Don had to stop to avoid hitting them! We passed by so close to them he could have touched them on their little white bums if he had stuck his hand out the window.
BUT ths ride wasn't all caribou and pretty mountains. Long story short, I lost my wallet for a portion of the ride and didn't realise until about 15 miles up the road. We had to double back and check all the places we had stopped and it was nowhere. On the way back (going in our original direction) I was getting pretty upset that it wasn't anywhere...and we were just going through the last place we stopped for me to get out for a photo and then Don goes "What's that?" and no shit sitting on the side of the road (in pitch black) was MY WALLET! FUCKKKKKKKKKK words can't express how relieved I was! Seriously. Without my wallet I would have had no photo ID and thus I wouldn't have existed as I had no way to prove who I am, basically. Nevermind all my cards and money in there. I made sure to give Don a fat tip when he dropped me off-I might still send him a 6 pack of beer as thanks. Don was a really awesome guy though I don't think I would have gotten my wallet back had it not been for him backtracking. Plus he bought everyone in the van tacos on one of our rest stops and if that doesn't make him a legend I don't know what else would. So that crisis averted I was very very very happy to be back in Anchorage at the Backpackers Inn. Very happy. Chatted with Manuel (he works there) and told him all about Coldfoot and my adventures and he seemed very interested in it. Also put my pics up to show him, and seeing them up on the screen made me realise how blurry and crap alot of my shots were! Damn! The good ones were worth all the bad ones though, if that makes sense.
Oh crap the cops have just led this guy out in handcuffs! I wonder what he did?
So yeah that's about all that's happened to me lately. I think I've done something bad to my elbow though...don't know if I said anything on here at the time but in Homer (Dec 7-9) I hit my left elbow in an awkward way and it got this grape-sized lump on it and since then it's been tender and I've managed to knock it a few times since...but anyway now it looks like I have screws under my skin it's that bumpy and weird. I'm a little worried-it doesn't look normal! It doesn't hurt to use it though so until that happens I'm keeping cool about it. My wrist has been giving me trouble but I think I must be sleeping on it or something like that because every so often I'll be able to crack it and it will temporarily feel better again.
But other than that I'm doing fine, physically. I think I'm wasting away a little but I've got more than enough to spare so I don't mind in the least! I'm eating mainly fruit, veges (mmmmm broccoli), some pasta and 2min noodles. Tonight though I'm making lamingtons to share with the others in the hostel-couldn't find sponge so I had to make do with an 'angel food cake'...I hope it works out! My hair is so gross at the ends it's like straw. I bought leave in conditioner, I bought regular conditioner for dry/damaged hair, but nothing is working. Will definately need to give it the chop to get rid of the damage. For the first time since I can remember I am getting KNOTS in my hair. That never used to happen!!! The cold weather has cleared my skin up too which is always welcome.
Ok I have definately written enough for now. The sun is just starting to come up (it's 10.15am now) and today I think I will go to the Dept Public Lands (or whatever it's called) because they supposedly have good displays there. My snowlady outside the hostel died too so I could make another one...
But yes. Glad to be back in Anchorage. I love Alaska, I will be very sorry to leave here I know it.
Hope everyone is taking care back home and had a great Christmas/Boxing Day. Eat lots of meat pies and mangoes for me (but not mixed together-that's just gross) because I am sorely missing them!
xxx lisha
It's 9.20am and I'm in Kaladi Bros Cafe (where else?) drinking a watermelon latte-I told you I would get one before I left here!-and they've put on classical music this morning. There are cops or something in here talking to someone...I wonder what all that is about. Probably just collecting a drunk...they have this thing called CPS here, I can't remember exactly what it stands for but basically it's a booze bus that goes around collecting drunk people off the streets and out of public places and taking them somewhere to sleep it off. Wow there are 4 cops here now...hmmm
Soooo from the last time I wrote here nothing much had happened and my mood was deteriorating so I decided to cut my Fairbanks jaunt short and get the van back down to Anchorage on Boxing Day (Wednesday), instead of Friday. They don't really celebrate Boxing Day here at all...
Speaking of Boxing Day-I missed the cricket and I miss leftover mince pies and ham and cherries (although there are rarely any leftovers of those at my house).
But Christmas Day warrants a mention, before I go getting ahead of myself. My Christmas Day was pretty low key. I slept in, and went for a walk to 'downtown' (3.6 miles!! That's like, 5km?) and it was lightly snowing. White Christmas!!! On the way to downtown I stopped by at the Arctic Cam site (the physical site...not the website, duh) and called home to tell them to check out the website and they could actually see me! So that was kind of cool. >1200km (7500 miles) away and they could see me-albeit over webcam. You can tell I also stopped by at the Golden Heart Plaza where there is a signpost marking the various distances to worldwide cities :-P
Got back to the hostel via a cab because by this stage it was cold and dark and I didn't really feel like walking all that way back. The cabbie was cool, he was 81 years old and had all these stories about being in the war and all the places he had travelled to on tours of duty. He never made it to Australia though, which he really regrets. That's probably the most common thing I hear from people over here. "I've always wanted to go to Australia". Almost every single person who I talk to about Australia tells me that. If they have been in the military (which a surprisingly large amount of people I meet have) they will then tell me that they were supposed to go there or could have gone there but something came up and stopped them. I suppose it's nice that Australia has an international reputation as a desirable place to go. Anyway-back to the hostel! I got there and some of the others were hanging around and a local guy who had made friends with one of the guys staying there came in and asked if we wanted to go to his sauna. He had built this sauna himself and all the other guys from the hostel were going so I went along too. It was dark inside (save for a torch), about 210F inside and cramped but it was fun! I was dying though it was so hot...I came to Alaska to be cold, not to be hot!! But when the heat got too much for me I could just go outside and roll about in the snow then come back in and be glad for the heat.
One of the other guys staying there is a pretty experienced/accomplished hiker and camper out in the wilderness so he said he'd take me and another guy, Jaycee, up to Deadhorse/Prudhoe Bay. It was getting all planned out and we were getting really excited to be going on this trip-but at the last minute he changes his mind and can't/won't take us. Lame!!! Man up and say you don't want to go if you don't want to go...just don't go making lame excuses to try and weasel your way out of it. So that was disappointing for me, because I really really wanted to go to Prudhoe but I take this as a sign that I am not meant to go there just now. Everything happens for a reason!
I got the van back to Anchorage (via Tok) the next morning, and it was a nice drive down even though I was in vans from 9am til 10.30pm. I did get to see a moose walking by the side of the road though, which is the closest I've seen one so far. As usual, I was the only passenger, sharing the van with cargo until Tok. After Tok I changed vans and got a new driver-a friendly talkative guy called Don. But I was still the only passenger until about 6pm! He was a great driver-always talking and telling me about the landscape and telling me awesome stories about his life in Alaska. Very entertaining! I didn't sleep the night before and I was glad for his stories and conversation otherwise I would have slept and when I'm the only passenger I feel rude for sleeping. Plus I would have missed out on some great scenery. We saw some more moose (at a distance) and caribou. At one stage a whole herd of caribou ran out onto the road in front of the van and Don had to stop to avoid hitting them! We passed by so close to them he could have touched them on their little white bums if he had stuck his hand out the window.
BUT ths ride wasn't all caribou and pretty mountains. Long story short, I lost my wallet for a portion of the ride and didn't realise until about 15 miles up the road. We had to double back and check all the places we had stopped and it was nowhere. On the way back (going in our original direction) I was getting pretty upset that it wasn't anywhere...and we were just going through the last place we stopped for me to get out for a photo and then Don goes "What's that?" and no shit sitting on the side of the road (in pitch black) was MY WALLET! FUCKKKKKKKKKK words can't express how relieved I was! Seriously. Without my wallet I would have had no photo ID and thus I wouldn't have existed as I had no way to prove who I am, basically. Nevermind all my cards and money in there. I made sure to give Don a fat tip when he dropped me off-I might still send him a 6 pack of beer as thanks. Don was a really awesome guy though I don't think I would have gotten my wallet back had it not been for him backtracking. Plus he bought everyone in the van tacos on one of our rest stops and if that doesn't make him a legend I don't know what else would. So that crisis averted I was very very very happy to be back in Anchorage at the Backpackers Inn. Very happy. Chatted with Manuel (he works there) and told him all about Coldfoot and my adventures and he seemed very interested in it. Also put my pics up to show him, and seeing them up on the screen made me realise how blurry and crap alot of my shots were! Damn! The good ones were worth all the bad ones though, if that makes sense.
Oh crap the cops have just led this guy out in handcuffs! I wonder what he did?
So yeah that's about all that's happened to me lately. I think I've done something bad to my elbow though...don't know if I said anything on here at the time but in Homer (Dec 7-9) I hit my left elbow in an awkward way and it got this grape-sized lump on it and since then it's been tender and I've managed to knock it a few times since...but anyway now it looks like I have screws under my skin it's that bumpy and weird. I'm a little worried-it doesn't look normal! It doesn't hurt to use it though so until that happens I'm keeping cool about it. My wrist has been giving me trouble but I think I must be sleeping on it or something like that because every so often I'll be able to crack it and it will temporarily feel better again.
But other than that I'm doing fine, physically. I think I'm wasting away a little but I've got more than enough to spare so I don't mind in the least! I'm eating mainly fruit, veges (mmmmm broccoli), some pasta and 2min noodles. Tonight though I'm making lamingtons to share with the others in the hostel-couldn't find sponge so I had to make do with an 'angel food cake'...I hope it works out! My hair is so gross at the ends it's like straw. I bought leave in conditioner, I bought regular conditioner for dry/damaged hair, but nothing is working. Will definately need to give it the chop to get rid of the damage. For the first time since I can remember I am getting KNOTS in my hair. That never used to happen!!! The cold weather has cleared my skin up too which is always welcome.
Ok I have definately written enough for now. The sun is just starting to come up (it's 10.15am now) and today I think I will go to the Dept Public Lands (or whatever it's called) because they supposedly have good displays there. My snowlady outside the hostel died too so I could make another one...
But yes. Glad to be back in Anchorage. I love Alaska, I will be very sorry to leave here I know it.
Hope everyone is taking care back home and had a great Christmas/Boxing Day. Eat lots of meat pies and mangoes for me (but not mixed together-that's just gross) because I am sorely missing them!
xxx lisha
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