Go Nanooks!

Friday was the first UAF hockey game of the season against Ohio state. The game was nothing to nothing until overtime then nanooks scored, winning the game.

Tonight was the second game against Ohio state.  It was immediately an exciting game when the nanooks scored!  The rest of the game held the crowd in absolute trance as the teams got the score up to six to two by the third quarter.  Me, Maddy, William and his friend (i'm horrible with names) all sat in the student section where most of the chanting happens.  Once the other team has a penalty and one player is forced to sit in the penalty box the whole sections shouts "SIT DOWN BITCH" lol UAF won the game.

So far Alaska has been great and the university has been wonderful.  Every day just keeps getting better.

Another beautiful sunrise here in Alaska : )

A day in the life.

So many of you have asked what my daily schedule is and what my fairbanks life is all about. Well heres some little facts about my average day in fairbanks. Some of its normal and some I'll have to get used to.
First, I wake up in the morning around 6:30 to wake up maddy and get her ready for school. I make breakfast, pack her lunch and we head out the door before 8. Her school starts at 8:30 and then I'm off to classes at the University. After I go to my classes I go and pick up maddy at 3:15. Then we head off to the gym where we go to zumba, run, and swim in the pool. After the gym we head home. Maddy does her homework while I make dinner. She goes to sleep at 8:30 and then I do my homework and catch up with my friends.

Some things that are a little different here in alaska:
1. Waking up to pitch black with the moon still hung in the sky.
2. Having to plug in my car whenever I'm turning it off for more than an hour...

Yeah...everyone does this. Otherwise your oil might freeze and your car won't start.
3.Remembering that when I say I'm from california I have to remind everyone I'm not from L.A. Its like a mini europe over here. lol
4. Sunrise at 10:30 in the morning, which I'm rather fond of. : )
5. finally, the fact that walking anywhere, no matter how close, is a huge adventure.

Some cool things
People still ride bikes here, even though the roads are covered in a nice sheet of thick ice. Their bikes are equipped with some hefty tires that are about 5 times bigger than a normal mountain bike tire.
People are  NOT decked out in only carhart and surel, they dress normal and reasonably fashionable. (This I like)
People know how cold it is here. They don't hide the fact and they don't "get use to it".

So I hope that covers everything, leave me a comment if you'd like me to answer any questions you have. Thank you and goodnight! : )

Hockey!

I finally saw my first alaska hockey game. It was the Ice Dogs at the local arena. I went with a friend I met through another good friend in SLO. So William took me to see my first hockey game and it was a blast. The game is so brutal and we both didn't know the rules that well we were just hoping for a good fight. Which we got a lot of! : )

Just before they scored. The alaska Spectators are brutal towards the other team with full chants of "Boo's" and "Go home's". It was exciting. I can't wait to see my first fairbanks university hockey game which should be this upcoming saturday. Go Nanooks!! (polar bears) lol

First day in Fairbanks

Today was jam packed with a busy schedule of stuff I had to do. I woke up today at 10:30 the first time I've been able to sleep in for a while and saw a beautiful sunrise! at 10! I love that I can sleep in and still see the sunrise. 

Got ready then headed to the local coffee shop (I'm blanking on the name but I'm sure I'll refer back to it again) got some coffee and breakfast then I was off to the University to take care of some business. Talk about frustrating though UHG! I made a very long check list and was slowly checking things off, first the financial aid office, then placement tests, more registrar visits and my admissions. After all the not so fun stuff I did some semi-fun stuff like getting groceries for the apartment and some warm socks because I'm a dork and forgot to bring warm socks to alaska! lol
It was minus 19 today and the sunset was gorgeous. The harvest moon was even bigger tonight then it was last night.

Did you know Alaska gains six minutes of day light each day? To put this into perspective you main land folks only gain 15-20 seconds a day. So by May 1st Alaska will have 16 hours of sunlight. So THERE! HA! : )

Finally in Alaska

Woke up at 4:00 a.m. to catch a 6:00 a.m. flight. Sat on a plane for four hours and finally made it to anchorage around 10:00 a.m. alaska time. It was still dark when I landed but the sun finally rose around 10:30. I can sleep in still see the sunrise here : )  The sun was shining and beautiful the whole drive to fairbanks. We drove though Denali state park and the scenery was absolutely majestic.

The drive took about 6 hours and we were advised almost no places along the way were going to be open. We had a full tank of gas but there was no place to eat or....do our business.lol so we started to stop at every post there was. The last one we tried after not eating for almost 9 hours that day had some interesting signs that indicated it was not open.

A paper sign in eastjesusnowhere that told us the place had been closed for some odd time and wouldn't be opening till April! And we weren't about to stick around for 3 months. Another sign that was rather entertaining let us know how people most commonly get around in that area.

So we had to keep driving in hopes we'd soon find a place to eat and rest. Finally about an hour later, two hours from fairbanks we found a post. I don't know if we were just hungry but that was the best food i've ever had. Going there again I probably wouldn't say the same thing....lol
Also along the way we managed to get a pretty good shot of Mount McKinley.

 Thats Mount McKinley. The one towering over the Denali range. Climbers most commonly use this 20 thousand foot peak to train for Mt.Everest. We got out of the car to stretch our legs and take some needed pictures. The temp at that time was only minus 18! A little cold but nothing I can't handle. : )

Oh yeah. Thats right. I'm in high heels. In Alaska. lol dorky pose I know but I just felt like doing something fun : ) Once we had our fun we starting driving again towards fairbanks. The coolest part of this whole road trip was the that we got to see the sun rise and set in a matter of hours. It was one of the longest sunsets I've ever seen and it was one the most beautiful. The moon that night though Oh My God. It was the january harvest moon and it was big! I tried to take a photo but it just doesn't do it justice.

Almost to fairbanks we saw our first alaskan moose! Didn't manage to snag a picture unfortunately. We got to Fairbanks around seven and it was cold! Minus 31! We settled into our temporary home until we can move into our house in march hopefully! Talked to Tony on skype before bed and then passed out! I had been up for a staggering 20 hours. I was pooped! So far thats my Alaskan adventure, more to come! Its minus 33 today with a high of minus 15! yikes.

Seattle

Driving from Sacramento through Mount shasta one last time and towards Seattle to drop off our cars to be shipped to Alaska.

 I arrived in Seattle yesterday and enjoyed touring the city all day today. First we stopped by Pike's Place market. You know? The place with all the fish throwing? Anyways, its famous for the fish market. If you've ever watched a video on being a "team player" at work you've probably seen this place.
We had some delicious fish and chips for lunch right by the oceanside in a restaurant thats over 103 years old!

The Underground of Seattle was also our destination for the day. We learned all sort of fun facts about the first floor of the pioneer's square. Did you know seattle's main streets are the second floor? everything started at sea level and was built up from there, in a rather idiotic way...but history is history.
Me in the underground! : )

 If you ever find yourself walking through Pioneer's square in downtown seattle look at the side walks and you'll see little shapes of colored glass that actually looks into the underground!

View from below! : ) It was beautiful with the sunlight coming in. A good set up for a modern art piece i might just try and paint. the history of Seattle's buildings and city was all very interesting but there was one thing I wanted to see the most...

The Famous troll under the Aurora bridge! as seen on 10 things i hate about you. It was huge and entirely made of cement, it also includes an actual Volkswagen bug under the troll's hand. Something I've always wanted to visit for whatever reason. Its just so random and cool! : )
Tomorrow my plane leaves for Anchorage Alaska at 6 a.m. : ( but then I will officially live in alaska.

Hawaii!

Hawai'i was amazing. Pronounced Ha(vai)i. We arrived on my 20th birthday, it was humid because of the recent rain that day. We made our way to our hotel and as soon as we got into our room a bouquet of flowers and a pair of Lei's shortly arrived!

For those of you that don't know my father has given me a bouquet of flowers on my birthday ever since I was in kindergarden. Its a wonderful tradition if I do say so myself : ) My birthday is usually a school day so its always exciting to walk around all day with a huge display of flowers.

The bouquet!! : )
Upon arrival me and my mother got ready for dinner at Duke's. Recommended by my lovely cousin Victoria. It was all so delicious. And above all we got to see a beautiful hawaiian sunset.

A lovely canadian couple took this photograph after I exchanged to take a picture of them. They were from Vancouver and had humor for days. They told me I should flash the hawaiian symbol for "hang loose" so I did... : )
That night, being my 20th birthday, I wanted to have some fun. But my mother had already gone to bed luckily I had met someone fun on the plane.
This is Tony : )

We had met briefly in the Sac airport and then were coincidentally seated next to one another on the plane. We had exchanged stories and got to know each other. He currently lives in Honolulu and was more than willing to show me around while I was there. So, the night of my birthday I gave him a call and he came to pick me up. We went to his apartment, chilled with his room mate Josh and played a dance game on XBox Kinect. It was a lot of fun.
This is the view from his Pent House. Absolutely amazing. Best birthday in quite some time! thanks tony! : )

The next day me and my mom tried to hike Diamond head but unfortunately the trail was closed that day due to the bad weather. Although that day was especially spectacular. He headed towards Lanikai to lay on a beach as recommended by Tony. Me and my mother drove along the coast of Hawaii in search of the perfect beach. On the way we got fresh coconut by the side of the road.

It was delicious and prepared by a large samoan man. Thanks! We drove the rest of the way to Lanikai and took a dip in the ocean. We started to see a lot of kayakers coming and going to this island about Four miles off shore. So we decided to go for a kayaking adventure which was about 4 miles each way.

Once we got to the island we talked with some of the other brave souls that made it out there. We shared our coconut and tried to swim in the ocean. The reason I use "tried" as our action is because try is almost all we did. We wanted to go swimming in the beautiful blue water but because of the tide towards this certain beach the waves were coming onto the beach from three different sides, at the same time. making it impossible to swim without getting swept away. After getting back in our kayak, which was no easy feat, we headed towards Lanikai.
Once we got back to our hotel we got ready for dinner with Tony and his room mate Josh. They took us to an amazing sushi restaurant called Doraku. We had a great time!
The rest of the trip was full of fun. We took a hike to Manoa falls with tony and got so muddy in the process!

Tony, my mom and I at the Manoa falls and of course it started to rain right as we got there which added to the whole muddy experience. The rest of the trip we managed to see The U.S.S. Bowfin at pearl harbor which was guided by a recorded head set. Tony's was in korean lol
Me and my mom on our last full day there saw Hanauma Bay and then I headed over to Tony's to make dinner. He made delicious chicken and I made my fried rice YUM! : )
Our last day there we decided to be lazy and lay on the beach next to our resort.

Our trip to hawaii was a success! We got tan, we met amazing people and we had a wonderful adventure. So thanks to Hawaii for a great vacation, I'll be visiting again soon! : ) Now I'm back on the main land ready to embark on my adventure to Alaska. Wish me luck!

Happy Happy Hawaii!

Today is my 20th birthday! I'm finally not a teenager. This should be an exciting year for me, I can't wait for the adventure : )

My mother and I are leaving for hawaii in about 15 minutes. We'll arrive there around 12 noon today just in time to have the whole day to explore. The weather forecast said it was a 50% chance of raining so pray that it doesn't! I'll post some pictures as soon as i can.

I can't wait to see that Hawaiian sunset : )

ALASKKKAAAA?!

Nice and Lazy

Last night me and my good friend Grace made some delicious food. I made a pastry appetizer with brie, brown sugar, candied walnuts and a puff pastry shell baked to perfection. We then made my famous rosemary garlic potatoes, some home made pasta (which i had never made before) and some chicken wrapped in pancetta. YUM! Then we watched Zombieland. A medley of wonderfully prepared food and a horror comedy classic.

This Morning we woke up and went for a run to the gym down the road. Another good reason to leave Redding california would be to avoid the jerks who whistle at you when you run outside. Me and Grace were some what flattered and absolutely disgusted...especially when some guy blew kisses at us...gross.

After running and working out for a bit we crawled back home to bask in the sunlight that had been surely missed this winter season. We enjoyed the sun not only because we had missed its heat but also...we were locked out of the apartment. Grace's boyfriend had fled with the keys and we were left stranded. It made for a wonderful reason to soak up some rays.

I guess i should soak up the sun now since i'm moving to alaska soon.

The Winter solstice has passed which means it will start to get brighter for longer in alaska before it gets brighter longer here.

In much of the lower northern hemisphere, the recognition of winter solstice is largely overshadowed by anticipation of Christmas, which follows in only three to five days. But for those who live near or inside the Arctic Circle, solstice day is an important dawning of a new annual era: this is the day the sun starts coming back.

-Cool fact of the day

IKEA

Its my first time going to an IKEA. and i'm excited. : ) just thought I'd share. Did you know they have a food court in there!!? lol

It started with an idea!

I have never created a blog before. I'm not exactly a "writer" but the idea of starting a blog to document my adventure of moving to alaska from my sunny california was too good to pass up. It would be a perfect chance to keep all my home land friends updated on my life and a great routine for myself. Still in limbo from living in california to living in alaska I am stranded at my father's house in Sacramento.

To clear some things up I suppose I should explain why I am moving to a frozen tundra of a land instead of staying at some remote beach in central california. An opportunity arose for me to be a nanny or as the europeans call them au pairs for a friend of a friend of a friend. I would receive enough money to go to school for free and everything from room and board would be taken care of. I couldn't pass this up.

About a month ago I was working in Redding, Ca at a deli near my house and going to a community college. This was my second year of college. My first year of college I attended a private seventh day adventist college in some desolate place in napa county. Needless to say that first year was a total bust for more reasons than one. So I found myself back in the dirty five thirty doing exactly what I didn't want to do. Working full time at a sandwich shop dealing with angry costumers and going to school full time at a community college. Then this opportunity arose and it was my ticket out of there!

So now I am out of school, out of work and waiting to depart on my adventure to alaska.
Thanks for reading the first post of my blog. I hope I can keep it interesting enough to keep reading.

Next stop HAWAII!! : )