The small world of Juneau.
1. Most importantly, it's pronounced like the goddess Juno, but spelled Juneau. Maybe it's French or something.
2. Though it's the capital of Alaska, it's very isolated; there are no roads going in or out.
3. Because just about everything has to be imported, it's really expensive. This includes things you would expect to be cheap, like salmon. Because they're sent to the mainland to be processed. Because that makes sense.
4. Alaska is really, really big. So Anchorage, the biggest city, is about 800 miles away. It may as well be in a different country.
5. It's not that cold here. The weather is similar to Seattle, which means...
6. It rains all. the. time. But we did get some snow this winter.
7. It's kind of fascinating to watch the snow start at the top of the mountains and creep down to the ground.
8. We do not fall into permanent darkness in the winter. On the shorter days, we probably got 5 or 6 hours of sunlight. But it still completely throws you off when it's pitch black and 4 in the afternoon.
9. The darkness and dreariness makes you lazy. It starts to feel like a chore to get up and do things.
10. Let's go back to the mountains...they make for some really good hiking (as I've mentioned in other posts) along with the rain forests and beaches.
11. Hiking on the mountains can give you a little bit of vertigo. It's a long way down.
12. Juneau has amazing hiking trails that are kept up really well.
13. They (whoever "they" are) have also done a really good job of keeping wildlife protected from people and vice versa. Mostly bears.
14. I have seen a disappointingly small number of bears. And by that I mean I've seen 1/2 of a bear.
15. There are porcupines, which are really big. I got charged by one the other day. Well, that might be a big exaggerated but he was waddling quite fiercely at me. I may or may not have instigated it by trying to take pictures of him. It was still a little scary.
<------The offender
16. There are eagles all over the place.
17. They do not sound majestic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlq2kcYQcLc
18. I know I've said it before, but the people are ridiculously nice.
19. Most of them aren't from Juneau, and it's fun to find out where people came from and what got them here.
20. There's a surprisingly large first-generation Asian population.
21. This is definitely not a fashion capital; people really don't dress up much.
22. There's an obsession with Xtra Tuffs, which are basically ugly brown rain boots. I don't understand it:
23. I think you either have to be a little crazy to live here, or living here makes you a little bit crazy. Maybe both.
24. I'll say it again: there are things about this place that suck, but there are also things about it that are really cool.
25. I keep reminding myself that we're having an adventure.
Home is wherever I'm with you
Soldier and I recently got back from visiting home for the holidays. We've decided not to do that again. It was insane and stressful trying to juggle family Christmas parties, seeing friends, and visiting his brother for New Year's.
But, of course, it started with my flight curse. Soldier tried to tell me he always has good luck...I told him he was underestimating me. We made it out of The Last Frontier just fine. Then Seattle. We got to our gate and the flight was delayed; the plane we were supposed to take was stuck in San Diego. They had a new plane at the end of the gangway, but no crew. So we waited. And waited. Of course we were in a very isolated section of the airport and virtually everything was closed. Read: drinks would have made the wait a lot more tolerable. It was also the middle of the night (I think we landed at SEA at midnight) so everything felt way more awful. I just wanted to be sleeping, and I basically turn into a child when I'm tired. Poor Soldier.
They finally announced that they were just waiting for a crew to come in and gave us a new arrival time at what would have been our second layover. I didn't think we would make it to the 3rd leg of the flight, Soldier thought we'd be able to book it through a huge hub in half an hour. Remember me basically being a whiny sleepy toddler? Yup. Soldier went to converse with the ladies at the ticket counter. He came back to let me know that we'd be ending the flying portion of our trip at the next layover and the airline would pay for us to rent a car. This was part woo! and part boo! The woo! was not having to try and run to a flight or sit in the airport for like 6 hours waiting for one. The boo! meant about 4 hours of driving, and no luggage.
The plane finally left around 3:30 in the morning, and we did get some free wine out of it. Unfortunately, it didn't help me get to sleep like I was hoping. And after about 15 hours of travel, we made it into town in the midst of Soldier's side of family Christmas parties. Luckily our luggage was waiting for us at the door the next morning.
The blur of late nights, early mornings, and wedding appointments began. We met with someone from the church, had a tasting for the reception, and I picked up my dress. I think I walked around like a zombie for at least half of the trip. After driving 2 hours each way to pick up my dress, Soldier and I drove another 2.5 hours to his brother's house for New Year's. Let's just say I don't think I was very pleasant by that point.
My family's side of the Christmas parties was on the 2nd. Of course the whole fam couldn't be there, but it was really nice. My eldest sister sent a cookbook with some family favorites and some of her own, and I had a bit of a meltdown over that. Alaska is just so far away. We're having our adventure, but we'll be heading back down to the mainland as soon as we can.
We got into town on the 27th and by the 3rd I was finally able to get some rest and have some free time. I got very lucky and cantored at church that Sunday, which made me super happy. Soldier and I went to brunch with his parents after, and I chatted with his mom almost the whole time. At their house after, she pulled out tons of wedding stuff for decorations and flowers and such. It was really, really nice and I felt like it was productive for us. I haven't been great with wedding planning and including others, and it was helpful for me to get more of an idea of what I want, and to see that it'll be perfectly okay to let go and let someone handle it who knows what they're doing. That was a really long sentence.
I was really sad when we had to leave; I kept telling Soldier we should just stay. I started crying as our plane took off. It felt like we were crazy busy the whole time and didn't get as much quality time with the people we wanted. But, maybe that was good prep for the wedding. Cue the march.
