Why I Hate Alaska

This is my last day in Alaska and thus my last web blog entry. It's been a good and at times, bumpy ride but now its time for me to start my new adventure in Florida.

Throughout the summer I have highlighted the good things about Alaska. So to be fair, I now leave you with the reasons I hate Alaska:

1.) Far from Friends and Family
2.) Lots of Mullets
3.) No Target
4.) 2 hour waits at Dairy Queen
5.) Conference Services (but only sometimes guys)
6.) Baseball players, firefighters, and cross country children
7.) Endless sunlight
8.) The Tempo and how it fits in here
9.) August temperatures high of 56 degrees
10.) The potential of being trampled by a bear or moose on my way to work

That's all folks!

No Smores for Moose

The interns got two whole weekdays off this summer so that we could take a trip to Homer. Homer is a fishing town with a few cool tourist-type shops and neat restaurants located on the spit. The spit is a small peninsula that jets into the ocean.

We stayed in a cabin which was decked out in moose decor from the stuffed animals on the bed to the trim on the walls. Our cabin came complete with a constant visiting ten year old child who was the owners daughter and a moose who played peek-a-boo at the camp fire. We had a nice time but we are all ready to go home and see our family and friends at home.

We are housing all of the participations for the World Eskimo Indian Olympics. Last night my roommate Jean, her friend visiting from Ireland Jenna, and myself went to the games. They have many unusual events like the Muk Tuk (Whale Blubber) eating contest, Seal Skinning, Ear Pull, Knuckle Hop, and Walrus Blanket Toss. Check out http://www.weio.org/games/index.html to read more about the games.

When we were there we saw the talent competition for their beauty contest. Then some dancers from New Mexico came and did some traditional dances in their costumes. They invited everyone to participate and lots of people did. We saw the championships of the “One-Hand Reach” competition. This game requires the athlete to balance their whole weight on one hand and reach a target, controlling their balance and coming down to the original position.

Then they did the fish cutting contest. It was not about carving fish like jack o’ lanterns as I was hoping. They received 20 donated salmon from Gordon’s Fishery and the winner was the one who could score and fillet the fish the quickest and the cleanest. They had some extra fish and they were looking for some volunteers to participate. So my roommate Jean jumps in. Someone lent her a pocket knife and she joined in. Jean came in last even having someone take over for her. But, we did get a big salmon out of the deal. Pretty nifty!

The Frame is Bent, the Muffler Went, the Radio it's ok.....

I haven't been updating this web blog as often as I used to because from July 2nd to July 20 I have/ will be working everyday. Therefore I have no life for things to happen to. Plenty of work issues pop up though, like today.

Let's see I had a lot of common issues like guests being charged wrong, guests complaining about XYZ, or people not checking out of their rooms. But then I had the odd ball ones like: one of my employees checked in 1200 children who were staying for a night at a time over the course of the summer instead of the 25 kids staying for just that night throwing off all future reservations and housekeeping reports, so I had to manually change 1200 reservations. We are housing the participants for the Eskimo-Alaskan Native World Olympics but 25 of them decided they didn't need to make reservations in advance so I had to find them rooms. They are all cramming into 5 doubles we had left so good luck there. Prep crew as usual didn't clean all their rooms, so when a guest checked into her room and found lots of porn on the walls, chewing tobacco and beer bottles all over, she was upset. I had to clean another room myself so she would have some place to stay. We had to deal with cops because someone dialed 911+ number instead of 91+ their number on their room phone. Then someone dropped their car keys down the elevator so UPD had to be called again. All of my cash drawers are mysterious missing money. And now it's 11:30pm and my last task of the day was to collect several pounds of whale blubber from one of our Eskimo guests and find a place to store it. This wasn't a last minute thing though. My boss informed me in advance that I would be the designated blubber picker upper.

This job is draining me. I can't even sleep through the night anymore because I anticipate phone calls, which I usually get a few of during the night. I will never take a 24/7 job again.

The 4th of July I didn't do anything again because I was working. I was still bouncing hall to hall at midnight and it still wasn't dark enough for fireworks. Apparently they still try to have them but I didn't hear anyone actually going to them or see anything. For the last two weekends my roommates have been gone and my co-intern has been on vacation so I've had the apartment to myself. So when I am not at work I have been pretty bored lately. I actually helped Kristen clean and prep a room because I had nothing else to do. Why am I not in Boston right now? Why am I not in Texas or New York right now? Alaska has had its fun moments but I am in a boring stretch now.

Then there is Old Blue, our not-so trusty 87 ford tempo. According to the police officer that pulled it over, it hasn't been inspected since 1991. Now if I hadn't been to the doctor since 1991 I should probably be put out of commission too, but not Old Blue. My boss swears that it's perfect to drive. So if you are reading this out there and later read I die in a car crash, please relay this information to whoever is my legal representative.

Stephen and Audrey's Alaska Vacation

Hi all!

So after a much needed break I am back to tell you all the details about my vacation. Here is the link to my photos: http://suffolk.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031525&l=d7075&id=17909864

I have like ten million more on my computer but I’m sure you get the idea.

Stephen came up on June 20^th. We hung out in Anchorage for a few days while I had to work. Then we took a four day trip to Denali National Park. Denali is home to Mt. McKinley which is the tallest mountain in North America. We borrowed a tent and went camping at the Riley Creek Campground. Sleeping was difficult because the sun never goes down and the tent doesn’t do a good job at blocking all the light. But having the sun up for long periods of time let us hike as long as we wanted or cook a late dinner in daylight.

The first day we went hiking on several nature trails and then the four-hour hike up/ down Mt. Healy. It is one of the tallest mountains in the world (or at least seemed that way on the hike up). Okay actually its quite small in comparison but it was still a good workout. The second day we went white water rafting, that was very fun. I would like to go rafting at least once more before I leave here. I like it more then kayaking because you get more of a thrill ride. I have pictures of us in our spacemen-like dry suits on my disposal water camera I’ll have to show you guys sometime. The last day we saw a dog sled demonstration. They have a kennel full of huskies at the park that break trails in the winter.

When we got back from Denali I was informed that one of our guests killed themselves in our dorm rooms. We were also providing emergency housing for the fire fighters which caused the biggest mess to date. 150 Firefighters would come in at any given point and need rooms stat. I was very busy on my two days back at work before the second leg of our vacation.

Our second leg of the trip started in Soldotna as we went Salmon Fishing. We were in the boat with Larry our fish guide, and a mother with her 8-year old son. The boy caught two fish and the mom caught a 30 pound king salmon. I caught the first fish, a stupid 3 pound rainbow trout but I didn’t catch anything else, and poor Stevie didn’t catch anything. Well poor me because I had to put up with him whining for the rest of the night.

We drove to Seward where we stayed in a camper’s cabin at Miller’s Landing. The next morning we went to Exit Glacier, then in the afternoon we did the sea life center. At night we went on a wildlife cruise on the Kenai. It was very awesome. We saw puffins, eagles, sea lions, a harbor seal, humpback whale and porpoises. The whale and porpoises swam right up by the boat. We didn’t get a good photo of them though. We ended our vacation going to the Wildlife Conservation Center which is ten million times better then the stupid Alaska Zoo. Here the animals lived in big pens that resembled their actual habitats and there were families of the animals not just one.

Sadly I had to return Stephen to the airport on Monday :(

Stephen is gone. My vacation days are used up. All the other interns will be gone this upcoming weekend. Work is busy and difficult. Hhmmmm, I wonder how much I am going to really like the rest of the summer.

A Hiking We Will Go

So my roommates and I totally hiked up a mountain today. In Chugach State Park just east of Anchorage lies Flattop Mountain, the most climbed mountain in the state. The mountain is 3,510 foot tall, but to be fair it was only a 1280 feet climb from the parking lot. I was very proud of our car Old Blue for making it up to the parking lot AND back down. Way to go blue.

The first leg I entitled the Thigh Master. It was like regular hiking; very steep to begin with, stairs in some sections. The second leg was going through a rock quarry. The last leg was rock climbing. I found this to be the easiest part while Kristen thought is was the worst. I was like Spiderman creeping my way to the top. I felt like I was on Nickelodeon Guts and climbing the Agro Crag. Kristen was nervous about several spots but we coached her through it and all three of us made it to the top.

Going down Kristen and I were doing the crab walk/ butt slide down sections while Jean was walking down no sweat. We saw a bull moose on our way down, our first full adult male moose with antlers that we have seen. Along the way we met many happy families with children and dogs of all ages and types. If I am ever hiking up the mountain with my dog in a backpack please inform me that I need a reality check.

On a side note Stephen is coming up on Wednesday, how excited am I!!!!!!! He is staying for about two weeks so that means I won’t have any entries until after 4th of July. But fear not my dear loyal readers; I will have much to say when I return.

Crazy I tell ya!

Work has been very grueling this week. I had four days when I put more then 12 hours in, I had one no-show where I ended up taking the shift and I was awaken by four phones calls this morning (Saturday) between 7-8am. The busyness is because we have all three halls open now so we only have one person running each shift, which is hard on the newbies who are still making mistakes. Also we are full to capacity this weekend.

In North Hall we have both the contestants of a kids’ soccer tournament, plus a summer baseball league. This has been a good birth control experience for all of us because after dealing with all these screaming monsters I no longer want children. They are screaming and running down the hall ways, kicking the vending machines, locking themselves out of their rooms and trying to get the elevator stuck.

Then in West and East Hall we have the Special Olympics teams from across Alaska. The buses dropped them off in swarms and we weren’t exactly ready to handle it, but everything went okay. I was running back and forth between halls helping any way I could whether it was changing light bulbs or washing coffeemakers I did it. I had to let some people into their rooms not because their keys didn’t work but because they didn’t understand how their key cards worked. I am trying to rush around but the participants all wanted to start up conversations with me and its hard to walk away from them. Then whether I thought I could go back to my apartment I would get a call to come back to the halls. Crazy I tell ya! Hopefully after this weekend everything will die down. We won’t be full again like this. Plus I have vacation coming in two weeks when Stephen is coming. Can I tell you how excited I am!!!!

My only non work adventure this week was going to the mall. I got the chance to sneak away to the mall this morning to get my dad a present for father’s day. In the bottom floor, in the center of the mall here is an ice rink. You can see it from all three floors. A lot of people were ice skating. They were probably missing the cold weather and temperatures sky rocketed today to.....probably 60 something. I even got to take my jacket off today, whoooowho.

Oh and this sun thing all the time needs to stop soon. I go home from work at 11pm and its still bright as day out and I think everything is okay that A it’s normal to work that late and B it’s normal to be that light out. It totally throws off all concepts of time. Kristen and I were both fed up with the light coming from our shades that we each took our own solution. Kristen re-arranged all the furniture in her room so her bed was now facing the window. I put sheets of aluminum foil in my blinds to block out the sun. My plan was simpler and got the room darker but then when the heat kicks on from the vent the sheets of foil clang against the blinds making a loud nose and light show. I am definitely not the winner of life this week.