Splash, dash and ponderings

By the time I checked into the hostel at Santa Monica, my fuzzy calculations told me I had been awake for 36 hours straight, so I was a little tired and confused to say the least.  Still (as most of you all know), through a combination of stubborness, jetlag and multiple cups of bad airline coffee I powered throfugh and hit the streets straight away to check out the area.  First stop was Santa Monica pier.  It was your typical carnival/rides area.  Santa Monica beach was cool, I kept expecting to see David Hasselhoff in all his man-boob glory come thundering out of the surf.  Went past a Churro stand and had to buy one in honour of Ryan, and ate it while I walked the length of the pier and checked out multiple stands of ‘Your name on a grain of rice’ and the usual tacky tshirt and hat stands.

As I headed back in from the beach I experienced my first of many ‘What the?!??!….’  I’d just walked the length of the pier and was cutting through the park to get back to my hostel when I saw masses of pigeons, looked like someone had just thrown an entire loaf of breadcrumbs on the ground. Then the breadcrumbs moved and I thought I saw a hand.  Yup, sure enough.  Underneath those 100s of pigeons was some dude who had covered himself head to toe in breadcrumbs and lay down on the ground.  I think one pigeon even put his foot in his mouth.

That night I headed out to grab a bite and to check out the buskers who line the pavement down 2nd street.  The highlight of the night was a girl, no more than 6 I would say, belting out Whitney Housten complete with dramatic falls onto her knees, arms waving in distress as she sings about the virtues of the greatest love of all.  Just when I thought my ears were bleeding, her 4 year old sister then takes over to pump out Beyonce ‘Irreplacable” complete with moves that only a Vegas stripper should probably know.  Just to complete the disturbing picture was the stage mother front and centre mouthing the words with her daughter and making sure she remembered all the moves.

Oh yeah, and I saw a mini sumo dude pull out the best breakdancing moves you’ve ever seen.

Day 2 saw me up and checking out at the lovely time of 3:30am to get to the airport for my flight to Alaska.  Probably the best taxi ride I’ve ever had.  My cab driver was called Gary and he was from Armenia.  When he found out how jetlagged I was he pulled over and brought me a coffee.  He was my own personal tour guide on the way to the airport, pointing out various landmarks and letting me know what I had to see when I come back again just before I fly home.  Probably the politest taxi driver I’ve ever encountered.

It took another 10 hours of flying to get to Alaska (yes, that place is seriously the other side of the world).  My flight from Seattle to Anchorage was fun.  I got some fabulous pics from the plane off snow capped mountains peeking above the clouds.  I then boarded a small twin engine 20 seater plane for my flight from Anchorage to Kenai.  Worst turbulance EVER.  Even my eyeballs were bouncing.  I tried to keep looking out the window but my head was bouncing around so much I kept headbutting the glass.  Any moment I was expecting Indiana Jones to come bursting through the cockpit door, inflatable dingy in hand, telling us we had to abort and jump plane.  Still I got there in one piece and was stoked to finally see Chris, Ang and Leora who I haven’t seen for 18 months (we lived in the same apartment block in Ibusuki)

Yesterday Ang, Chris, Leora and I went on a massive roadtrip to Portage glacier.  Can’t wait to post some pics, it was the most gorgeous place.  We couldn’t quite see the glacier due to the bad weather but the trip down was beautiful.  Snowcapped mountains, frozen lakes, we even saw some moose.  We had lunch at the Visitor Centre at Portsmouth.  I jump at the chance to be able to eat weird stuff, so I had a reindeer hot dog.  Yup!  I ate Rudolph!

I’ve got so much more to write about but Ang and I are going to go shopping now so I will leave it there.  Hopefully that wasn’t too boring or tedious for you guys, but I know some of you wanted an update so yeah, there you go!  I’ve got a couple more days in Soldotna and then I will be flying off to New York, New York.