Merry Christmas!

            Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday and that it continues on to the New Year.  This was my first Christmas not spent surrounded by family, though my new group of friends here have become pretty close and sometimes say that we are family, it’s not quite the same.  I did get to Skype with my family back in Minnesota on Christmas Eve.  They showed me the gifts that they had opened and the house all decorated for the holidays.  It was wonderful to see them again.  Later that night, a friend and I went to the midnight mass at a Catholic cathedral downtown.  Those two events were what defined Christmas for me.  Otherwise it seemed like a pretty normal night with everyone hanging out by the fire with good food, drink, and conversation.  And ugly Christmas sweaters.  I guess that’s not usually part of a normal night by the fire.

            Training class is finished, and everyone in my class passed!  We are now certified trainee observers.  That would sound a whole lot more impressive without the word ‘trainee’ left in there.  Trainee status basically means that we can only be assigned to ships that depart from and make their offloads to Dutch Harbor.

            The first batch of people from my class actually flew out to Dutch this morning.  The apartment is down from seven inhabitants to three; it feels so quiet and empty compared to before.  I wish them all a safe flight and hope they get good boat assignments!  Sadly, I don’t leave for Dutch until January 10^th, a whole two weeks away!  In the meantime, my savings account is slowly melting away.  Just a little bit disappointed, but I can be patient.

            While I’m waiting to fly out, I expect there won’t be much in the way of excitement to write about here.  Just normal everyday life in Anchorage, which might be worthy of a blog post, now that I think about it.  Life here is a bit different than anywhere else that I have lived in.  So there’s at least one more blog post before I head out, though there will most likely be more than that.  Anyways, I think that’s all for now.  Happy holidays everyone.

Catching up

Wow, it’s been about two weeks since my last blog post.  Just getting everyone used to the post schedule I’m going to have in a few weeks.  (That’s my excuse anyways.)  Since I have about two weeks to cover at once, I’ll just give you some of the highlight.  And to make up for my lack of posting, I have pictures!

            Last weekend a group of us trainees went on a moose hunt through the city.

          The city of Anchorage currently has an estimated moose population of over 1,000.  They are like deer here, wandering through people’s yards and cutting off traffic.  There is a network of trails through the city that are surprisingly busy even in December.  Tons of people go running, cross country skiing, ski skating, skijoring, and…biking!  They have these bikes with huge fat snow tires that can ride through snow.   

          Anyways, our trek was successful.  We not only found a moose, but also saw the mudflats at Cook Inlet, and rode down a whale slide.

            A few of us also went sledding down Flattop Mountain, just outside of Anchorage.  The slope was pretty steep, and the powdery snow flew up in our faces.  We had to stick out our feet to stop from sliding across the gravel and into the trees.

And the view was pretty fantastic.  Out there by the water is the city of Anchorage.

             Class has been good.  It mostly includes watching videos (including episodes of Deadliest Catch), species identification of crabs, fish, and invertebrates, how to fill out tons of paperwork, and safety.  The last few days we’ve been watching videos of people falling overboard and getting hypothermia.  We also had “the girl talk” last week.  The take home message from this talk: don’t flush your tampons down the toilet.  Other important lessons from this talk: You will be stared at mostly because you’re different; don’t let it go to your head.  Don’t sleep with the crab fleet.  Women smell different than men.  Fishermen get really freaked out by periods.

            Only one more week of class!  The final is on Friday.  I’m feeling confident, but at the same time there is a lot of pressure to do well on this test.  This is the test that will allow me to do this job, and just as important, allow me to get my reimbursement for travel and equipment.  

            A quick list of less exciting events in the last two weeks:  dancing, live music, lost credit card, lost drivers license, roasting marshmallows by the fire, drinking lots of hot chocolate, sharing tastes in music, setting a 495 piece puzzle, frequent walks to the ghetto grocery store, coffee shops, thai food, and currently and Indiana Jones movie marathon.