Advertisement
Published: January 2nd 2010
Edit Blog Post
It is 2010. Can you believe it?!? I find it pretty hard to believe at times. And yet it felt very exciting last night as I spent my first ever new years here in Juneau, Alaska. I've been back here for about two days, and things have been going pretty well so far. This is actually my first blog entry from the states since last August and so much has happened since then!
When I left here, I was a total wreck, freaking out about a lot of things. But now, I'm this girl, this lucky international traveler. I sit in the silence and I wonder what's going to happen but with calm, even breath and relaxed nerves. I think this calm perspective of mine led to what was the greatest Christmas vacation I have ever had. First, it of course started with the longest day of my life - December 21st which also happened to be the shortest day of the year. But I stayed awake all night, wandering downstairs into the cold Norwegian air to stay awake and listening to the silence as so many people had left Hoglimyra. And after getting some help from my short-time roommate,
Our old house in Kendrick, Idaho
Yes...it's pink with a light green roof! I gave him a hug goodbye and headed off to the airport at 5:30a.m. Norway time. Thus the journey began and it was full of flights, swollen ankles, and mixed rest as I passed out on the plane to Oslo, in the Oslo airport, and part way over the Atlantic. But the excitement of returning stateside kept me a little wired. By the time we touched down in Jersey, I got my second wind, got my luggage, got teased by the immigrations officer (in a nice playful way as he made a joke to freak me out about my passport listing me as a man before flashing a smile and sending me on my way), bribed the Continental Airlines counter lady to check my luggage all the way through so I wouldn't have to go out of security in SeaTac, had a nice dinner in Newark as the sun was setting, was really nervous as we got delayed an hour and a half out of Newark, and took off running in the gate hallway at 10pm in SeaTac as my next flight in one terminal over took off at 10:20pm. I still don't know how I made that plane...I got
to the gate by 10:12pm and was totally exhausted, out of breath from running with my 20-30lb carry-on and from the whole day of flying, only for the lady to tell me "Oh, you're not on this flight. They have already rebooked you for tomorrow because they thought you'd never make it. But since you're here, just go and run, Gate #1, find an empty seat." So I got on a plane for the very first time without a boarding pass or assigned seat and plopped down next to a nervous flier about my age who was returning home to see her family. And the whole flight back was very nice on the small plane as we joked about the Valley and the young marine ahead of us said he was happy just to be around snow for Christmas instead of sand. At 11:59pm, we touched down in Lewiston, Idaho and thus my flights ended. Of course, we spent another 40min or so at the airport, trying to track down my bags that got left in SeaTac. No worries -- they arrived the next day!!
And somehow my eight days at home with my parents went by very quickly.
Sadly, my mom took most of the good pictures so you don't get many good ones on this blog 😞. Well Christmas Eve was full of family and present opening and games and a wonderful dinner...Christmas was a trip over to a friend of the family's house and to see my buddy, Tony who is a marine being deployed on January 7th. We grew up together and have just coincidentally been following each other all over the country, but never quite within distance to meet up and say hi. And after a few drinks and some good conversation, I took a nap and then got hit with a cold that night which lasted for the next few days and which I still don't have my voice back from yet. Maybe by tomorrow I'll be 100% again! On the 26th, my best friend Ai from Japan stopped in to see me and we spent the next two days catching up, shopping, taking a jaunt to Kendrick so she could see where I grew up, going to a Christmas party with a bunch of girls from my high school that I hadn't seen in a long time, and just sharing memories of
UAS and life. She's always been such a good friend and it had been about a year and a half since we'd seen each other. Sadly, it went by quick as she left the 28th to go to Vegas and after a doctor's appointment, some more shopping, lots of packing, and dinner with my sister, parents, two stepsisters, and their children, I was at the airport on the night of the 29th, waving goodbye to my family and even crying a little.
But my arrival in Juneau went pretty well. I overnighted it at SeaTac (which didn't help the cold but didn't make it any worse) and was greeted by my boss/mentor/best friend/Adoptive Relative Lisa and she spent the whole day helping me get settled at housing, meeting two of my new roommates who are very awesome and bio and fisheries majors (WHOOHOO...Science geeks!!), and even making me dinner and staying the night at her place since my room wasn't totally ready. And then after a LOT of unpacking (including some awesome help from my new roommies), I cleaned out my baby (my car) and got everything into my new room in my new apartment. It feels nice but
a little strange being here. I'm not sure if it's still the U.S. in general or if it's just here, this place. Maybe it's a little of that reverse culture shock setting in, but whatever it is, I'm sure it'll pass. And my new roommates have definitely been very helpful. We went out last night for New Year's and had such a blast dancing and talking. And it felt like a great start to 2010. I even got a kiss on the cheek at midnight, got conned into some dirty dancing by this very slick drunk guy only to be skillfully rescued by my roommate, met a whole array of new people, heard one of my favorite songs (I Got a Feeling) as a new year began, and stayed up until 4:30a.m. talking to this young fishing guy and teasing him about his life in Ketchikan. And now here I am, typing in the quiet of my new apartment, my roommates just down the hall preparing to sleep, and the assurance that I still have weeks before classes begin and lots of time to just enjoy being home, enjoy the beginning of my last semester here at UAS and in
Juneau, and enjoy the new and old friendships all around me. Happy 2010 all!!
Only...
00
DAYS
00
HOURS
00
MINS
00
SECS
TO MY GRADUATION AT UAS!!!!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.2s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0934s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb