Land of the midnight Sun...and Moon

Believe it or not, I took these pictures at 10 pm on Sunday, one right after another!

First, I noticed the moon was still out and you can kind of see it in this picture.








Then I turned around and noticed you could still see the sun over Stuart Island. The 2 pictures below are of course side by side to make a panoramic view of what I would see if I had an ocean view apartment. The days are definetly longer but not necessarily warmer. The sun is starting to be out around 8am and it sets around 10pm. I am not sure if we are still getting 6more minutes every day still but my guess is that we are.
















We have had warm enough weather for snow then rain and then some melting. This picture is walking back from the beach to the school. My apartment is the white building on the left and the school is the big brown building in front. On the right is another staff housing.

As you can see by the Honda on the right, there is a bit of snow left (it is parked up on a hill). And, if you look right in front of my apartment steps, you will notice a puddle of water, that was starting to re-freeze for the night. Today, most of the snow on the top of the school also melted off so the ramp from my building to the school was pretty wet but a nice shower.

Speaking of showers, about a week ago, we were put on alert.....WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF WATER...CONSERVE!!! The city tank was running low and we were asked to use as little water as possible. Thanks to the city workers, we now have a full tank of water again. They spent a whole week driving back and forth with big water trucks to Clear Lakes to pump water and refill our tank. Thanks also to mom or Tracy who sent me a bottle of water....just in case.

I should be home May 21st around 2 in the afternoon....Look out MN here I come!! You will have to give me a week to get used to the time change...Joy, you are 3 hours ahead of me NOT behind me in time....then I will have to get around to see everyone....Until then.........

The weirdest thing I EVER saw!!!!

Go ahead, ask me 20 questions about what this is.........This is about the weirdest thing I EVER saw (so far). Today I was walking through the shop and discovered this weird smell. As I walked farther in the shop, R.J. and Conrad were in the shop boiling the stuff in this picture. Come to find out, it is walrus penis. Yes, I was as shocked as you are. Aparently, if you boil the foreskin and the muscle off, you can carve on the bone. There is actually a bone on the inside.

It is funny that I actually got to see this because Pete gave me a book before I left, "Alaska for Dummies." In this book, there is a section entitled "speaking Eskimo." One of the words to know is uuguk - said oh chuk. (in the book it is spelled oosik) The reason for the difference in the word is because there are different dialects among different groups of Alaskan Natives. I live amongst Central Yupik people. There are also Siberian Yupik, Athabascan, Inupiat, Tlingit, Hida and Aleut.

At any rate, newcomers are sometimes offered this to eat and if they partake, they are of course made fun of. Good thing I know what it is and what it looks like so I won't eat it.

Oh, I thought I should also inform all of you back home that I have also eaten boiled Seal meat a few weeks ago. It was much fishier than I exoected and was hard swallow all of it.