Sleeping in, Final Tour, and My Last Day in Dublin

I woke up fairly late on Sunday morning, just long enough to throw on decent enough clothes to go down stairs where the wifi was better and skype with Chris for a while, around 8:30.  I then rolled back up into bed, and slept until the noontime bells chimed at the Christchurch Cathedral.  It surprised me, because I have never heard them before, so I must have been busy at noon every other day the bells were ringing.  Or, maybe it was because it was Sunday.  Either way, the bells went on for at least 10 minutes, and they were beautiful.  It was very cool being so near to the church that I could actually hear the bells.

Once roused, and since only one other girl was in my room, I decided to take up much of the floor to open my suitcase and rearrange some things.  To save space, I have been sleeping with my backpack and purse at the foot of my bed (also, as a vague guard against thievery, although I must admit that the risk seemed very low at this place.  Nearly every person here has been leaving their stuff out, or very visible in their rolling cages under the bunks.).  I decided that it seemed safer to keep my mug for Liz, and my welcome sign in my backpack than in my suitcase, where I have some semblance of control whether things get broken.  That meant that I saved some vertical space in one corner of my suitcase, which I decided to fill with some of the seven mostly unnecessary books that I brought with me.  Thinking back on it, I should have planned to find a book store and left room to bring books home, rather than bringing my own.  This is especially true, because I found a place near Trinity College called Books Upstairs.  Forcing myself not to go inside was torturous, because I knew that if I went in, I would not leave without a book.  Such is the plight of a complete book addict.  Rick Steves and Lonely Planet were fairly useful, and I have read not quite half of an embarrassingly thin copy of Joyce.  The other four books are disturbingly unread...  And very bulky.

It seemed smart enough to take a shower at this point, so my towel would have time to dry before it needed to be packed as well.  Right about the moment that I was standing around in my underwear and a tee shirt gathering my things to go commandeer a shower for myself was when one of the hostel employees was doing his bed-check rounds.  Several knocks on the door is not a good enough indicator of who is about to come through a door.  I mean, every person who has come through that door so far has been female, and some have knocked and some have not.  But, I mean, a little "Hey, man coming through, put on trousers." might be a worthwhile thing to add to the pre-entry repertoire.  I don't really care, because I was actually well covered up, but, as the Brazilian girl in my room commented after my shower, sending a girl to inspect the girls' rooms doesn't seem that unreasonable a request.

I ended up having a fairly interesting conversation with this Brazilian woman when I returned from my shower, and while I got dressed.  She is from the very far south end of Brazil, where it is often cold, and that she is in Ireland on her way to her pilgrimage to Germany to see where her family is from.  She said that her family is actually German from an earlier migration -- earlier than the mid 40's mass exodus following world war two.  She was stopping in Dublin on her way to the rest of her travels, to get a well rounded trip out of her time off the continent.  We chatted a bit longer while I got dressed, something about Portuguese expansion versus English expansion into their colonies.  She seemed quite well educated about the various methods of colonization, but her conclusion was that the Portuguese were much kinder about it than the English, and I tried to be diplomatic about saying that the Portuguese were not saints in their colonization either.  Especially since she said just earlier in the conversation that there are reservations for the native population as well.  But, whatever.

After our chat, I took off to get some breakfast/lunch at SuperMac's.  I had been told that SuperMac's was like Irish fast food, and I had yet to go there.  It was a favorite of my compatriots after a long evening at the pubs.  There was a SuperMac's (and Papa John's pizza place, because Papa John's made it across the pond) in Temple Bar Square.  I knew that the Jeanie Johnston tours left every hour, and I expected that it would take me about 15 or 20 minutes to walk to the far end of town to where she was moored.  I had been having a hard time getting wifi at the hostel, and I needed both food and to write, so I was happy that eircom, Dublin's free city wifi, was working.  I walked into the SuperMac's/Papa John's, and waited for quite a few minutes before someone came to take my order.  If this is fast food, we are not starting off well.  Much to my chagrin for this entire trip, the expectation that all the minimum wage jobs are being taken by Poles was confirmed yet again, when a very pole-like Pole appeared from the back to finally take my order.  I got a bacon cheeseburger, which came with chips and a Coke.  It cost 7.50 euro, which comes out to just over 10 dollars American.  I would expect to pay 7.50 for one of those really giant burgers at Carl's Jr., but this seemed incredibly exorbitant.  I forget whether I have already remarked on my disappointment upon finding that, despite the euro being worth 135% of the dollar, Ireland is incredibly expensive to live in, and so I am actually experiencing extremely painful inflation.

Anyway, the other remarkable thing about Irish fast food was that their hamburger buns came with corn meal on the top, instead of sesame seeds, and red onions instead of white.  It was pretty good, I mean, it was basically just standard fast food.  I sat a bit too long eating, and left perhaps ten minutes before the next Jeanie Johnston tour was to begin.  I am a quick walker, and more so on the flat landscape of Dublin, but I wasn't going to make it by 2.  Heading out briskly anyway, I walked north toward the river, and turned right to head east.  I crossed the Haypenny Bridge, so named for the half penny toll for crossing back in the day, and was grateful that another tourist paused to take a photo, so that I could as well.

I continued on eastward along the north side of the Liffey, which allowed me to pass by the famine statues.  They are a rather bleak collection of metal sculptures of several men, women, children, and a mangy dog, making their way in destitution toward the ships that would carry them away to the rest of the world.  It was an appropriate stop, given my destination.  I pressed on, and arrived at the Jeanie Johnston about a quarter after 2.  The girl inside was quite happy to sell me the single, last ticket for the tour at 3.  She asked what I knew about the ship, and I said that it was a famine ship that carried loads of Irish to North America, and that they had a doctor on board and no one died on any of their trips, and that I thought the boat had had a female captain.  She said that that was remarkably more knowledge than most people have upon arriving for a tour.

An English man and a few others came in just after me, and unfortunately she was sold out for both of the remaining tours that day.  He asked what the ship was really about, and she said that it was a famine ship.  He asked if this was the original, and she said no, it was just a replica.  He seemed slightly confused, but in a moment of clarity, he said, "Oh, so it didn't used to travel with all that stuff on it."  Now her turn to be confused, she said, no, it carried starving Irish to the New World to escape the famine.  He seemed rather put off at the prospect, and asked if there was an informational pamphlet that he could take to read about it, and that was when I took my leave and stepped out of the little office to take pictures of the boat.

Once those clever fellows had cleared out, however, I returned, and asked my new friend if she thought, as I had, that the man had assumed that it was the boat that had once been famished, and not the passengers.  She replied, rather conspiratorially, that she certainly hoped not, but that she wouldn't be surprised, as the man was English.  We talked a while longer, and while I have forgotten her name, I recall that she is from Donegal.  We talked a bit about boys -- the unfortunate condition of Irishmen that makes them a bit less to look at, but they make up for it greatly in charm.  All Irishmen sing, and many dance, and nearly all of them recite poetry.  As she remarked, it takes a six up to an eight most of the time.  I asked her what she thought about the impending Scottish vote for independence, and what she thought that would mean for Northern Ireland.  Her thoughts were that it would be best to leave things alone in Northern Ireland, and she was somewhat dubious about whether Scotland should separate either.  She said that the differences between Northern Ireland and the Republic were primarily boiling down to social welfare issues these days, not religion: who had better schools, health care, higher education, infrastructure, etc.  And for those who wish to be British, they can be, and for her, she is quite happy in Dublin.

I had missed my coffee that morning, and was regretting it.  My friend pointed me further west as my best bet for some coffee.  The place she suggested, the Twisted Pepper, which is a tattoo parlor or a night club when it is not a coffee place, was a bit too far afield for me to reach on foot, and be back in time for my tour.  Since it was Sunday, most everything had buttoned up tight and were closed.  Even things that had Sunday hours posted, ones I might mention I was living through presently, were not actually open.  It must have been a holiday, and no one had told me.  I wandered at length, moving further north of the river, and eventually, passed bus depot and through commuter train interchange, found a small pub that had a cappuccino machine.  I bought a take away cup, and retraced my steps.

I arrived again at the Jeanie just before 3, and many more children and mothers had arrived in my absence.  I was impressed with how many fathers were attending as well, and especially impressed by how many Irish families were visiting.  There were several pairs of adults, who had shed their children for the day or through the years, who seemed equally surprised by the appearance of so many children.  I chatted with my friend a bit longer, and we talked about Ireland a while longer.  Then it was tour time,

Our tour guide was a charming young girl, and she talked us through the highlights of the ship.  This Jeanie Johnston is a replica of the original, based on the paper specifications from when it was built in the early 1800s.  Her original purpose was as a trade ship, and she carried primarily lumber.  Through a series of changes of hands, she was bought as converted for use as a famine ship, to carry literal boat loads of people to the New World.  It is true, that not one passenger died while on the ship, nor any crew, but it is not true that she had a woman at the helm.  That was still considered mostly bad luck.  Famine ships at the time were often called coffin ships, for more often than not, upon arriving at their destination, the passengers unloaded were already dead.

It was quite common practice to quarantine the passengers who stepped of these boats, for those who survived the journey were likely to be full of head and body lice or disease especially cholera, typhoid and dysentery.  The Jeanie Johnston brought 15 boatloads of about 120 people to Canada, and one trip to Boston.  Among the things that make the Johnston remarkable, a system of requiring passengers to spend time above deck, separating the ill from those who were not yet ill, preventing the sick or infested from gaining entry to the ship before departure, requiring that passengers wash their hands regularly and their bodies often, and providing adequate food and bedding, were revolutionary ideas at the time, but did incredible amounts to keep all the passengers alive.  A doctor on board who actually tended to the passengers as well as the crew saved hundreds of lives by his work.

The reason we have a replica, and not the original ship, is because it was actually lost at sea.  Long after the famine years ended, the ship was returned to its original purpose as a lumber hauler.  It was on a return trip from New England, and had been caught up in a storm that lasted much longer than expected.  She had been weighed down too heavily with the lumber in the hull, and the excessive weight allowed too much water into the bilge, only serving to waterlog the wood and make it heavier.  Despite throwing much overboard, it was obvious that Jeanie Johnston was to sink into the ocean slowly, carrying all of her crew with her.  Most remarkably, another ship happened to be heading in the other direction, and saw, at a distance, the very tops of the masts of a ship, all of her crew bound by ropes to the top most parts of the sails.  The savior ship arrived just in time to cut free all of the crew and captain and haul them on board, before the Jeanie Johnston sunk completely.  So, truly, no one on the Jeanie ever died.

I learned far more than just this, and was told many stories about specific people's journeys to make it to the New World.  What I liked about our tour guide was that she really had become invested in these stories: she had personally looked up the Canadian birth record of the little boy who was born while in passage on the Jeanie Johnston.  His record said he was born on the Atlantic, and he had 28 first names, one for each of the crew of the boat, the captain, the doctor, the boat herself, and the boy's father.  Our guide said that the descendant of that boy once came to visit the boat, and she said it was very moving indeed.

After a long march up the river back to my hostel, it was around 5 o'clock that I finally set down to some evening things.  I scheduled my airport shuttle ride with the hostel, for a mere 7 euro.  Initially, I went to sit at one of the bar stools near the kitchen.  It was interesting to watch everyone preparing their food, and I reflected on the fact that, at fancy hotels, there are tons of services provided, but all cost money.  It costs money even to look at the mini bar to see if you want to buy something.  But at a hostel, it cost nearly nothing to stay, and you have a fully furnished kitchen in which to cook, and even store your food in one of the massive bins they keep for such things.  And people are very polite, doing their dishes, cleaning up after themselves, and being fairly courteous, even when they don't all speak the same language.

I ended up in a very interesting conversation with a black man from western Africa, who had started several very profitable businesses in Africa, and who had then moved to Columbus, Ohio to work for a car manufacturer, among other things.  He has settled here in Dublin, and developed a very convincing and slightly uncanny accent, and likes the more relaxed working life in Ireland.  He works for the equivalent of the State Department, I think, and is going to school at Trinity College for a social work degree.  We started talking because he asked me to watch his jacket, and to please not steal any of the diamonds or gold ingots he was carrying.  I was a little disarmed, and didn't know what to say back, without implying something about blood diamonds, but luckily he returned and did plenty of talking for both of us.  He offered to share his supper with me, but I said no, because I don't usually eat other people's food.  He was not offended at all, and said it was probably for the best best, for both my health and my taste buds.  Apparently he is an atrocious cook.  I know it wasn't his fault, but at one point, something exploded off the side of someone's pot, and made a very startling noise as it banged around the kitchen.  It seemed rather appropriate timing, given his comment, though.

After turning down dinner, I instead bought a coke and a Mars bar from the vending machine, and sat down near an outlet to blog.  I think I completed at least one full day that day, but I don't remember now.  I also struggled for a long time over the condition of my fall class schedule -- I have been lamenting to anyone who would listen about my troubles: the entrepreneurial marketing class is one I desperately want, but is in the middle of the day on Thursday, which limits my flexibility for work schedules while I am balancing both Classic Helicopter and Westward Fishing Company.  And since business economics and international business, my only remaining core classes other than the management series, are both only offered Monday and Wednesday, it is impossible to get onto an all T/TH nor an all M/W schedule, and I am very vexed.

The Australians near me were playing a very peculiar drinking game in which they shook a handful of coins like dice, and depending on which side was facing up, they had to drink.  I quickly learned, that whether there were doubles, or heads, or tails, or a preponderance of heads, or a preponderance of tails, the rule was that you always had to drink.  At one point, they asked me if I was doing homework or something for university, and I said no, just blogging home to my family.  They didn't seem interested in adding someone with a mild cold to their crowd, so I was left fairly alone.

Around nine or so, I went upstairs to lay out my clothes for traveling, pack everything as densely as humanly possible, and attempt to sleep in my state of anxious anticipation.  I dragged my feet, but got everything fairly well put away, and left my backpack and my purse at the ready at the foot of my bed.  My shuttle was coming at 7:30 the next morning, so I set my alarm for 7.  No one was going to shut off the light til 11, so after completing my evening ablutions, I read Joyce for a while longer.  I am developing an incredible fondness for Joyce.  Eventually the light went out, but no one had shut the curtain on our view of the massive and well-lit, domed building across the river, and by then I was far too comfortable and tired to get up to close it.  Someone during the night closed it, though, and I slept rather fitfully, between coughing and anxiety.  Despite my feeling rather abandoned in Dublin on Saturday, by now I was feeling quite fondly toward it, and was already sad to be leaving.

It's Go-Time, People!

Hopefully everyone got my e-mail last night, approximately 11 pm because I'm crazy, and the rest of you have heard via Facebook.  I'll briefly update before we board for Ireland (ERMAGHERD.), and see you on the other side -- of the world.

I got to SEATAC without incident, in the chariot of my wonderful boyfriend Chris who took a whole day off of work to take me to the airport.  Mom and Dad and Copper stood on the porch to watch me go, and even Aspen stumbled downstairs to mumble a good bye.

I made it through check in, TSA, and Starbucks surprisingly quickly, and immediately began a conversation with the curly girl across the aisle at the terminal.  Her name is Daisy Jane Darling -- holy crap, best name ever! -- and she had the fabulous curls of my dreams, like mom's tight corkscrews, but very very long.  We immediately hit it off, and talked about curls and many other things.  She's sixteen, so obviously much braver than I am, and she goes to high school in Tacoma.

There was no one else in my row, an exit row, so she sat beside me.  I took a Virgin America flight, and it was a fantastic flight.  Every seat has a tv and remote control with a credit card swiper, and the safety speech is a music video with people like Phillip Cheeb and Cyrus Spencer (if you watch So You Think You Can Dance, you'll know).  There were games to play, and music to listen to, and you can order food right from your seat, and even send food or drinks to other passengers.  If Daisy Jane hadn't been able to move near me, I was going to send her a coke.

We talked and had a great time the whole flight, which was about an hour and 45 minutes.  I had a checked bag, but she didn't, so we said a very warm good bye for new instant friends, and went our separate ways.  I found my luggage, rearranged some books etc, and headed off to find Aer Lingus.

This involved three escalators and an airtrack train, and some pacing, and almost going through security without a boarding pass, before I found out that Aer Lingus doesn't open their desk for check ins until 2.  So I grabbed a burger, read, texted my family, and waited around.

I had nightmares all last night that they were not going to let me on the plane, and waiting in anticipation did NOT help this situation.  Supportive texts from mom/boyfriend kept me from losing it.  I eventually made it into a line of mostly non-Irish European foreigners, and stood for a very long time.

I discovered that, whatever classlessness Europeans assume of Americans must only apply to the adults.  I have never seen such uncivil children.  Among the most serious offenses, 1) Euro-Justin Beiber (a criminal offense in every country), 2) a rather loud boy who would not stop hanging off of his father, and trying to kiss him, 3) loud phone calls in non-English languages and slow texting that held up the line, 4) pushing into an existing line, 5) a German or Dutch boy picked his nose AND ATE IT, PEOPLE.

Anyway, after those idiots at the airline let me through, and no one at TSA sent me home with a stern word, I wandered, dazed, into my terminal.  I found a stand and bought a giant water bottle, some Gardetto's, and some SweetTarts.  I am now waiting patiently for them to let me on the plane.

Then the real adventure will begin!

Extraneous Details for Your Perusal

I realized that there are several little tidbits of information that are just interesting to know, and that might be helpful in understanding what's happening.  I'll try to go in roughly chronological order.

I initially heard about the study abroad opportunities while sitting in the advising office waiting for my appointment to add marketing as my second major.  At the time, I was an accounting major who was falling haplessly in love with my marketing class, which was the subject that had initially turned me toward business in the first place.  How I decided to go with accounting instead, I genuinely can't remember.  I believe it had something to do with wanting to prove that I'm a big smarty pants, and to do something hard just because I wanted to win at doing hard things.  This is rarely a good reason to do things.

An informational meeting was coming up soon, and I decided to go.  The meeting was very interesting -- other trips were mentioned, one to England and one to India.  England was a close second for me, but I was told that Leta likes to take people who are desperate to take only her trip.  If I really want it, it should be the only trip for which I apply.  I walked away from that meeting feeling incredibly confident that I would be accepted.  It was an inexplicable feeling that I was definitely destined to go on this trip.

In my preparations for the application, I happened to mention it to my friend from accounting.  Now, she's got what I would call, really good luck.  She is currently on a scholarship with the AICPA, which is an academic accounting fraternity of some sort, and she got this really cool internship with the King County Courthouse as a forensic accountant (I had no idea that was even a thing).  She's got some added demographic benefits, such as being Latina, and being a non-traditional returning student, etc.  Anyway, when she found out that I was applying, she decided to apply as well.  The goal was to take the trip together.

My confidence immediately dropped.  On one hand, it would be incredible to have an existing friend for the trip.  Ireland wouldn't be ready for the two of us.  But, on the other hand, I was very seriously concerned that rather than take us as a boxed set, Leta would pick my friend over me.  I delayed very seriously in finishing my application, and finally completed it a week or so before the deadline.  I wrote my personal statement honestly, naturally, and from the heart, and decided to let it play out as it would.

Well, the spoiler is that obviously I was accepted.  Unfortunately, my friend was not.  Now that I know the other members of the group, I really wish she was coming, so that I would have a decent friend with a viperish sense of humor to tour Ireland with me.  But it is probably best for my personal growth that I make this trip alone.  But I will sorely miss her.

*   *   *

I found out I was accepted to the trip via phone call.  Now, what is funny is that my phone is forever attached to the side of my face.  The fact that Leta was able to call three separate times when I did not have my phone on my person is remarkable.  I didn't recognize the number, and she didn't leave a message, so I had no idea who this person was who kept calling me at 9:30 at night.  I wasn't going to call them back and interrogate them -- "Hello, why do you keep calling me, I think you have the wrong number, who are you so I can tell you that you have the wrong number?  You didn't leave a message so I don't know who you are, or who you were trying to reach, but I'm pretty sure you have the wrong number, so I'm calling you back to follow up, and make sure you get a hold of whoever you're supposed to be calling, because it's definitely not me, because I think you have the wrong number."

Finally, I was on the phone with Chris when the number started to call me.  I was, by now, quite perplexed about this very insistent person who never left a message.  I hung up with Chris to take the call, and it was Leta.  She said hello, and asked for me, and then she spent a little time admonishing me for not answering my phone.  Then she said that I'm on the team, and I swear to God, I said "what team?"  And she said "The trip to Ireland!  You're going to Ireland."  And then I screamed at her.

Once I was done screaming, I thanked her profusely, and apologized profusely, and thanked her again.  I ran downstairs to tell my parents, and then I cried for a little while because I was so damn excited.  I called Chris back, and he was also excited, and at this point I had stopped crying, so I tried to act nonchalant.

*   *   *

Flash forward to our first meeting of the group, in mid-April.  We did some typical ice-breaker activities, and did mini-interviews with each other to introduce our partner to the rest of the group.  Leta loves what she called "juicy details," so I mentioned to my partner, Toto (Cambodian) that I used to speed-read for debate, and could talk at about 400 words per minute.  When this was announced to the group, I was required to perform this skill.  I did ok, for someone who was severely out of practice, but I got hung up on the word "economics" and stuttered until I got going again, which is always embarrassing.  I was also the only person to be required to perform for my juicy detail.

A few people were not in attendance for work or class, and one of those people was Will.  Leta said that Will was coming late, and alluded to something about him and sheep.  When he arrived, after my stuttering display, she turned to welcome him and said "It's Will!  The sheep guy!"  We all looked between Leta and Will, and he started to explain, but Leta waved him off and said "it's a story."  As he sat down, he assured those of us nearest to him that it was NOT a story.

We talked about the trip, and the companies we would visit.  I asked about the sheep farm, because on the trip brochure it mentioned a sheep farm.  She asked if I had raised sheep, but I said that my mom and I both knit.  Apparently that was more than enough interest for her, and she declared that my company profile should be on the sheep farm.  In a stunning moment of revelation, she realized that Will could be my partner, because he was the sheep guy, so we'll be partners, and we'll be the sheep people.

Oh God, trip hasn't even started yet, and already branded as a Sheep Person.

I met with Will when the group broke up a little later, and asked him about "the story" related to the sheep.  He said that he was raised on a farm in Eastern Washington, and that, among other animals, sheep were on the farm.  That's all.

Still, we are branded for life as The Sheep People.

*   *   *

On an insufferably hot day, our group met to learn about the history of Ireland from Leta's husband, Mark.  He has a PhD (?) in history, and despite the education, he spent a decent portion of time trying to operate YouTube to show us a video about the IRA.  One should never laugh at a person for struggling with things, but he was being exceptionally comical about it.  I am going to believe that he was doing a caricature of a person who can't find the mouse on the screen.

He was, however, a fantastic story-teller, who gave a brief history of Ireland in about 45 minutes.  He will be meeting up with our group for a week in Ireland, for his and Leta's wedding anniversary.

During this same meeting, we all put our names on little tickets, to be drawn from a hat later.  I always feel some dread associated with being up to "win" anything, because 75% of the time, the "award" is a task (in my experience).  Just as she was about to draw, she informed us that she had 5 Rick Steve's Ireland travel books that she was giving away.  I very nearly declared that she could take my name out of the running, because I had already bought the Lonely Planet Ireland book.  But before I could speak, my name was the first one to come out of the hat, and I suddenly decided that I desperately wanted it, so I kept my mouth shut, and graciously took my award.  Best drawing ever!

Coping

When I got accepted for this trip to Ireland, I think I felt my blood pressure palpably rise.  It's very exciting, but I immediately turned my brain over to high-speed insanity whenever the trip or any related issues were mentioned.  (I can further support this with the fact that I was up until 1 am working on the presentation I gave with a partner about the Irish sheep farm on the Ring of Kerry, when most other people didn't seem bothered to do a decent job at all for their topics.  One girl spent her entire speech about Jameson whiskey talking about a spring break trip to Boston that she took, and related her tour of a beer manufacturer to the (vastly different) distillation of Irish whiskey.  Excuse me, but please stop bragging about your vacations, and just talk about the topic to which you were assigned.)

Anyway, several pre-departure sessions were scheduled during the school year.  After each of these meetings I was simultaneously invigorated and terrified.  I became increasingly sure that I would love Ireland and the people and the climate and the environment.

I also became increasingly confident that I would not fit in with my fellow groupmates.  I think I've started to single out a few people with whom I can have a decent time, but the vast majority of our group is Greek, and if they are not actually living together in a fraternity right now, most of them are at least friends, or well-acquainted.  It's concerning to me that I will have no one to talk to, and the mandate that we must always travel in pairs may result in my spending a lot of time in the hostel.  To all of you who know me well, you'll know how shocking it is for me to have difficulty finding someone with whom to converse.  I was built to talk to adults or children, but people my own age are mystifying.  There are moments when I speak words out loud, and no one hears me.  My sense of humor (which I acknowledge is rather sharp sometimes) falls on completely deaf ears.  I've never experienced anything like it.  I was spared the heartbreak of high school ostracization while I was in high school, but it's all catching up with me for this brief trip to Ireland.

(Interestingly, at a completely unrelated family barbecue on Saturday, I was introduced by my host to a very nice Irish couple, and spent much of the evening talking to the wife, Siobhan.  All of my expectations about the friendliness and kindness of the Irish was completely confirmed, and she assured me that I would find more people like her upon my arrival.  We talked about Penny's -- a fabulously cheap department store, -- about putting a little black currant juice in my Guinness to cut the bitterness, about taking the hokey bus tour of Dublin because it really is pretty interesting, and about how Ireland has had a very hot summer so the weather will probably still be warm and comfortable when I'm traveling.  She completely set my mind at ease that my trip will be fantastic.)

The last official meeting of the crew was a barbecue at Leta's (director's) house in Edmonds.  So on Sunday I trooped dutifully out into the admittedly gorgeous, if very distant, hinterlands north of Seattle but south of Bellingham.  Approximately half of our group was in attendance, 11 of 26, and we discussed the final schedule, packing lists, credit unions, and other sundry topics.  From the mood of my peers, my anxiety is completely and wildly abnormal.  Most of them confessed to not having thought about packing yet at all, and several had yet to call their banks, or had confirmed with the State Department and the Embassy.  I left the barbecue feeling as though all the anxiety that I had let out the night before had all rolled itself right back up inside me.  I called home to let my parents know that I was headed back, and dad gave me a bit of an extra dig (he is somehow surprised and offended that I am so anxious.  It's as though he forgot the nightmare that was me before leaving for Alaska last year.).

Thank God for my mother, who is just as anxious as I am, and who is also not coping well.  She's opted for serious and complete denial.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as it were.

Ramblings of a Manic Insomniac DIYer/Impending-Travel Denier

For many people, I might even say most people, the prospect of traveling abroad is exciting and fun, and not in the least bit full of terrifying anxiety.  Well, that's great and all, but for a select few of us, thinking about hopping on that plane and going to a far off land where they speak a language that is allegedly the same one that I speak but is obviously not the same, it's the most scary thing ever.

And what does one do, when one is trying NOT to act like they are completely anxious?

They become a manic insomniac who can't stop cleaning things and never sleeps and wants simultaneously to kill everyone and to be cuddled.  Enter the daunting and unending project of trying to repaint my childhood bedroom (bear in mind, that this is the worst idea ever, because now, upon my return from The Dreaded Trip, I'll be sleeping in an equally foreign new bedroom).  Gone will be the days of the hot pink bedroom!  Say hello to the new days of a cream and teal bedroom!  *Sophistication!*  *Adulthood!*  *Increased Resale Value!*

Ok, that's great, but mostly, it's been a never ending project that began by me unloading at least a thousand dollars worth of stuff out of my room.  Clothes and shoes mostly, but also jewelry, trinkets, and mementos from life that were put into tubs for long term storage.  Oh God, I think some books actually LEFT my private library to go to charity.  Additionally, horrifically, I was convinced into moving my two cherished bookcases out of my room and into -- communal living spaces.  They cringe at the suggestion.

That was all day Saturday.  Sunday I began coming down with a cold that was only exacerbated by the level of dust in my room, but I soldiered on, bought paint and found materials, and moved everything out of my room except the bed frame (spoiler alert, that will be a terrible idea), and the giant shelving unit that holds all my folded clothes.  I would live to regret leaving both of those objects in my room, because if they were too big a pain to move before painting began, I don't know what made me believe that they wouldn't be even more annoying once the painting started.

Monday, however, I was supposed to go to work, but the cold I was brewing caught up with me, and the day was mostly wasted napping and sniffing instead.  My boyfriend, Chris, came over to help, and I started to feel better by the end of the day, and began the task of caulking the trim that had never been finished in my rush to move into my room the first time.  The BF is a finish carpenter's apprentice, and was supposed to help with the finishing that needed doing.  As a finish carpenter, however, he usually leaves caulking of trim etc to the painters.  So his help was somewhat less than helpful, and was in fact very messy, and eventually we had caulk everywhere. To smooth the edges of our hellacious caulking job, we wiped the trim down with wet clothes.  By the end of it, we had very dirty fingers and a bucket full of caulk water.  I'm not making this up.  Many jokes were made.

Side note, we have had some of the most incredibly hot weather this summer, and my small room is a veritable pressure cooker in the summer.  This is not the environment for emotionally supportive home improvement projects.  Things were said in that room that I cannot take back.  (Sorry Chris.)

I ended up doing all the caulking myself (so typical) until about midnight and then I fell into bed and thankfully was exhausted enough to sleep.

Tuesday I was healthy enough for work, so I did my actual job, and came home to do a coat of primer.  This primer was quite old, and had separated a little, so it did a rather poor job of covering the hot pink.  But it got done, and we moved the set of shelves out of my room to better paint the ceiling.  Now, I was attempting to enlist the help of two studly men for this task -- that is, my boyfriend and my brother.  In their infinite wisdom, they decided not to move the bedframe (which also needs to be sanded and painted), and instead, the brother left without moving anything.  Quite a bit later, I got fed up moving the shelves around, so Chris and I slid the whole thing out on its side to get it out of my room.  Presently, there's a massive cabinet of shelves obstructing the path to my room, and I can't get the bedframe out, so that's still unlikely to be sanded or painted in the near future.

Wednesday is when it gets really horrible.  I bought a teal color, Embellished Blue, for the west wall and the edge of the east wall that surrounds my built in closet.  I also bought a light cream color for the other walls and the ceiling, Angel Food.  One coat of Angel Food was going on really well, and Chris and I were doing a really good job, and everything was clean, and then tragically, Chris spilled a bunch of white paint on my brown carpet.

This is not an incredibly terrible tragedy, because the paint cleans up with soap and water, and honestly, the stain is gone, so it's not a big deal.  But it's a mood killer, and a roll-breaker, and a parade rainer.  And now I might have to murder Chris.  (Sorry Chris.)  Manic Insomniac Sierra can't deal with these types of setbacks.  The particularly maddening part is that he's not a very effective cleaner, and obviously has never spilled paint on the carpet before (I admit nothing).  Carpet needs to be blotted, not scrubbed.  That's all I'll say.

Anyway, the existence of a paint stain led to a massive argument, not related to the paint at all, and exclusively fueled by my hangover-cold, the heat, exhaustion from sleep deprivation, and absolute insane anxiety, and the fact that every single male to walk the face of the earth is just so damn annoying.  This argument actually happened much later over the phone, long after he had left, which provided me time to (very aggressively) paint a swatch of Embellished Blue next to the Angel Food while I gave unnecessary ultimatums and threatened to hang up and never talk to him again.  I do not deny how incredibly overly dramatic I am.

I realized that I hate both of these colors.

Angel Food is code for white.  Embellished Blue is code for just plain old standard baby blue.  And I hate both of them.  A white ceiling is ok, and fully permissible.  But there's a reason I had a hot pink bedroom to start off with.  I'm a bright color kind of girl.  And this white and baby blue crap is not going to fly.  So I'll be taking the Angel Food back and retinting to get it closer to something that contains pigment.  We'll see about the blue, with a decent color near it, it might not be so bad.  I'll reserve judgement, but I think it needs to go too.

Basically, this is the final piece of evidence that I hate everything, and nothing is going my way, and oh good Lord, I had to register with the State Department today, and I'm denying that a trip is impending.  I'm an Impending-Travel Denier -- like a holocaust denier, but, you know, on a much smaller scale, and in no way at all like a holocaust denier.

Pre-Departure Prepping

In my efforts to learn about Ireland before I leave, I've reached that point that I think many ambivalent travelers get to, where it's almost too scary to think about your trip, so you don't want to read anymore about it.  I'm just this side of all Ireland-ed up, and I have another 6 weeks before I leave.  I've been listening to books about Ireland history during my commute, and whenever I get the chance, I read Malachy McCort's History of Ireland.  The trouble is, I can't seem to find the time to read it, and when I'm driving, I spend more time appreciating the Julie Andrews quality of the reader's voice than listening to the trials and tribulations of Ireland's fight for freedom.

I'm trying to make plans for which restaurants and pubs to visit while I am in Dublin.  What I've heard is that if you go to the same bar twice you become a regular.  I want to pick a pub and become a regular, because, OH MY GOD, how cool is it to become a regular while you're abroad??  I had this idea to compare the pubs and restaurants in my Lonely Planet travel book to the ones in the Rick Steves travel book, and pick the ones that are most highly recommended by both books.  But I realized really quickly that that would be both crazy and ridiculous, as I'm cross-comparing sights and places, and making some kind of crazy itinerary?  That sounds slightly overkill.  Maybe it's a good idea?  We'll see.

I need to force myself to read more though, because I know I will get so much more out of the trip if I do.

In a related story, there's a really serious possibility that I lost the SD card from my trip to Alaska, so, yeah.  That's a massive bummer, until the day that I find it, when it will all be better.  But for now, I think I lost all my pics.  :(

Saturday and Sunday -- Alaska Letters

                After our incredibly warm evening, I sort of expected it to be really warm on Saturday morning, but it was not.  Around ten, Marcus and I always check in and usually go to breakfast or whatever, but this morning he texted me to say that overnight he developed a fever and a runny nose and is feeling horrible.  So I was on my own, which was fine, because I had my lunch date with my Alaska friend Brynn.  I lazed around all morning until noon, which was lovely.  I couldn’t do a thing with my hair because I had left it down while we were fishing, and it was just a mangled mess.  Fair sea maidens have some very tangled hair.

                I had tons of time and I was sick of being in my room, so by about 11 I went out to buy my last few items.  I went to the Safeway and found a sweatshirt for myself, and the ONLY Iditarod mug for Aspen and the swim team was having a bake sale so I got out $20 in cash and supported them.  After that it was only 11:15, so I went across the street to the Alaska Ship Supply and bought a tee-shirt.  Then it was 11:25, so I sat in my car and tried to figure out what to do next.  It was pretty foggy, but I decided that it was worth dropping by the Sitka Spruce National Forest for a few pictures for Poppers.

                I learned that the Russians, when trying to colonize the Aleutians, tried to plant Sitka Spruces in Unalaska to make the island more self-sufficient.  It was 1805, so it is considered the oldest afforestation project in America.  It was afforestation not reforestation, because technically there were no trees here to reforest.  Prehistorically there were trees, and there are some petrified trees on other islands in the chain.  It didn’t work all that well, because of course there was a reason that there was no forest on the island before.  It’s too windy, and too cold, and there’s almost no useful nutrients deeper than like 10 feet in the ground.  So the “National Forest” consists of about 25 spindly looking spruces that have been here for almost 200 years but look no bigger than Christmas trees.

                I got some very cool misty photos, and it was definitely worth walking out there.  The salmon berries here and much sweeter than the ones in Washington, but that might be in part because we don’t let them ripen quite as long as they do around here.  By this time, it was about 11:50, so I drove over to Harris Electric to see Brynn.

                Brynn’s boyfriend was there too, and when they were done smoking (everybody here smokes), Brynn and I hopped in her car and Alex (boyfriend) went in his truck over to Amelia’s.  We had a lovely lunch, it was mostly me and Brynn talking about stuff.  She seems like a very nice girl.  She came to Alaska after her parents divorced.  She had been living with her grandma in Eatonville, but her mom moved up here, and when she was fifteen she came up too.  By the time she was 18 and pregnant with her daughter, her mom was ready to move to an actual place, but Brynn stayed.  I guess by that time she had decided she was enmeshed.  Brynn sort of reminded me of Rose, which initially made her feel very familiar, but once I identified it, I started to feel the same kind of, “oh, honey,” that I feel for Rose.  Which is always a little misplaced because both of them are older than me.

                After lunch with Brynn, she and I stopped at the post office, which didn’t open until two and we were there at one.  She was expecting a package of fish food for her mollies, but since the post office wasn’t actually open, she just grabbed her regular mail.  As far as mail is concerned, Dutch is Bush Alaska, so everything goes to PO boxes.  Which is a real pain in the ass for me, because I ship stuff to Tim all the time, and FedEx insists that I give some kind of physical address.  You could practically make something up just to make them happy, and it would still get there.  If it’s going to Dutch Harbor, it’ll get to the right person.

                We headed back to Harris, then I said good bye to Brynn and went back to my hotel room.  I had this yawning couple of hours to kill, and I spent most of it prepacking and listening to music and lying on the floor.  The sun was starting to come out, and it was warming up.  Right around four I rationalized that it would be better to shower now and get some of the Pollock off me and do something about my hair before I went to a party.  And I decided that if anywhere deserved my skirt, it might as well be a Dutch Harbor party.

                Just as I was coming out of the shower and had successfully untangled my hair, Tim texted me about needing the Chelsea truck back.  I thought that Marcus was still dying slowly in the infirmary, and I figured I’d just take that one to Brynn’s.  So I threw on my skirt and my sneakers (I had no decent shoes to wear with a skirt, it was atrocious.  I looked like a Duggar.) and drove over to the plant.  I couldn’t find Tim outside, so I went to his office, but it was locked, so I went to the dock, but the Chelsea K hadn’t pulled in from the fuel dock yet, and Tim wasn’t there either.  I stood there for a while, and I saw this big cloud of black smoke come out of the stack, and I thought, well that’s not good.  Tim eventually texted me and I went and found him by the trucks.  We drove all the way to the hotel before we realized that we hadn’t really solved my truck situation.

                Marcus, it turned out, had doped himself up on DayQuil and had made it to the plant.  So Tim and I drove back to the plant to find him.  The Chelsea K made it to the dock, and was beginning to off load, and that’s where we found Marcus.  He was talking to Chris about the fuel pump going out, which had caused the engine to die, sending out that plume of black smoke.  They managed to slide it in with no engine, and they have spare pumps so they will be ok for their last two trips.

                Marcus gave me no end of shit for wearing a skirt to the plant but I kept insisting that I wasn’t supposed to be at the plant, I was supposed to be at a party.  Eventually Marcus agreed to drive me to Brynn’s.  We found it easily enough, with only minor confusion over which brown apartment complex was hers.  Marcus had been asked a few times which of his daughters I was, and it was sort of confirming the expectation having him drive me to my friend’s house.

                At first it was just me and Brynn and her boyfriend Alex, then Angie and her husband and baby, then another pregnant girl and her boyfriend, then some more people.  For most of the fights, there were only a few people in the room, which was good because even though the living room was pretty spacious, it was getting really warm.  Sophie, the baby, was our barometer of the heat.  At first she was in a dress, then more people showed up and she got in her onesie, then more people showed up and she got naked, then a few more came and she cried so we all went out on the porch.

                The first few fights were good, a couple upsets for people who might have been betting.  The main event (I don’t remember who) was supposed to be five rounds, but it ended in the first.  The guy who won was basically hanging on the other guy’s arm, and was using the second arm to try to dislocate the one from which he was hanging.  The guy tapped out and it was all over in like three minutes.

                After that, it was fast becoming eat steak and drink beer time, so I called Marcus.  I’m a total party pooper, but it was ok.  We left and even though he was sick, the weather was so nice, we went out on Haystack Hill and looked around.  It was beautiful, and no amount of photos will ever quite capture how gorgeous it really is.  Pictures are too small, and not bright enough.  We went home as the sun was setting, and got cokes from the bar and went to bed.

Sunday:

                I’m too lazy to make a separate posting for Sunday, and besides it would be too small anyway.  I very lazily woke up about nine.  It was very hot and I had the windows open all night.  It was still hot in the morning, so while I got dressed I kept lying on the floor to cool off.  Eventually around 10 it started raining and I was all packed up.  I have so much more stuff coming back.  I really hovered over leaving my boots as a call-back to make sure that I return, but I decided I love them too much to leave them.  My suitcase is now entirely comprised of Things That Smell Like Pollock.  It’s much fuller than when I left, and my tote is incredibly full.  The only souvenir that had to go with the Things That Smell Like Pollock is Aspen’s coffee mug.  Sorry Aspen.  I figured it would retain the least amount of smell.

                So we got all together and went to the Grand for the brunch buffet.  I had hashbrowns and sausage gravy and bacon and coffee.  When my tummy settled a little, I got this martini glass with cheesecake, kiwis and this bright green kiwi Italian soda syrup in the bottom.  I t was very good, but I’m still picking kiwi seeds out of my teeth.  I had hoped Brynn and her daughter would make it, but they couldn’t.  I’ll find her on Facebook and keep in touch.  It was cool to make some friends in Alaska.

                We didn’t want my feesh to melt, so we had to go to the plant to get it.  Tim got a call from Mike Booth on the Chelsea about getting a box of crab legs for Chris’s birthday.  25 pounds is a lot to eat at one time, so they were asking to see if Tim wanted any, and he asked if I did, and I said hell yes.  So we got an invoice for the Bairdi crab legs, and went and got a box.  We put probably seven or eight pounds in some bags and stuffed it in with my feesh.  Then we taped up the whole thing and took it to the airport.  From breakfast on, it was raining pretty good, and our bags were in the back of the truck.  There were only the Things That Smell Like Pollock in it though, so I wasn’t worried about it.  My computer rode in the cab.  Marcus and I check in without incident, and while we were waiting, he went to the bar for a coke (Marcus and I drank a lot of coke over the week).

                This black guy comes out of the little airport bar, and is clearly the big happy drunk in town.  I guess he was with the guy who was sitting behind me, because he comes over and starts talking to him, and getting me involved, and everyone was getting touched and told how great they were.  So when he floated off again, of course me and this guy behind me were required to start talking.  His name was Anthony (drunk guy: James), and he works for the City of Unalaska as a city planner.  So he does zoning and whatnot.  We talked a little, he’s from Chicago originally, and he seemed nice if slightly awkward.  He was there to say good bye to his friend, who was on my same flight.  He went to the University of Wisconsin, and of course they also call it U Dub.  Eventually he wandered off to have a drink with his friend before she left, and I saw that Marcus had found Tim and Chris and Mike Booth, so I figured it would be safer to use the fishermen as my cock block.  It’s not often that that’s the case, but at least Marcus could play dad and give people the stink eye.

                The rain didn’t let up, so our plane didn’t arrive until almost 2 (we were slated to depart at 1:20), and we finally got on the tarmac just after 2.  My feesh supposedly went into a freezer, so it was supposed to be staying frozen.  We arrived in Anchorage very handily, but it was a little tight to our flight home, so we didn’t have much down time.  Getting through Anchorage security was really bossy.  The TSA lady tried to give Marcus some flak for his pocket knife, which was a TSA knife, and he told her so.  She’s like, “what’s that supposed to mean?”  Like he was copping some kind of attitude.  They wouldn’t let me bring my juice despite the fact that it was a sealed aluminum can.  Jesus people, think logically.  The airport in Dutch seems like what airports are supposed to be, seeing people off and hanging out and meeting people.  Not like big airports where it’s all taking off shoes and giving sass and people being harried.  The funny thing is that I’m not supposed to have the mace with me that Matt bought, but they didn’t catch it through either security checks.  At least the TSA in Seattle are nice, these Anchorage characters had a Mounty complex.

                Once we got through the TSA, we grabbed some soup up in the board room (SSSSOOOO luxUUUURRRIOUS!), and I went to take pictures of the native art exhibit.  I managed to go with almost dead battery the entire trip, and it finally died in the airport on the way home.  I thought that was pretty good timing.  The flight to Seattle was good, just a little turbulence.  I sat next to a very cute Russian couple who were probably in their seventies.

                I had to check my bag after all, it wouldn’t quite fit in the overhead, so I had to go pick it up with my feesh from the luggage claim.  My feesh’s box was a little dented, and I could smell seafood, which wasn’t a super great sign for it still being frozen.  I got all my things together, and pretty much as soon as I walked outside, Matt pulled up.  We were home by about 11:45, and we stayed up talking and distributing gifts until about 12:30.  I was super wiped though, because traveling is very tiring, and to me it felt like one in the morning.

                I got dad the Russian flask from The Grand, I got Aspen his mug and his Alaska Grown tee shirt.  Mom got some hand knitted mittens made by an island natives and an inlaid wooden pin for her hair.  Matthew didn’t want anything, so I got a couple chocolate bars and some fancy tea.  (And of course I brought the feesh and the crab legs.)  I got myself a Port of Dutch Harbor half zip sweater, and my headband.  Overall, I think it was a really great trip, and I would love to go back.  It caused a lot of anxiety for pretty much everyone involved, but hey, when is travel not anxiety filled?

Friday -- Alaska Letters

                Friday turned out to be probably the most epic day of my entire life.  I started out with a shower, and some writing about my adventures from the previous day.  Eventually, around 11 or so Marcus and I went to get breakfast at Amelia’s.  By now it was practically lunch.  I ordered a sandwich, and it came with clam chowder, and I want dad to know that I actually ate a good portion of it.  I always like having breakfast with just Marcus because he’s really interesting and cool.  We talked a lot about families and stuff, because his family is really nomadic too, so they’ve lived all over the place.

                Then we went and I grabbed my truck, and we headed to the plant.  He was following me in his truck, but by the time that I got there, it had started to rain so I just went straight inside to Tim’s office.  I didn’t see Marcus again for like four hours.  I don’t know where he went, but he was busy doing stuff.  Tim gave me some information about how the co-op works to read.  Basically the co-op is the collection of boats that have all agreed to use Westward Seafoods over any other processor.  When they did the American Fisheries Act, they got locked into their quotas, and had to form these co-ops.  Tim does a lot of management for the co-op, which contains more boats than the ones for which we do accounting and management down in Seattle.  We talked about the whole rationalization process, and why they would do it, and it was all interesting in an inherently boring kind of way.

                Eventually Tim and I sort of ran out of desire to talk about the co-op, so he went to get some food, and I went to see if Carolyn had opened up her shop yet or not.  She hadn’t, so I called again, and today she had to get her check engine light fixed, so she said she would call me when she got in.  Which was fine, because I still needed to go say hi to Brynn at Harris Electric.

                I hopped back in my truck and drove over there, and she was in.  She looks WAY too young to be 30.  She’s got a daughter who is 12, and I’m like, no way.  She’s really nice, and I like talking to her because she laughs easily and stuff, but it’s situations like this that remind me why island/small town life is really kind of bad, especially for kids who grow up there.  They can’t help but get into trouble, or get pregnant or something like that.  She’s not married, and she’s had a few boyfriends, and I’m just like… That’s really sad.

                But anyway, she’s a lovely girl, and she thinks my idea for a bra boutique would be awesome.  She said even Anchorage doesn’t have a really good store, like a Macy’s or anything, so you can’t even get a proper fitting somewhere in Alaska.  You’d have to go all the way to Seattle.  She invited me to a UFC party she’s having at her house.  She bought the fight on pay-per-view, and is having a couple people over.  It should be fun, and now I have Alaska friends.  J

                Carolyn called, so I left Brynn and went down to the Dutch Harbor Mall.  I think I already mentioned that it’s right across the street from my hotel, which is good because I was supposed to be grabbing my computer to do stuff with Tim when I got back.  Anyway, I parked at the mall, and went in, and she does have just the coolest stuff.  It’s all like, native made, or handmade by somebody, and there was just so much to look at.  I got a sea urchin Christmas ornament that Carolyn had hand painted, and several gifts that I won’t say what they are, and a really nice earmuff warmer that is blue and green.  Carolyn said that the lady who makes them brushes her (goats?  Sheep?  Alpacas?  Don’t remember) and spins, dyes and knits the yarn.  Mine was a proto-type, so it was a little cheaper than some of the others.  I put it on right away, and it is very lovely and warm.  It’s exactly what I need here because a hat is too hot, and it’s really just my ears that are cold anyway.

                So when I go to get back in my truck, the car won’t turn over.  The radio came on, and it was trying and making this kakakakaka noise, but it wouldn’t start.  I think it must be in the starter because obviously the battery isn’t dead.  I called Tim and he came and got me in the Chelsea K truck, and we went back to the plant.

                When we got in, Marcus was hanging out in Tim’s office, and while they were talking about what to do about the Westward One truck, I organized the books in the outer office by size.  Marcus made fun of me, and Tim was like, is my office still bugging you?  And it was, because we hadn’t done anything with the boxes that we were keeping after we took out everything we were throwing away.  So he let me move some more stuff, and I lined it up against the walls and got it off the floor, and put all his power cords (there were a LOT of power cords) in a box, and showed him that he had two paper punches and three tape dispensers and two boxes of staples but no stapler.  So he’s kind of all lined up.  There was one pile of paper that he was still working on, and I tried to straighten it, and he’s like, don’t touch it!  But I put it in a neater stack anyway.

                Brynn was texting me about our respective plans for the rest of the night, and eventually we decided that we would go catch lunch tomorrow (Saturday) before the UFC fight, and then she would go back to work and I would come over for the fight.  Marcus and Tim and I went to The Grand Aleutian for dinner, and had so much food.  It’s a testament to how much I’m getting used to Alaska-portions, because I ate WAY more than I did when we were there on Monday night.

                We had duck comfit flautus, which were delicious, and I had another wedge salad and that bacon steak (which was just as good the second time), and this time I ate most of my vegetables and appropriate starch, and I was even thinking about getting some dessert.  It had been raining most of the day, so we had kind of lost hope that there would be time to go fishing before I left.  But during dinner, the skies began to part, and it got really beautiful outside.  Tim and Marcus were both looking slightly wistfully out the window.  I was chewing, so I gestured a fishing rod, and they agreed that if I asked so directly, I deserved to get to go.

                So out we go to get ready.  I called home, and talked to everybody.  I shouldn’t have warned everyone that I would catch a Halibut for them, because I set the bar really high for myself.  Every one of them asked if it was still light out.  It was 8:30, so of course it was still light out.  It’s still light out at home at 8:30.  But whatever.  (For anyone who is not in the family, this fishing trip happened at midnight, and the sun still hadn’t set, ok?)

                So we all show up at the dock, and we had roused this poor Rick character out of his house to give us the keys to the little environmental skiff.  Tim brought us some fishing rods and The Alden, which is what we call our halibut fighter, which is basically a piece of PVC pipe set into a leather belt so that you can put your fishing rod in your hip without killing yourself while you bring in your fish.

                This is a little boat, maybe 15 feet long, and it’s got a little wheelhouse and not much else.  Marcus navigated us away from the big fleet boats and the plant, and I finally got the picture of the plant I had been hoping to get.  The plant is huge, and now I can show you.  We start heading out to, where ever we went, I’ll have to check a map and guess.  We could see Mount McCushion (sp?)  which is an active volcano and actually shuts down the airport some times.  I guess we get little earthquakes all the time.  I haven’t felt any, but that’s pretty normal.

                Tim brought some beers, so we’re all in this little dingy trying not to wear our freshly cracked beers.  Marcus let me drive for a little while, and I had to ask him to hold my beer, and I almost said that every good story starts with “Hold my beer.”

                This is going to be one of those stories.

                We pick a spot near this waterfall, and we’ve got a pretty good wind pushing us about 3 knots out toward the Bering Sea, and we should be right over some humps where the fish are.  Tim gives me a fishing rod, and is like, well, reel it out til it hits the bottom.  This took forever, and was made worse by the fact that there was something wrong with the spool (turned out it was screwed down to tight), so I was paying out the line by hand.

                This took forever, and I still don’t think I ever really hit the bottom.  But I felt like there was something on the end, so within probably 30 seconds of thinking I had hit the bottom, I started reeling it back in.  This also took forever.  I’m reeling and reeling, and it is really, really difficult.  Whatever is on there is pulling back pretty good.  So I’m reeling, and hauling on the line and reeling up really fast on the way down, and it’s just taking forever.

                Tim eventually got me The Alden, because I seemed to really be working for it, and I have bruises in both my hips from going without at first.  He checked my line, and at first he didn’t think there was anything on there, but eventually, when I was really working for it, he started to think I might have actually caught something.  He was saying all these fish names, and I guess they started really small, and were getting progressively bigger as he’s watching me work for this fish.

                It was twice as exhausting, because my left arm is trying to stabilize and haul up the line, and my right hand is really working to get the reel around.  I felt like I was never gonna get this fish up.   It’s been probably, five minutes of pulling on this fish, and I was very close to giving up.  I was going to make Tim bring it in because my forearms were on fire, and here comes a Fucking Halibut.  A real Fucking Halibut (that’s a technical term).

                It’s gigantic!  And it’s all flopping all over the place, and we pull it in with one of those giant spikes on the end of a shovel handle, and Marcus takes a picture of me with this Fucking Halibut.  Somebody clubbed it over the head to get it to quit flopping around all over the place.  Its blood is still on my pants.  I kind of wish I had hit it, since it was my fish, but that’s ok.  We dragged it up to the front of the boat, and I went and sat with my fish for a while.

                This whole process took approximately 15 minutes.

                Poppers, I hope you’re proud.  I was not trying to rub it in, but both Marcus and Tim were just shamed by the fact that the first thing I ever fished in my life was  a Fucking Halibut.  I wore The Alden like a beauty queen sash, and walked around.  Also, I was wearing my fisherman’s sweater and my ear muffs, so I look so Alaskan in these pictures it’s not even funny.  I also forgot to tie my hair back until it was too late, so now it’s a tangled mess.  I’m a sea-woman now.

                I was kind of rubbing it in a little.  I said that me and Chuck Norris don’t go fishing, we go catching.  Stuff like that.  Marcus said that normal people get little stuff and then work up to a big fish, but it was like I went straight to the triple dog dare (in a minor breach of etiquette, he skipped the triple dare, and went straight for the throat!).  God, I had never been so excited in my life.  I am the happiest person ever.

                We had another hour or two of day light (because it was only 9:30 when I caught my fish), so we went back and tried that spot again, and then we jetted around and fished elsewhere.  No one else caught anything (it was the triple dog dare that did it).  It suddenly got incredibly warm while we were out though.  We got really close to the waterfall, and if the wind hadn’t been whipping by so fast, it would have been uncomfortably hot.  It’s the weirdest thing to be being swept away by wind, but it’s hot so you never get cold.  We’re all stripping off layers and stuff.

                Once you catch a Fucking Halibut, you don’t really have anything else to catch, so as the sun was going down and it started to rain, we headed back to the plant.  No one was there, because none of the boats were in, so we had the entire fish plant to ourselves.  We weighed me and me with the fish, and I had to stick my hand in its gills, which was very uncool, but I have a picture.  It weighed 14 pounds. 

Unfortunately, Marcus employs several people who all do their jobs correctly, so no one had left any knives or anything around.  We had to roam around this big silent plant until we found a knife.  I watched while Marcus cut off these giant fillets of my fish.  I rinsed them off with a hose, and we got my four fillets (and two tiny, scallop sized cheeks) into a surimi bag and put it in a Westward Seafood box and found a freezer to  put it in.  Again, everyone did their job and locked stuff, so we had to find a little freezer that Tim hadn’t known even existed.  I suspect Marcus did it on purpose for just such occasions.

We’ll be able to bring my fish home in an ice box thing, so I’m very excited about that.  I would have loved to eat it with the crew of the Chelsea K, who got in at 2 this morning, but I had to bring it home.  So we left my fish in the plant, and I gave Tim and Marcus a hug and thanked them for taking me fishing, and Marcus and I left and I bounced off the walls for another hour before I finally crashed and went to bed at midnight.

Thursday -- Alaska Letters

                Had to get up a little faster this morning because I needed to be at the plant by nine in time for the boat ride with the Westward One.  So I got myself together, got dressed, and hopped in my car by 8:45.  It was silly for me to think that it would take me so long to get there, because I arrived at approximately 8:52.  Cause nothing is far away in this town.

                I got to the plant, and this time did not get lost and was able to successfully get straight to Tim’s office.  He had given me a key in case I got there before he did, but he was in his office when I arrived.  There was some slightly awkward sitting while I watched him do some data entry, and I sorted all of his piles of vessel letterhead so that each boat got its own folder.  I also measured his office to see what kind of space we are looking at related to furniture purchasing.  It’s 125” by 187”.  I initially kind of guess-timated the long one because Tim didn’t hold the measuring tape, and I guessed 190” so I want you all to appreciate how good of a guesser I am.

                Around 9:10 or so we went to listen in on the radio check with each of the boats that are still out, to see how their fishing is going.  I’m learning a lot of the terms which is making this more interesting.  For instance, when they say they have forty on board and 2 eggs in the bag, what they mean is that they have about 40 tons in the tanks already on the boat, and the sensors along the length of the net that tell you how full it is are kind of egg shaped.  They are spaced along the net where approximately 5 or 10 tons (depending on the size of boat/net) would have filled, and when each one goes off, it means your net is at least that full.  So having two eggs in the bag means there are at least 10 or 20 tons respectively in the net already.

                After that, we went back to Tim’s office and went to go check on the Westward One.  Marcus was already down there, and he and Brandon (captain) were talking about satellites or something.  I had taken my Dramamine already, so I was ready to go when they were, but the Harris Electric guy was on board and wanted to finish the light he was fixing before we went for fuel.  After some lazing around in one of the captain’s chairs, Tim and I decided to go back upstairs.  He tried to find a computer I could use, and he really put in a valiant effort, but it didn’t seem all that important to me, and since the Westward One wasn’t leaving for another hour, he went to get breakfast and I used his computer.

                I don’t know what in the hell is all over his key board, but half the letters you can’t even see because they are so grimy.  I’m like dude.  Get the fishmeal powder OFF your hands before you start typing!  And he’s still on Windows XP, which is hilarious, because both Google and Facebook were like, we… haven’t existed as long as this operating system, you’re gonna have to go to the simple version.  If I surfed Facebook on the oldest system, I would die.  It was so lame.  People would be like, THIS is Facebook?

                But eventually Tim came back, and eventually the boat was ready to leave, and so we went down (after I ate a third of a box of Tagalongs.  I’ll bring some home, I forgot how good they are).  I didn’t realize until we were already pulling away from the dock that we had even started moving.  We were doing about one knot, I think, and we had to calculate the difference between nautical miles and regular miles.  The ship had a pretty good roll to it, but it wasn’t too bad.  It seemed like we were plowing along pretty good, but I think the only reason it looked like we were traveling so fast was because there was land nearby to gauge movement.  Otherwise, we were just rolling around in the ocean.

                We only went around a little spit to get around to the Delta Western dock, and it took a whole hour.  I did pretty well, and I officially have been in the Bering Sea.  Marcus took me on deck to walk around, and I did pretty good, although I took these giant swarthy steps everywhere, and sort of stomped around a lot.  My boots were not slipping, which was really great, so it was just me stumbling around.  Marcus took some pictures of me, so hopefully I’ll get those off Facebook (regular Facebook) eventually.  He was hoping that I would get a good spray of water to the face, but me and the ocean have an understanding.  It’s a woman thing.

                I was really impressed with the docking of the boat.  Tim said that sometimes on crowded docks, they will give a ship literally 5 feet on either side to squeeze in.  We just parallel parked like it was nothing.  I was really truly impressed.

                Roy (from dinner last night) took us out for lunch at Amelia’s.  I’m working on my true Alaskan ability to eat tons of food at one time, and I tried.  I had enchiladas suizas, and they were both spicy hot and heat hot, which is sort of the double whammy of food consumption.  It was rough.  But I plowed through, and ate pretty much everything except for the beans (which I never eat anyway).  Then I was overcome with this tiredness that I have never really appreciated before.  I almost fell asleep right there.  I think all the weird hours had collected.

                Roy drove us back to the dock to take the Westward One truck to the plant, but I guess they were still using it to get food or something, so we went back to the plant too.  Round trip, 15 minutes.  I had checked out some Dania furniture for Tim while he was getting breakfast, and I showed him and Marcus some of the options for couches and desks.  Tim kept insisting that he didn’t really need one, but Marcus gave him this very serious look and said, you need a new desk.  So we picked out two desks, and a couch for his office and for his house, (we got him a reclining couch like ours for his house).  I tried to sell him on an ottoman for extra seating, but he was like, meh, which I felt was a very man attitude.

                Eventually Marcus and I left.  We stopped at Carolyn Reed’s gift shop to see if she was in, but she wasn’t.  I called her number, and she said she’d been sick and she hoped it be in later.  So we went to grab coffee on our way to get the Westward One truck from the fuel dock (this time it was there).  I drove that back, and holy crap batman, that thing was a monster.  It took me a five point turn-around and waiting for a Delta Western guy to move his truck, for me to get off the dock.  Then I went around and bought dad something at the Grand Aleutian, and went to find this Island Gypsy consignment shop.

                I have been searching everywhere for a reasonably priced maxi-skirt while this look is still in style.  And I have been foiled at every turn.  And wouldn’t you just know it that they had one all the way in Dutch Harbor, Alaska.  My god.

                So I bought that, and went to see if Carolyn had turned up, which she didn’t.  The Dutch Harbor Mall is across the gravel road from the Harbor View, so I just went back to my room after that.  When I come in my room, I lock the door, throw the extra door lock thing, take off my boots, my pants and my jacket and try to trap the Pollock smell at the door.  So I was instantly in comfortable mode, and I lied in bed and read for a little while, but eventually the powers that be were too strong, and I took a nap.  It was a glorious nap.  I thought I would just sleep for 20 minutes or so, and then get up again, but it was too good, so I extended my nap in 10 minute increments until I eventually got a call from Marcus at 6 to see if I wanted to go see Summer Bay.  By this time I had napped off and on for an hour.  It was good.

                The weather had really become wonderful, and so Marcus and I set out for Summer Bay, which is on the mainland side of the bridge on Unalaska proper.  We headed northeast and I have some absolutely incredible pictures.  The wind was a little stiff, but it was sunny and fairly warm, and it was just a stunning day to be in Dutch.  I saw many ground squirrels, and I was no more than 10 feet – 10 feet!!! – from a bald eagle.  He was hanging out on a piece of an old bridge scoping out the salmon struggling upstream.  He walked around a little, and he was just like an oversized chicken.  The most awkward walk I had ever seen.  Marcus threw a rock near him and he flew off, and that was pretty majestic (not the rock, the bird).  I said that now he was going to go shit on our truck, and we would have to explain to the rental company why there was such a large dent in the cab, and Marcus thought that was funny.

                I was dying to see a little fox, and as we were leaving, I saw one on the quarry pile.  He even held still so I could take his picture.  Cute little foxy.  He was adorable.  We saw one stream that was full of fish who were headed up to leave their eggs among the remains of their friends who had already done so.  It was kind of weird to see them, because there was basically a demonstration of the whole life cycle and decomposition cycle of the whole salmon species, all in one stream.  They are ugly little fish at the best of times.

                It was about 8:30 when we got back from Summer Bay, and we thought it was probably supper time.  The only restaurant I had not yet tried was the bar and grill in the Harbor View, so we went down and I got a pizza.  I really enjoy Marcus’ company, he’s very smart and very interesting.  He’s sort of like Matt in a lot of ways, which I think is probably why I like him so much.  We talked about his wife, and I told him about how Matt and I met (that story always plays well).  We talked about school and learning stuff, and how difficult it is to negotiate building plans and things with the Japanese people who basically run the plant.

                Eventually we headed off to bed around 10, and I took the other half of my pizza and shoved it in the window overnight.  It rained, but the box made it ok, and the pizza is still good.

                So that was my Thursday, I don’t know what I’m doing today, but I’ll probably do some more shopping.  Hopefully Carolyn will open up today and I’ll be able to buy some things there.  I already did some serious window shopping, so I think I know what I want.

Wednesday -- Alaska Letters

I brought three books with me, although one was almost finished when I left (I practically ate that for breakfast so it's gone now), and I got through Confessions of a Shopaholic on my epic never-ending flights.  Actually, my other book is The Causal Vacancy too!  How funny.  I just bought it in paperback recently.

There are tons of businesses on the island, but pretty much all of them are fishing related stuff.  On the island, there is the runway for the airport, piles and piles of fishing nets and crab pots and heaps of other gear and scrap metal, and then there are approximately three processing plants, stores for all the boat gear/repair, and then a couple restaurants.  As far as hotels, The Grand Aleutian which is the nice one, and the Harborview Inn are basically it, because anywhere else to stay is all company housing for the processing plants.  The plants employ so many people, it's ridiculous.

Dutch Harbor is kind of the big harbor for a little island in the middle, and the bigger island of Unalaska is surrounding it like a horse shoe.  Technically Dutch Harbor is just the body of water and the docks, and the city is the city of Unalaska.  But that’s not really important.  There's one little bridge across a narrow part of the harbor, and that's how you connect to the rest of the island of Unalaska.  There are mostly houses out there, the primary school and secondary school (because you're either in high school or not, as far as buildings are concerned), and a few more restaurants.  The MAC Enterprises guy is out on the Unalaska side, and I think that's basically so he can live in his office.

I think all the businesses know that even though that's "the competition," we're more like sister companies in the industry.  Because whatever is happening to us is also happening to them, so it's not really worth competing.  Marcus was telling me about when they rationalized the fishing industry: he said that 15 years ago, before rationalization, everything in Dutch was constantly anxious, high speed, everyone raced around and even the coffee girls would rush you out because you were taking too long.  And I understand why, because here you have an island that is only populated when you’re fishing, but the seasons went off and on, and everyone fished right up to the line to get as much as possible.  People were leaving for November and December, and June and July, and during the off-season, there wouldn’t be a soul on the island. 

So it’s really important to rush around and get as much as you can.  But since they rationalized the industries about 10 years ago, it’s made everything a lot more stable.  They were able to develop more consistent residents, and seasons that ended sooner because people were catching quota instead of as much as they could.  And the thing is, as one guy who struck gold early in the season moves out, that means that the little guy who hasn’t been doing well now has fewer people to compete with, and can also get closer to wrapping up his season.  Rationalization is one of those mixed bag sort of situations.  Some of it is probably really good, and some of it is just a big demonstration of a functionally organized economy.

But on the flipside of that, you’ve got The Corporation.  Which is a total misnomer, because it is just a false-front for the Indian Reservation.  The Corporation of Ounalashka (which must be the more traditional spelling) owns basically everything on the island, both where Dutch Harbor is located, and the horse-shoe part of Unalaska.  It probably owns all the islands, really, but I haven’t checked them out yet.

The thing that is such a classic government bullshit problem, and I feel is probably exacerbated by the fact that it’s a tribal government to boot, is that there used to be the World War II bunkers all over this island to defend against the Russians and the Japanese.  And there was this incredible network of underground munitions caves and cool look out points, and all the cool things to see, you can see from the gun stations and stuff like that. 

And it’s all just collapsed and gone to hell because no one is taking care of it because the little island can’t afford to, and besides who would see it beside fishermen and locals anyway?  And you know that if anyone had suggested, thirty years ago before everything started collapsing and getting covered in graffiti, that we should sell the whole Bunker Hill complex to someone for housing, they would have been up at arms.  They would have said that a private owner would ruin the integrity, the historic quality of the bunkers, and they would have never allowed it.

Which is awfully rich considering how great The Corporation is doing taking care of it now.  Marcus and I agreed that the gun turrets, which are sunk in the ground with tracks so the guns rotate, would be the coolest living room ever and you could have a fireplace in the center and circular couches all around.  And the sighting bunkers would be super cool for sitting rooms or bedrooms because they look out on the most gorgeous ocean ever.  And you could scatter the in-laws across the hillside in their own private bunkers, and they could travel by underground tunnel to the battery where you could have a massive dining room.  All the kids could have their own Quonset hut bedrooms.

But, whatever.

Grammers asked about the ExtraTuffs.  These are not your garden variety rubber boots.  They are brown with thick pale yellow soles, and they are about as heavy and sturdy as they come.  When I bought mine, they were still slick with the PAM cooking spray they use to get the rubber out of the molds.  These are not your mother’s rain boots.

Ok.  So today I had time to check my e-mail and write all this stuff (above) before Marcus and I went to breakfast.  We went to Amelia’s again, and this time I had corned beef hash, and it was just me and Marcus and Tim, so I was fairly involved in the conversation.  We talked a lot about camping and Marcus is always full of stories.  He used to live in Dutch, and he’s just a really interesting and active guy.

After breakfast (again, we ate until noon.  Marcus seems to enjoy endurance meals.  Hour and a half breakfast that doesn’t start until 10, 10:30 are normal), Tim and I went and grabbed my truck and we were going to go deal with his office at the plant.  That’s all fine and dandy, but I wasn’t exactly confident in my ability, so after turning around – almost all the way there, mind you – I called Tim from the Safeway parking lot and I’m like, “so… If I were coming from, say, the Safeway…”  I made it there eventually, a security guy saw me roaming around the outside of the plant trying to figure out which door to go through without getting crushed by something, and helped me find my way to Tim’s.  I saw him again later, and he’s like, you make it ok?

Tim’s office is a fairly small, standard rectangle.  It’s a really horrible shade of lilac though, and I would really love to paint it.  The mint trim around the windows makes it all a little sickening.  There was a whole wall of banker boxes about four feet tall that lined one whole wall, and Tim was fairly sure that there was not a single valuable thing in any of them.

Tim was much more willing to part with his crap than Elizabeth had been when I cleaned out her office, so we pretty much went to town dumping stuff.  Except for one box of things to be sent to Seattle, everything went.  Most of it was either fish tickets from 2001, or giant boxes of urine-tests for the boats.  They were sending gross boxes for each vessel, every year.  So we got rid of eight boxes of those.  Had to be nearly 2000 pee-cups.  Re-diculous.

So just as we remove everything from his office into the waiting room outside all the other offices (there’s a whole office floor and a bunch of Japanese people are in there doing stuff or whatever.  I think it must be for the Japanese selling end or something. Anyway,), that’s when Tim says the Viking just got in, so he’s going to go talk to Mike Johnson about some kind of violation.

He grabbed me an industrial dolly and showed me how to use the giant elevator, and basically said, go stick all this crap in a dumpster somewhere.

So five trips later, I got it all out.  I was proud of myself, I averaged probably six boxes a load, and each were very heavy or large or both, and I got it all done.  This was my route: From Tim’s office on the second floor, out the doors, down the hall, through the parts department, through the parts department, wait for the elevator.  Open the giant elevator doors, wheel the dolly in, push the button.  Go downstairs, stand awkwardly in the way as forklifts are going by while I am waiting for the elevator.  Open the elevator, unload the dolly partially (because there is a one foot difference between the elevator floor and the ground floor.  No difference on the second floor, so this was a new problem for me to figure out.), lower the dolly, reload the dolly, shut the giant doors, wheel through the forklift runway to get outside, walk past 8 Maersk semi-truck trailers, find a dumpster.  Unload dolly into dumpster, close dumpster, walk back, carry dolly upstairs, repeat.

So it was a long process, and luckily it had stopped raining by the time I was making all these trips.  It’s about as cold as Seattle in October or so, so it’s just a little brisk.  I didn’t bother with my coat because indoors it was hot and outside it was chilly.  I was sweating my ass off.  Everyone along this route was super nice, like the guys with the fork lifts were being super nice, and at some point along the way on each trip, somebody held a door open, or helped me get the dolly off the elevator or something.  One guy saw that I was putting so much paper stuff in the dumpster, and got a guy to bring me some totes to put it in.  Which was really good timing because the dumpster was getting full.

After that, Tim was back from talking to the Viking, so we went over there and looked around.  I was a little anxious about going over there, because when I messed up the checks for Dean Scates and Steve McLean, it was a big hairy mess that still hasn’t been all the way sorted out.  So I didn’t really want to walk into somewhere that was going to be like, hostile or something.  And of course, the first guy we walk into is Dean, who was the one who was short $6900 and was the most upset.  But he seemed alright, and I guess Steve just paid him the difference for the switched checks and they’re ok with it now.

Interestingly, for all the hullabaloo that Dean was raising about getting his money, Tony (not the same Tony, can’t think of his last name) was telling me that since I joined the office, they are actually getting their checks really reliably.  I know that’s true, because I put them in the envelopes every other week, but I guess when Elizabeth was super swamped, she sometimes wouldn’t get to it for two or three periods in a row.  So Dean really shouldn’t have been worried, because it was not that unusual from before.  He was getting spoiled by my recent appearance and got used to it.  Antsy bastard.

We met up with Marcus for a little while, and then Tim and I went to the radio meeting, which I guess is just a check in with all the boat captains to see how they are fishing, where they are, and size estimates and stuff.  One of the Japanese guys makes the call, and then Tim and I were there with like two other Japanese guys to see what’s going on.  One guy, the Bering Defender, is out almost to the border with Russian waters, he’s like 80 miles from it.  He’s hella north.

I had time to go back over to MAC Enterprises to give Jimmer my card.  I can’t remember the name of his secretary, but she was really nice, and she gave me a map of the island roads so I quit getting lost and turning around (which I did on the way to MAC, so yeah).  She was cool, we chatted for a while, then I drove back to my hotel.  I realized that I had plenty of time before the dinner with Roy at The Grand Aleutian, which was cool because I was sweaty dirty and fishy from the plant so I took a shower.

While I was in the shower, I was thinking to myself that these poor women out on this island must have a hell of a time finding a decent bra.  And unless you know your size and can order online, getting fitted must be a massive ordeal.  You’d have to go to like, Anchorage for any major shops.  So I was thinking that if this whole Alaska thing gets really serious, I might just open a bra business on the island.  I bet I’d get TONS of traffic.  Women from other islands might come over just to buy my bras.  That would be super cool.

I broached this idea to the nice girl behind the counter at The Grand Aleutian, who checked me in and who just cracked up at my Sarah Palin impersonation, and she said that it’s tough to find a bra.  She said it would be a great idea, and I probably would be very popular.  Later when I mentioned this idea to Tim and Marcus, they insisted that the men probably preferred for the women not to wear bras at all, so they wouldn’t be interested, and I felt that that is exactly the kind of thinking keeping women off the island now.  So good job there, guys.

Anyway, I perused the gift shop in The Grand, and I think I’ll probably buy some stuff there.  I don’t want to cut it too close to the wire with my purchases, and end up buying stuff in the airport.  Cause that just seems wrong.

The buffet was tonight, so everybody and their brother was at The Grand.  Roy was there with Tim when Marcus and I sat down, and I gave Roy my card, because I had them now, and I guess he realized when he went to grab his own card that he had left without his wallet – and he was supposed to be paying for dinner tonight – so he ran off to go get it.  While he was gone, we three went and got our first course and there was SO much good food.  I started with some weird salads, like a walnut, bleu cheese, beet salad which was weird but good.  The beets were yellow, which was part of the weirdness.  There was a Greek salad and some baby bok choi that were sprinkled with bacon and sesame seeds, and that was pretty good.

Roy got back and gave me his card, and after a little while we went back for entrees.  So apparently Marcus got the point of the “appropriate starch” comment a little better than I thought he did, because as we grabbed our entrees (there was one of those roast beef cutters), we discovered that they had provided an appropriate starch, and Marcus realized that with the bread and the rice, he wasn’t sure which was the appropriate starch.  We decided that the bread didn’t count, because it was starch, vegetables AND bread, so he was able to eat happily again after that.

They had so much food.  There was a lot of seafood, and I tried some fried clams (ok, kind of chewy) a fried scallop (yuck) and a tempura shrimp (meh).  They also had sushi, and I grabbed some neutral looking pieces and one of halibut, which was wrapped up with pickled asparagus, so it was actually pretty good, and I could have eaten a couple more of those.  There was also dessert, and our third trip up was for cheese cake and shooter sized dollops of berries and custard of some sort.

A guy from Stabbert Yacht and Shipyard in Ballard came and table-hopped our table. I guess they are thinking of building a shipyard in Dutch, so Marcus talked a lot to him about that.  At some point we talked about debate, and camping and skiing, and Alaska, and a little bit about how much money they put into kids who do sports on the islands.  I guess it’s like $40,000 a kid if they do a competitive sport in high school.  And most of that is air travel, and these kids will be gone multiple weeks at a time for competitions and tournaments.  I guess if you do sports in Alaska, you better do it well, cause there’s a lot of money invested in you.  That seems like a lot of pressure.  But it explains why a lot of their teams, like the college debate team and stuff, are really good.  There’s a lot invested, and they take it seriously.

After dinner, I walked over to the Alaska Ship and thought about buying stuff, and didn’t.  Then I drove back to my hotel and got ready for bed.  Tomorrow I’m supposed to be riding with the Westward One over to the fuel dock so I can, I don’t know, see how that is.  I was feeling a little sick while we at the dock by the plant.  The seas were a little choppy, and the boat in front of us was moving differently than we were, so I was getting some pretty good vertigo.  I hope I don’t get seasick in just an hour’s trip, but I’m taking some Dramamine or whatever anyway.

So I’ll keep you updated, I’m glad you’re all enjoying the stories.  There’s so much to talk about, so I’m sure I’m not even getting it all.  Keep asking questions, because it gives me more to talk about.  And for those of you following on a map, it’s was actually Cold Cove where we had to turn around during the enduro-plane ride.

And also the new narrative is that I’m from Alaska.  Just to update you about my entire life history that now is changing.  I’m an Alaskan now.