The past two weeks have been interesting. Aside from finals, and all the craziness associated with that, I have been all over this country. I have been from coast to coast, and quite a bit further. As I write this, I am lying in a make shift bed that is closer to Russia than any other state in the United States.
My last final exam was for my Spanish, and took about a half hour. It was 100 questions, and it was not terribly difficult. Actually, it was unbelievably easy! That afternoon, I went up to UVU, in Orem, and met up with Katie Moon. We had decided that we ought to hang out before we both went our separate ways for the summer. We went out to eat, at El Gallo Giro, in Provo, and then hung out for a bit with Bonnie Ware as well. It was a lot of fun, and it was good to see the two of them again. It had been a while, and it was really the first time we had spent any time together in quite a while. That evening, Katie dropped me off at Karen's place, where I hung out until Rachelle got out of her accounting test. Rachelle had promised me that she would drop me off at the airport that evening. I had decided to do something a little different, partially because of the price, and partially because I get sick on planes. I found a flight that left Salt Lake City and went non stop to Kennedy Airport, in New York. The only catch is that it was an overnight flight. We left Salt Lake at 11:55pm, on 22 April, and arrived at JFK at 6:17am on 23 April. I figured that would be great, because it would not use up my whole day to get there, and I was also hoping that if I was asleep on the plane, I might not get sick. It actually worked quite well. I fell asleep during the safety video. In fact, when I fell asleep, we were still rolling backwards on the ground. I woke up briefly in some turbulence, but I fell asleep again right away. The next time I woke up, we were out over the Atlantic Ocean, because we were landing at JFK going west. It was great. It seems like the flight was ten minutes long! I stayed with Nana and John for a few days. Steven came down while I was there to visit them too. He and I had some fun there, and then I took the train from New York to Boston on 26 April. That was a nice ride, though it was too short. I would like to take a nice long rail trip again, but it seems like it is increasingly more difficult to find the time for that. Mom and Dad picked my up in Alewife, where I got off the T, and then I went to the last hour of church in Nashua. That was nice. A lot of people were not expecting me, because I had only found out on Saturday morning that I would be able to go to New Hampshire. It was nice to see everyone again though. I stayed in Nashua until Thursday. Karen and Steven came up on Wednesday, so the whole family was together again, though it lasted only a little over 24 hours. I guess it was better than nothing.
Thursday afternoon I went to Logan Airport, in Boston, and caught a flight to Portland, Oregon. From there, I flew on to Anchorage, Alaska. I flew the entire way on Alaska Airlines. I had no idea they had any service to Boston. That is not really that close to Alaska! It was a seven hour flight to Portland. As we neared Portland, we flew right past Mount Hood. That was the coolest thing I have ever seen from an airplane. It was out on the left. I had a window seat on the left. It was only a couple thousand feet below us, and so it looked like the wingtip was pasing right next to the peak of the mountain. It was incredible. We turned around to land, and facing north, you could see Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams, in Washington. That was really neat. I changed flights there, and went on to Anchorage. We left Portland in the dark, and as we flew north over the Pacific Ocean, it got progressivel brighter. We landed just before midnight in Anchorage, just as the sun was setting. It was quite an odd experience.
Anchorage is nice. As far as ities go, it is average. It is just another city, but the daylight patterns remind you it is Alaska! On my first night here, I went to bed at 1:00am, and woke up when it got light, at about 3:50am. By 7:00am, I felt like it must be lunch time, because it had been light for so long. The sun stayed out until after 11:00pm. The length of the day is a bit difficult to adjust to! It gets us up early, but it throws off every routing I have ever had! I am used to getting up fairly early in the daylight, but I sleep for hours after the sun comes up here. I am also used to eating dinner when it ie getting dark. Well, that is considerable later than I am used to here, so that will not work all summer. During the month of June, the sun sets, but there is daylight for 24 hours a day. It is quite crazy! A lot of unterestung thungs have happened here, like today, we found a moose in the backyard, just eating the grass. That was a surprise. It could not have been fully grown, but it still was not a small animal! Also, somewhere in this crazy week, of getting everywhere, I have gotten engaged somehow! That is another story for another day though, but I don't think it is actually a serious engagement, more of a fun act for some friends. I'll write about that next time. It is a fun story.
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