quite a bit has happened since i last posted here! time has gone by so fast since i moved to alaska. next week i will have been here 2 years. two freaking years! incontheevable! it's been a blur, truly. i feel like a stranger here.
though i moved in with my ex boyfriend, as we had recently reunited, it didn't last. i knew that was a big possibility, but i took a chance because a) i really did love the jerk and b) i wanted to start a new life and do something different.
since he worked for the hospital, i had to be the one to move out, which was unfortunate since housing is almost impossible in barrow. it's all in who you know. if you hear of a place opening up, you can bet by the time you've heard, already a dozen people have applied for it.
i moved around - living in spare rooms and on couches for a couple of months, which was rough. i applied for a transfer to the anchorage court system and after the worst interview of my life, they hired me. i moved to anchorage with much trepidation since i had grown to love barrow and all it's quirks.
turns out, i hated anchorage. i liked the city a lot - being in civilization again was a wonder. but i hated the job, so i reapplied for my old position in barrow. i got it and moved back 3 months later.
now i share a house with two women i feel lucky to have as roommates. we all get along very well. they both work at the community college here, so i have met a number of interesting people through them; visiting teachers, etc.
i have grown close to my coworkers at the courthouse. we've gone through a lot of transition as of late and i don't have enough hours in the day to do everything i need to get done, but i love my job and the life i've made here.
it's the real reason i came back to barrow (my dad still suspects i'm in a cult of some kind) is because i love the people here. the community. i think you come here, you find your own tribe and they become your family. everyone is just so cool. the friends i've made here have made all the difference when you factor in arctic temperatures, months of total darkness or 24/7 sun, the astronomical prices and all of the other challenges to living in barrow.
i honestly just haven't had time to do more than check in here from time to time. i saved some pictures to share, though!
one of the local whaling teams pulling a bowhead out of the chuckchi.
that looks like a professionally taken photo, but a friend of my roommate just happened to catch this as she was landing in barrow last year, i'm guessing spring.
sunset over chuckchi
i have taken many pictures of the sunsets here; it's the view from my coworker's place, where i visit often. the ocean is pretty frozen there...i think it was right after the sun came back up in late january or february.
blue ice
i had never heard of blue ice till i moved here. apparently it is water frozen from glaciers. it's pure so you could safely drink from it if you had to. so i've heard told.
but it is so pretty! there is the ocean - endless and frozen and white, but then you see these blots of color in different shades of blue in the ice.
this is what it would look like if barrow exploded. actually, the friend who took the polar bear picture, took this one. you can see the northern lights above. for a small town, barrow actually has quite a bit of light pollution. i've seen some northern lights since living here, but nothing too vivid. they say you have to get out of town to see them better. or better, go to fairbanks.
this is on the
inside, mind you. it's actually the mud room before you come into the house where i live. sometimes it freezes enough to where you are stuck inside. you have to either hold a hair dryer near it or a portable heater to melt the ice enough. that happened to me once when i was about to fly out of town for a few days - i thought it would make me miss my plane
kids playing at the beach, arctic style.
and the grand finale -
i didn't take this one. a friend i used to work with did, last summer. he has a really good camera, so he had a pretty decent zoom. i don't think they were all that close to this guy. he and another friend took pictures until they said they he seemed annoyed with them, so they left. i have yet to see a polar bear up here. granted, i'm not actually
looking. if i can see one while i'm here, that would be cool. i'm not going to force it, though.