Thursday, May 17, 2012

They have me headed south....

For the first time in almost exactly 4 months I have left my tiny valley home of Fairbanks AK and made it to the booming metropolis of Anchorage. This is actually quite a lovely city. From pretty much anywhere that you look, you will spot the towering, snow capped Alaska range. These picturesque mountains are what you would think of when you think of the rockies, they are not round and green like the appalachian mountains of North Carolina, but brown until your eyes reach the stunning snow tops. They are the back bones of Alaska. There also happens to be a very neat architectural trick that a lot of the buildings around town are made only of windows; so if you are not look directly at the mountains, you can still see their reflections in all the buildings. There is a brisk wind that seems to constantly flow here, which is actually what keeps Anchorage cooler than Fairbanks during the summer and warmed during the winter. Anchorage, like Fairbanks, is still recovering from a very difficult winter. Instead of blistery cold temperatures, they received the most snow fall they have had in about 45 years, close to 18 FEET! The lady running the conference said that it has only been in the past couple of weeks that the snow has melted. But I would have no idea. It has been nothing but bright and sunny since I stepped off the plane a few days ago. There are some key differences in Fairbanks and Anchorage. I feel that when imagining what my ALaskan town would look and feel like, I actually imagined something closer to Anchorage. It is a well planned out city, with central parks and community gardens. There are definitely hidden corners everywhere in this town that would make it a very unique and eclectic place to live. The people also seem more open to change and the acceptance of the social issues that in places, act like a plague, in Alaska. This may be because I have spent the last couple of days learning how to advocate for these issues, with like minded people, but as a whole Anchorage seems to actually MOVE. So far I have not seen a homeless person stumbling out of a bus onto the side walk in search for the closest place to sit down for a while, or even a person stumbling around the central bus depot. Which unfortunately, is an all too familiar sight in Fairbanks. Either way I have throughly been able to enjoy my time here in Anchorage and am already looking for ways to get back down here. So if anyone from the lower 48 wants to visit this summer, I would more than happily meet them in Anchorage for the week ;)

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