Well, at last I have arrived in Barrow. My travel was long and tiring, but I was able to have fun in the process. I began my journey in El Paso, scrambling to attain and achieve last minute items, some to no avail. I think I have reached my limits in terms of procrastination. We flew to Las Vegas, where at first glance off the plane was a lot of slot machines. My travel companions (Perry, Santonu and Alex) and I traversed through the airport and encountered an oxygen bar, lots of shops, and annoying salesmen. We hitched our next plane and flew to Seattle, where we ate plenty of food and slept on some benches. We awoke to find that our flight was switched to another gate and had to run clear across the airport to make our plane just in time. Our destination was Anchorage, with a 6 hour layover.
Anchorage is beautiful, it is surrounded by lots of trees and tall majestic mountains dusted in snow that hug the ocean. The awesome peaks could be seen from the plane pushing through the blanket of clouds than enveloped them. We went to a festival and met lots of really friendly locals with their wares. I tried some buffalo, caribou and reindeer sausage, which made me even more hungry, so we went to eat at a restaurant. The crab was delicious and fresh, and the beer was brewed in Alaska.
Next stop: Barrow The flight to Barrow is only 2 and a half hours, and the plane is small, the front of the plane carried luggage and cargo, and the back of it was full of passengers. The flight was not packed, so I got to spread out on the seat next to me as well. Perry and I met two guys that were also going to Barrow, one of them was a native named Cyrus and had his little boy with him. He worked on construction building the very structure I would be staying at, and said that he made very good money there, also the natives receive money from the oil company. The other one was a Korean guy whose mother owns a restaurant in Barrow. He was very talkative and gave us some pointers:
Many of the arctic foxes have rabies, so run!
It's flat and cold and windy, so dress warm.
Bring sunglasses, because the sun NEVER goes down in the summer.
He also informed us that some of the kids are hooligans, and are into meth because there is nothing else they know. :( Anyway, by the time we finished talking our plane was arriving in Deadhorse near Prudhoe Bay. We landed, let people off, two more came on, and took off. 40 minutes later we were in Barrow. I was a little wary, the airport is right next to the ice covered arctic ocean, and we were comming in at full speed. The landing was bumpy, and the plane shook as we hit the ground, where we abruptly stopped. The airport consisted of a few warehouse like buildings and we had to walk off the plane. I was excited and overwhelmed. I stepped off the plane to see nothing but WHITE EVERYWHERE. Also, the town doesn't look all that impressive, there are no paved roads and everything is mucky. I stepped into the "airport" to find a small house-sized building filled with a few people. The baggage claim was a small slide-like platform of brushed steel that some local guy threw the luggage down on one by one. We had to move other peoples' bags out of the way so it wouldn't pile up. I was happy to see our other colleague Dave there. He arrived earlier that day. So ends my traveling adventure and this blog and so begins my time in Barrow, land of the midnight sun.
Next stop: Barrow The flight to Barrow is only 2 and a half hours, and the plane is small, the front of the plane carried luggage and cargo, and the back of it was full of passengers. The flight was not packed, so I got to spread out on the seat next to me as well. Perry and I met two guys that were also going to Barrow, one of them was a native named Cyrus and had his little boy with him. He worked on construction building the very structure I would be staying at, and said that he made very good money there, also the natives receive money from the oil company. The other one was a Korean guy whose mother owns a restaurant in Barrow. He was very talkative and gave us some pointers:
Many of the arctic foxes have rabies, so run!
It's flat and cold and windy, so dress warm.
Bring sunglasses, because the sun NEVER goes down in the summer.
He also informed us that some of the kids are hooligans, and are into meth because there is nothing else they know. :( Anyway, by the time we finished talking our plane was arriving in Deadhorse near Prudhoe Bay. We landed, let people off, two more came on, and took off. 40 minutes later we were in Barrow. I was a little wary, the airport is right next to the ice covered arctic ocean, and we were comming in at full speed. The landing was bumpy, and the plane shook as we hit the ground, where we abruptly stopped. The airport consisted of a few warehouse like buildings and we had to walk off the plane. I was excited and overwhelmed. I stepped off the plane to see nothing but WHITE EVERYWHERE. Also, the town doesn't look all that impressive, there are no paved roads and everything is mucky. I stepped into the "airport" to find a small house-sized building filled with a few people. The baggage claim was a small slide-like platform of brushed steel that some local guy threw the luggage down on one by one. We had to move other peoples' bags out of the way so it wouldn't pile up. I was happy to see our other colleague Dave there. He arrived earlier that day. So ends my traveling adventure and this blog and so begins my time in Barrow, land of the midnight sun.
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