There’s a kingdom

This year I finally got to go to “The Nutcracker.” It plays annually in Anchorage, but I’ve never got to go. So my BFF and I decided to take our moms, which ended up to be our moms, her sister, a “Little” sister, her dad and boyfriend. But that’s cool. This year Anchorage’s featured company was the Eugene Ballet. It was a great show!

Even though I hadn’t seen it before, I knew the basic story. I did remember (I’m sure at one point I knew) that almost all the music from the third act is in “Fantasia.” I’d say my favorite part was the costumes. The party dresses were beautiful. I also really liked the set for the rat kingdom part. There was lots of blacklight-reactive elements, and honestly, I think that I would have been a little scared were I a little kid.

It was also fun to see all the little kids and little girls in their Christmas dresses. I watched one cute and interesting exchange in which one little girl gasped and floofed the thin, ballerina-like skirt of another girl, before touching the shoulder of her very grown-up-looking peacoat and saying something that looked like “I really like your outfit!” Learning social skills already.

Unfortunately, I was a little slow on this and the show is no longer showing in Anchorage (one weekend only). Very enjoyable though. Maybe in the future I’ll have to buy one of those “season pass” thingies.

Driving in a winter wonder… something

The Glenn crosses the Knik River. This was nine-ish days before snow hit.

This weekend Anchorage and most of the rest of Southcentral Alaska saw its first appreciable snow, and it looks like it’s going to stick. A good 3 inches in most places over Sunday night (or was it Saturday? I was sick and stayed in the house all day Sunday) and apparently drivers are handling it pretty well. Early season accidents as usual, but one thing I’ve learned is that the commute sucks even worse when it’s snowing. Especially when it’s REALLY snowing. As it was on my first snowy drive home.

According to this page and others, 11,000 people commute from the Valley to Anchorage daily. My commute is about 20 miles further at least than most of those people (just about 60 miles one-way, so an hour-and-a-half on the way in with traffic). Big Lake’s a great place, but I will not stay here and continue to commute every single day. It’s taxing on my time and energy. Plus, unless I want to live with my parents forever (which I don’t) it would be an extreme waste of money.

The roads coming home Monday were pretty bad. It wasn’t necessarily the roads, but the visibility due to the snowfall. I thought I’d be driving home with the snow plows, but they were nowhere to be seen. I was thinking that maybe part of the Anchorage City budget cuts, road maintenance (ie snow plows) were cut, but according to this KTVA article, that budget isn’t going anywhere.

Tomorrow night (or, technically, tonight) there’s a commuter rail forum at the Anchorage Museum. (you might need to have a facebook account to see the details). I’d totally go, but I’m at work, and again, hoping to not be a commuter for much longer. The forum is from 6-8 p.m. at the Anchorage Museum on C Street. I think a commuter train would be a great idea, however, I think that People Mover service would have to be vamped up and the commuter train or light rail or whatever would have to have multiple stops in town, not just one downtown drop-off. Having used the D.C.-area Metro for a summer, the convenience is amazing, especially if they were to have wi-fi or tvs with the morning news or something. The reason People Mover would have to vamp up is that, welll, winter sucks! No one wants to have to walk almost a mile to work at 0 degrees, much less 20 below. So unless this commuter rail system had hubs and branches from say the East/West areas of town, a lot of people may choose to just drive their cars in anywas.

Besides, we Alaskans are an independent bunch. We don’t like having to go home before we want to just because that’s the train schedule. It would also take a big ideology shift too. Lots of people have been commuting for 15 years. While many I think would use it if it were less expensive than commuting and not too inconvenient to get to work from wherever the “station” is. If someone has to take a $8 cab ride to get to work, on top of paying to ride the rail, it may not be worth it to them.

Enough on that for now, and more on apartment-hunting soon! It may be a little while though, President Obama will be in town Thursday so we’re going to be pretty busy at work and I’m packing for a trip to Whitehorse this weekend too, so I just might be tuckered out before 5 a.m. Friday when we leave.

A room of one’s own

After not posting for who knows how long, I’m finally getting down to the business of apartment-hunting. My friend and I looked at a 2 bedroom this morning that we liked. It has teeny weeny bedrooms, but they’re just for sleeping, right? We need to figure out the money thing on her end and mine, on whether she’ll be able to afford moving off campus and how much money I’ll actually be making, or am making now, which could put a damper on things.

I’ve been searching primarily via craigslist. There are plenty of places on there, plus most of them list an address or at least an intersection. Then I go find it on google maps and use the street view to see what the neighborhood looks like. Then, to be even more sure I want to potentially live there, I check out the Anchorage Crime Map and see what kind of crimes are committed in the area. I’m obviously not going to escape crime, especially with apartments in the price range I’m looking at (think LOW). Then I drive through the neighborhood to see what it’s like. How well do people take care of their yards? Are there bums on every corner? I’ve been a little judgemental in some neighborhoods, but so far only one apartment I’ve straight-up crossed off my list after a drive-by.

I’m looking at one- and two-bedroom places. Primarily because I didn’t know if my friend was all in or not (and we’re still not sure). She’s got a good thing going on campus but would LIKE to move off, but doesn’t want to hold me into a crappy place because she can’t afford a nicer one. Right now I can afford a 1BR on my own, barely, so I’m still going to look at 1 BRs. The place we looked at today was cute. Its only drawback was the tiny bedrooms. He wants a 10 month lease, which is okay I guess, but Jake will be moving down and two of us in that teeny bedroom will be kindof crowded, but considering we’ll hardly be there at the same time except to sleep, I think we could wing it.

I’ve called a few other places. I’m going to look at a 1BR on Monday, but none of the other places have called me back… though I see one is re-listed on craigslist today. Maybe they just call on weekdays?

Anyways, this is part one in my apartment-hunting adventure. We’ll see how many parts there are to this. Hopefully not too many! I’m getting sick of commuting and living with my parents.

Chiang Mai Ultimate Thai

photo jacked from yelp.com

One of my BFFs Kacie introduced me to Thai food in Fairbanks at the Thai House. Since then, I’ve been hooked on Thai food. Ironically, one of the ones I most frequent in Anchorage, is formerly known as Thai House, and is now at a new location nearby, and called Chiang Mai Ultimate Thai, on the Old Seward just south of 36th Avenue across from New Sagaya. The old location is now home to Nino’s Italian Eatery, which I really want to try out. I’ve been to Chiang Mai a couple different times, and it’s pretty much just what you look for in a restaurant. Every time I’ve gone (which is admittedly at fairly dead times of day) the service has been good, the food is ready quickly, and they sortof just leave you alone. I know that leaving your table “alone” for their whole meal is usually not a great thing, but I guess I’ve never been in the situation to need anything more from them.

The meals I’ve had there are yellow curry and pad thai (I’m not much for spicy foods, unfortunately) and both have been delish! I went their last Tuesday on my way to take a friend to the airport. The pad thai (with shrimp) was so plentiful that I had enough left over to take to work with me for dinner (I work evening-nights). Their prices aren’t bad either. My friend bought me lunch, but the dish was like $11.99 or so (including the shrimp) and I had a Thai iced tea with it, which is probably horribly unhealthy, but I can’t help it, it’s soo good!

Chiang Mai’s midtown location is excellent, and convenient, especially if you work nearby. The food is great, and if you show up around 2:00 on a week day you’ll miss the lunch rush and have the place all to yourself.

Hockey season has begun!

Series 2 of the Governor's Cup December 2006 at Sullivan Arena

Alright, so hockey season for me started last weekend, when I attended the University of Alaska-Anchorage’s Kendall Hockey Classic, which featured my alma mater, the University of Alaska Nanooks. I didn’t watch the UAA games, Friday because I hardly had anyone to watch the UAF game with, and they left before the Anchorage game, and on Saturday because my boyfriend was down and other friends were up, and though Jake was willing to stick around, pretty much no one else was, so we went with group consensus. It doesn’t really matter, because the Nanooks won the tournament! (and I’m wishing them luck in this week’s Brice Alaska Goal Rush in Fairbanks).

On the hockey watching experience: The Sullivan Arena was less-than-packed, for sure, for the out-of-towner games. Even though Alaska (Fairbanks) and Michigan pull pretty good fan bases in Anchorage (the Michigan fans sang the fight song and had chants and everything), it’s just kind of hard to get that same feeling going when there’s about 400 people in the arena, tops. (That’s my guesstimation, I could be way off, but there were many, many, many, many empty seats. When you can sit a group of about 12 in the lower level at the perfect spot just above the glass, without infringing on anyone’s space, there’s some room to work with. From seeing shots of the UAA games in Fairbanks, the Carlson Center was similarly un-packed. I’ve been to a couple UAA games in my time (primarily for the Governor’s Cup) and those games pulled a pretty good-sized crowd. One thing the Sully has on the Carlson is a wet section. We would love to see one of those in Fairbanks. It kind of stinks if you’re under 21 and have to walk all the way around the arena to get to your friends who are just on the other side of the wet section (as my boyfriend’s younger sister and friends had to), but the beer garden they have at the Carlson Center isn’t set up in any way to actually watch the game with a game experience. The UAA student section, in the past, has appeared to be less full than the Fairbanks student section, but their “hard-core” student fan section (body paint, wigs, etc) is a bit larger. UAA students, like UAF students, get free tickets, and I’m not sure if it’s supposed to work this way, but you can apparently get more than one ticket… which my boyfriend’s siblings failed to tell us they had done, so it was $33 for both of us for one session. I was hoping to be able to pick up tickets at the Wells Fargo Center and bypass the whole processing fee thing, but ran out of time before Friday afternoon.

I also wish I had signed up for the puck shoot contest at the tournament. I could have at least won myself $100. And a new car (from title sponsor Kendall Auto) would have been nice if I could hit the faceoff dot, which would definitely be a combination of a little skill and a lot of luck on my part.

The Seawolves (I’ll refrain from my uber-partisanship of yore) always field a decent team. They have beaten the Nanooks in the Governor’s Cup the past few years (two or three, I think), which is painful for me to actually blog about, but the pendulum has to swing both ways once in a while. The Nanooks had it for five or six straight seasons before that (man, I’m losing my touch after not being the sports writer!)… SO THERE. The ‘wolves are in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association and face teams like the Minnesota Golden Gophers, Wisconsin, Colorado, DU, and soon-to-be Nebraska-Omaha, which is currently in the Nanooks’ CCHA.

If college hockey is a little too clean for you, then the Alaska Aces may be a good alternative. The Aces of the ECHL started off their regular season tonight with a win over the Victoria Salmon Kings. I believe that you may be able to get beer wherever at Aces games, but I’ve only been to one since I turned 21 and wasn’t really paying attention since I was with the ‘rents and my cousin and his pregnant wife (and my underage brother), so I’m not sure if that’s accurate.

If you’re in the Valley, there’s the Alaska Avalanche Jr. B team. They play at the Wasilla Sports Complex and are a member of the North American Hockey League. … and that’s all I have to say about them.

And then, there’s always high school hockey, which by my guesstimations should be starting practice Monday.

Nanooks vs. Lake Superior late in the ‘08-’09 season

Series 2 of the Governor’s Cup December 2006 at Sullivan Arena

UAF Hockey fans in the dorms on the way to a game

Alaska High School Hockey circa 2003-2004

The little things

Sometimes you just get to enjoy the little things that make life in Alaska a little different than anywhere else. Tonight, on my commute home at approximately 12:20 a.m., I saw a bear trying to cross the Glenn Highway just north of the Muldoon exit. For those of you not familiar with Anchorage, this is still very much “in town.” I was too busy ooh-ing and aah-ing, and driving too fast, to stop and take a picture, though in retrospect I wish I had. I did give the drivers behind me a courtesy tap or two or three on my brakes so hopefully they figured out what was up.

Apparently the bears take cues from the people, only wearing black when they walk along the road late at night… seriously, I think every person I see walking along the road is wearing DARK clothing… BAD NEWS. I’m fairly certain it was a black bear. It didn’t have the nose of a Grizz in the couple milliseconds that I saw it.

Sushi time!

Last weekend was my friend’s birthday, and to celebrate, we went out to Samurai Sushi. I’ve never had “real” sushi before (just grocery store California rolls and homemade ones with no meat), so I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I ordered on the safe side. I had the California Sesame roll, which is just sesame, avocado, crab meat and cucumber. It was pretty good, and I’m having a hankering for it a week later, though next time I should probably try something a little more adventurous. The birthday girl did get the calimari tempura (fried squid for those unfamiliar), I’ve had calimari before, but this was also good. Really good, actually.

Our service took a little longer than we expected. Granted, we did have a party of about 12, but I’d say half of us were done eating before the other half even got their food. The people that got their food late ordered stuff that required cooking (steak, etc), but still something a server should try to avoid. We ended up not going to see “Zombieland” because we got out of dinner about 20 minutes before it started… on opening night. It was pretty busy, though it was Friday, so I suspect that had a lot to do with it, and as a former waitress, I know what it’s like to be swamped. There was also a little bit of a language barrier… my friend said she didn’t need a salad because she’s allergic to ginger (which is in the dressing stuff) and he said “Oh! You want more ginger? I can bring you some,” and she had to repeat herself like three times before he got it. Again, not a big deal, but just something to notice.

I definitely want to try this place again, probably with a smaller party though.

Dinner and a show?

One thing I definitely know I like about Anchorage over Fairbanks is the nightlife/arts scene. I never really got into the arts scene in Fairbanks, though I know First Friday is live and well, and the symphony does amazing, but I’m more of a “show” kind of girl. Last weekend I went with some family friends to The Lion King. A Broadway show! In Alaska! Fairbanks will NOT get that kind of stuff.

The show was at the Performing Arts Center, where I have previously been just a couple times, once to see STOMP! and I’m sure a couple other things too. I’m not sure why, but I was surprised at how closely it stuck to the lines of the original movie. (And believe me, I KNOW the original movie). The movie came out just before I started second grade. We watched it in the theater for the first time when we were in Illinois visiting my grandparents with my cousin who’s just a year older than me. It. was. my. favorite. I could watch it and recite each line beginning to end. I can’t quite do that anymore, but there were many scenes where I knew exactly what was coming next. So… a bit predictable, a bit kiddish, but the music was great, the costumes were AMAZING, and the acting was impressive.

As far as voices go, I have to say I was most impressed with Rafiki. Her range went from low shaman-monkey tones to slightly-crazy monkey to slightly more raspy (I mean that in a good way) “Ciiiircle of liiiife” to higher smoother tones. I was also impressed with the kids. Mostly because — how awesome would it be to be in a Broadway show at nine, 10, 11 years old? And to be Simba?? Awesome.

I wanted to get some merch, but since I’ve realized that hardly ANYONE actually wears the t-shirts they buy at those places, I wanted to go for something a little more practical. They had mugs, but they were like $20… a little pricey for my tastes, I figure I can look one up on eBay or something if I really want it. (Alright, so I just looked on eBay and there’s ONE from the musical, definitely looks like a small, regular coffee CUP not the taller ones I saw… for $19.99, but I suppose I don’t really need one that bad)

We went to the Sunday afternoon show so we hit up Club Paris for dinner afterwards. It was a bit pricey for my not-unemployed-but-unpaid-so-far self, but I had the scallops, and for my first time having a whole scallop-only meal, they were good! The appetizers were also really good– throughout the table we had escargot (I didn’t try that), clams (I tried a couple, not a huge fan), fried zucchini (deelish!) and stuffed mushrooms (my favorite). It was a bit weird that it’s upscale dining but the servers are wearing Paris Club T-shirts, but I guess when there’s more restaurants, there’s more in-between. I had about a $30 check for dinner and a glass of wine. Not bad, but not where I’m going to be meeting up with friends every week either.

I really want to go to The Nutcracker this winter… I’ve wanted to for years, but mostly since I’ve been in Fairbanks. Jake and I tried to go two winters ago, maybe even three, but we ended up going to the West Valley High auditorium instead of the Hering Auditorium (which is at Lathrop High) and ended up catching the end of “Babes in Toyland” or something like that… with fairies. We were already late so by the time we figured out we were in the wrong one, we figured we’d just finish it out.

Lazy Mountain

View of the Matanuska River and Cook Inlet from Lazy Mountain.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. What does that have to do with Lazy Mountain, you might ask? Well, my mom is a breast cancer survivor. She finished her treatments in February or March, and about a week and a half ago, she and I and one of her friends went for a little hike up Lazy Mountain, just outside of Palmer. I’ve always heard of Lazy Mountain, but never knew where it was. It was a beautiful day, but we didn’t make it to the top (Despite the name, it’s not quite an “easy” hike). The trail is pretty steep, and my mom’s still not quite back to 100 percent (she says it will take about a year).

Mom and Sheryl at our turning-around point.

Even though she insisted that we continue to the top without her, the whole point of us being there was to go hiking *TOGETHER*, not to make it to the top. I’ll head back another time and get it. The view was beautiful, it was steep. I finished almost two-thirds of my Nalgene bottle, and we made it up maybe halfway. There were a lot of people there. I actually think it wouldn’t be a bad mountain to run. I’ll make it up sometime.

I also have another blog: Alaska’s trails, that I’ll post a story about this on. It’s in its infancy (Lazy Mountain will be its first post, and as an incomplete, I can’t really call that much of a start, but I hope to get going on it soon!

Day 2- Into the Wilderness

On Friday the 18th, my aunt and I got to drive into Denali Park. She applies for the road lottery every year, and always picks Friday or Monday as her preferred date, because she figures less people want those days than Saturday/Sunday. It was cloudy, dark, and rainy, but we did see some animals (though the bears and wolves were just teeny-tiny specks in the valley). I think I might apply next year. Or I’ll at least get a backcountry permit and go camping out there.

Big Daddy moose

Polychrome Pass

Other side of PolyChrome pass

Sheepies

Dall sheep