The Land of the Midnight Sun

The nickname is really true!  The sun does go down at about 11:30 or so, but it only looks like twilight, it doesn't get completely dark.  Then the sun comes back out at 3 something.  

Well, I have a home now!  I got the keys to my new studio apartment yesterday afternoon.  It is really tiny (312 square feet) but it's enough for me!  It's on the first floor, adjacent to the laundry room, has a REALLY long closet in the hall way, and all utilities are paid (including cable TV) except water which is supposed to be around $15/month.  My bed is being delivered this afternoon and I can spend my first night in my new home.  

This week has been pretty fun.  Tim took Monday off and we went to the zoo with my mom.  Tim and I had gone to the zoo when I was here in March, but it was better this time.  First of all it wasn't freezing cold.  Also, we got to see black bears and the polar bears were more active.  After the zoo we drove out to the coast to "Beluga Point" which is just a pull off on the side of Seward Highway where there are telescopes and supposedly Beluga whales (my mom's favorite) feed.  We climbed out on the cliffs there but didn't see any whales.  We got some nice pictures though (which will be posted soon...).  We also went shopping downtown and got lots of souvenirs.  

We looked at prices for whale watching cruises and they were all very expensive so we were going to take a one-hour glacier cruise for a much more reasonable price, and were planning on going today, but Tim got sick last night and is still not feeling well, so we're just going to hang out here and continue setting up my apartment.  Poor Tim was exhausted from his trip and had not had a decent night's sleep since he got back and it caught up to him.  We're just going to let him rest today and get better.  Hopefully he'll feel better by tomorrow night for the fireworks. There's a double header baseball game in town for the "Rookie A" team, the Anchorage Bucks and they're doing fireworks afterwards.

The weather is pretty much perfect here.  The highs are in the mid- to upper-60's. It even got up to 72 one day.  The lows are mid-50's because the sun stays out so long.  Before I came up here I was reading about Anchorage on a website and it said that one of the "unofficial" nicknames for the city is "the hanging basket capital of the world."  It's true!  There are hanging baskets everywhere!  Anchorage is also called, "The city of Flowers" in the summer and "The City of Lights" in the winter.  It's a pretty city all year round!

I tried to upload my pictures from my camera that I've taken so far, but they didn't come out right, so I'll try again later and hopefully be able to post some pictures soon!