Life in this (arctic) island

Altocumulus lenticularis

2012-01-19T14:12:00.000-09:00

Like the saying “behind every cloud is a silver lining”, we had that silver lining in the form of these beautiful clouds last Monday after that funky weather over the weekend. I have never seen clouds like these and so I googled and the nearest formation I can find is called an” Altocumulus lenticularis”. Whatever it is – it is simply beautiful. You be the judge.

The first three pictures above were taken at 1030AM when day breaks over Dutch Harbor. The last two pictures below were taken around 11AM without the pink hue of day break.

Snowpocalypse

2012-01-17T14:49:00.000-09:00

Snowpocalypse – according to the Urban dictionary it means “snow + apocalypse = snowpocalypse. When weathermen predict large amounts of snowfall in a short period of time.” Last Monday, January 10 we woke up to the effects brought about by the funky weather that caused tons of snow falling on the whole of Alaska with a big chunk of it on Cordova. Not as snowpocalyptic as Cordova but it did make a big impact on my mundane life and one more experience I will never forget soon. :-)

It was a good thing my husband called me up early in the morning and gave instructions how to de-ice the car just in case. When I went down to heat up the car with a gallon of hot water with me, lo and behold, all the car doors were iced-up shut (I made that word up because I don’t know what they call that phenomenon over here)

It took about 3 trips back to our apartment to get hot water! That is about 2 inches of ice, not snow. My son and I had fun when we powered down the window and we broke the ice that was covering it up.

Ice on the side mirror, ice on the roof of the car, ice all over. I found out quickly that the ABS system of the car is a girl’s best friend in this weather.

The friendly neighborhood wildlife though did not fare so well. You see we have a bunch of foxes and eagles living near our complex. We did not see any of them this time. Not even the usual tiny fox tracks we see on the snow every morning. Here is an article from KTUU local channel on the effects of the weather on the eagles that are abundant in this island. http://www.ktuu.com/news/dutch-harbor-seabirds-eagles-hit-hard-by-severe-weather-011012,0,308115.story

I want to show you what I call our “friendly neighborhood” wildlife. We missed them during the snowpocalypse.

But the people here are hardy people, it was business as usual and school was open despite the weather. Not something I was accustomed to because back in Cebu once the weather bureau declares it is Typhoon Signal # 1, no class for those in grade school and free time for my son and me, yipee!

My daily commute

2012-01-16T15:26:00.000-09:00

Every day, I bring my son to school around 745AM and because it is winter, this is how my daily commute looks like:

Your body tells you it can't be morning because the moon is still up! The sun comes up 10AM in the morning here and sets sometime 6PM. I have finally experienced what "short days and long nights" literally mean.

Driving at this hour is a bit tricky the first time because you are adjusting to the terrain, the snow and the darkness. The second time I drove my son to school there was a blizzard going on. That was an experience both for me and my son. My son who is usually talkative and noisy was so quite at the back of the car :-) That shut him up for once. Add to that excitement (!) was the fact that the bay is on the other side of the road :-o EXCITING! one miss and you could have the scare of your life.

This driver had a close call:

You would think that blizzard and heavy snow is dangerous, no no no, not as dangerous as when snow melts and turns into mush. That's when you have accidents like this. There were about 6 cars that skidded and had minor accidents on this day alone.

This taxi was on the right side of the road and skidded down to the left side when it couldn't maneuver up the driveway.

This guy had to be rescued from where his car ended up - in the ditch.

The extractor on the rightmost side of the photo rescued a truck but ended up in the ditch too and needed to be rescued by his big brother - the tractor :-) These are just four of the six accidents that I took pictures of but I think you get the drift.

OHHHH ALASKA!

Alaska - my new home

2012-01-12T16:55:00.000-09:00

Well, actually "arctic" might be pushing it a little too far. According to Wikipedia the arctic is situated farther north from Dutch harbor. But coming from a tropical island to my new home in Dutch harbor you will understand why I’m feeling "arctic". Don’t get me wrong, I love it here because life here is totally opposite from where I come from. Obviously, from the weather and the lifestyle that comes with it.

My friends H and J encouraged me to put up a blog - sort of a journal of my experiences and perspective of life here in my new home. I have never much taken to blogging because I didn't want the hassle of correcting my grammar :-) but to heck with it. If you have a problem with my grammar - isumbong mo ako kay ... the Chicago manual of style, which I subscribe to but just couldn't get those rules into my noggin.

Anyway, back to my blog. A lot of snafus happened on our trip from Cebu to Seattle because the customer service agent at the mactan airport insisted on tagging our bags up to Vancouver when it should have been tagged all the way to Seattle. Good thing they had a very nice and knowledgeable customer service agent (not outsourced, I’m sure he he) who met us at Vancouver and helped us with US customs and border security. Otherwise, we would have ended up citizens without a country, lol. It took a lifetime to get us processed or so I felt. We got to the gate just in the nick of time for our flight to Seattle. But it wouldn’t have mattered because our flight to Dutch was cancelled due to…? What else, bad weather.

It wasn’t officially winter yet but it came much too soon. So we were happily stuck in Anchorage which I tell you are full of friendly Pinoys.

View outside our hotel window.

See that airplane near the fence? Apparently, in these parts having your own plane is a convenient way to get around.