Day Four of the journal I kept on an Alaskan cruise I took in 2003.
Other Days: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
5:44 PM ADT
Wow, it seems that I've gone all the way until today without making any sort of posting. Ah well. So, what did I do today? Really not much of anything, actually. First off, we docked in Juneau this morning just as I was waking up, which was around 7:00 AM ADT. Then after showering I wrote out the two post cards I had not finished last night, then grabbed my things and headed up to the buffet for some breakfast. I had bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, French toast, and a cheese-covered potato thing. Yes, I only had a small amount of each, in case you are curious. Realizing that I had forgotten my hat and gloves, two possibly required items depending on the temperature, I stopped by my room and then departed the ship. To start with I headed straight for the closest downtown part of Juneau, which is about a ten minute walk from the cruise ship docks. Fortunately, one of the first places I ran across was a US Post Office Contract Location, which basically means it's a store front that sells stamps, has a drop box, sells packaging, stuff like that. It's pretty much the same kind of place that Elizabeth works in. Anyway, I grabbed eleven additional First Class stamps, as were needed by the cards I had, stuck them on, then dropped them in the mail. I hope they'll arrive soon, at least before I get home.
After the Post Office I started walking uphill; a long ways up hill, or at least it felt like it. Juneau doesn't seem to have very many flat areas either, so I just started walking, passing various government buildings, a number of churches, garbage men doing their Tuesday morning job, people on their way to work, and kids leaving the hostel to catch the bus. After a bunch of wandering I decided to locate a pay phone and give Crystal a call, to see what she's got planned for the morning. After (finally) locating a bank of pay phones near the visitor information center down by the water I called her up and we made plans to meet at the local McDonalds in about half an hour. I hit up the ATM, found a local coffee shop serving Raven's Brew coffee, grabbed a smallish latte, then waited. After waiting for what seemed like 20 minutes I headed over to McDonalds and continued my wait for Crystal. Perhaps 15 minutes later I picked up two apple pies on the two-apple-pies-for-a-dollar thing they do, ate them, and waited a bit more. After what was a total of perhaps 60 minutes, Crystal and her friend came in, found me, and we headed out to their car.
While we had no actual plans, Crystal started off by driving across this small bridge and taking me to a real, actual, sand-covered beach. The beach was plenty interesting, but there was an especially cold rain falling as we were there, so after walking for a few hundred feet we headed back the car. After the stop at the beach we took off towards Mendenhall Glacier which really isn't that far away. Even though I've seen some pretty impressive things, it still shocked me when I first saw it. There we are, driving over some hills, when poof, there's a valley filled in with ice. See, glaciers are big. I don't know what exactly I expected, but what I saw was an absolutely huge mass of ice filling up an entire valley, ending in a small lake, with a decent sized waterfall next to it. The first thing we did was grab a bunch of pictures, then we started walking down a small side trail that ends with you walking along a sand / silt covered area towards the waterfall. Closer and closer we got, until there we were, standing at the base of a 30' to 40' wide waterfall. Crystal went up to actually touch the waterfall, but because I was starting to feel a bit cold, I just hung back and took some pictures... All in all, it was nice to see the glacier, and I'm really glad that I didn't just sit back in town looking at the city itself, because the parts of the city which I saw are generally depressing. It's sort of like downtown Mackinac City, Michigan. There are a number of touristy shops, some standard restaurants, and some houses. That's it. I did learn that the Juneau area is actually big enough that it has a (recently closed) K-Mart, a WalMart, a Costco, two McDonalds, and one Thai place.
After the glacier, Crystal drove me around for a bit more, then we went back downtown. I can't say that we didn't get along, but I don't think there was too much common interest, so it seems fitting that after this time we parted ways. I still have to thank her for driving me out to Mendenhall Glacier, as that truly amazed me. Since I had repeatedly mentioned this music store I walked past, Capital Records, she dropped me off, took off, and I went inside. Capital is a smallish, mostly new product record store located right in the touristy part of downtown Juneau. I was rather surprised at the variety of music they had there and even ended up picking up a Funki Porcini CD/DVD entitled Fast Asleep. When paying the owner noticed the Wumpscut hat that I was wearing and commented on their latest disc. I mentioned that ?we? got it in at East Alley Records, then from there sprang a conversation about the independent record store business. Although I can't remember his name, he seemed like a really nice guy. I recommended that he check out The Nottwist's latest, which he said he'd order, then made a couple of recommendations, both of which I wish that I could recall. I wouldn't mind heading back down there so I could pick up a few more discs, but it's now within 45 minutes of when the ship begins leaving, and I don't want to risk the possibility of missing the ship just because I wanted to grab a few more CDs.
After the record store adventure I set out to find a Chinese restaurant to eat at, but I was wholly unsuccessful. While that didn't work, I did come across a place called, I believe, Universe Electronics. Damn, when I walked in there I would have sworn that I just stepped into a world of grey-market electronics. They had everything from laptops to car stereos, to a NeoGeo Pocket Color, with six games, for $65.00. I'm starting to think that maybe I should have grabbed one of these... Fitting with my love of Neo Geo games I've wanted one for a few years now, but without being able to compare prices to eBay, I gave up on the idea. I figure that if they have >6 of these bundles in a display case, I'm sure I can find something similarly priced online. Giving up on the idea of Chinese food, I started the walk back to the ship. Weaving in and out of slow moving tourists I eventually made it back on the ship, through the rain. I wish that people would realize that if they only walked a little faster, that they would be out of the rain that much sooner. But alas, they don't. Perhaps they enjoy their yellow Mickey Mouse one-piece ponchos and their green and white garbage bag-esque coveralls.
I came back to my room, unpacked my backpack, hung my jacket up, copied the photos to my notebook, then went and grabbed some lunch. The lunch treats weren't that special, but I managed to get some ?Chinese Noodles', which were glass noodles in a light brown sauce, some veggies, a piece of bread, some pasta, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a cup of coffee. I ate, grabbed some pudding, ate that, grabbed two cookies, and headed down to the internet access area of the ship, not far from my room. I finished up the coffee while checking email, writing a thank-you to Crystal, and making a single, quick LiveJournal post and briefly checking my friends page. Finishing up the coffee made me want more, so I went back to the buffet, got more coffee, then headed to my cabin with the intention of grabbing my book and going to read. Somewhere between entering my cabin and grabbing the book my brain short circuited and I ended up curled on the bed, sound asleep.
I woke up at about 5:40 PM ADT, which is now about 45 minutes ago, which is when I started writing this post. I'm not sure what I'm going to end up doing tonight. I had hoped that I would have been able to spent until approximately 7:00 PM ADT hanging out with Crystal, but that just didn't happen. While her and I got along all right, there seemed to be the continuing problem that I have relating to ?normal' girls; me not finding ?normal' things as amusing. I like the weird, the strange, the bizarre, the oddly intelligent. I think it was all summed up when I was telling her about the analysis of vowels that my friend Erika is doing for her linguistics degree. I explained a bit about how it works, that spectrum analysis is used to diagram vowels, and how the key to accents is held in these vowel sounds. I explained the bit that I know and I could just tell how uninterested she was. Ah well, that's life. I don't mean to sound elitist, but it's hard to not at least feel different from most other people.
After looking over at the basket of fruit a few minutes, I decided to eat the pear that is located in there. With my first bite into the pear comes my first complaint about the food on the ship, and it's a very minimal one at that. The pear isn't ripe. Imagine that? The first problem I had... I find it just amazing. The food here is just good. Now, it's not quite as good as one of Pete's overly herb encrusted steaks, but it's good none the less. After eating a number of bites out of the pear, I switched to the Golden Delicious apple, which is right on target. Perfectly crunchy and juicy, it's just good. I'll have to make a point of getting a few more of these apples somewhere within the next few days. I'm also trying to decide what my dinner plans will be for tonight. I wouldn't mind the quality of the sit-down dinners, but I don't know if I feel like dressing up again. Perhaps I'll check the buffet, than from there I'll make a decision. I've realized that, opposite to what I wrote earlier, the food is definitely different between the two eating facilities. There isn't inherently bad about the buffet, there is just some food that is more conducive to being served a plate at a time, as opposed to a tray at a time, especially things like lamb, escargot, and lobster, three of the dishes from yesterday's menu.
The pain from this canker sore in my mouth is also getting almost unbearable. I don't know why it's here, but I'm sure it has something to do with stress. While I shouldn't be stressed, as I'm on vacation, I do feel a bit of it lingering in the background. Stress over people, what I'll have to do tomorrow in Sitka, what I'll spent time doing in Anchorage, things like that. Whatever the cause, hopefully some Anbesol will take care of the pain. I think that becoming inebriated may as well, but I'm not sure if I want to get myself to that point, mostly because of concern over cost. While I don't pay for anything out of pocket, I still need to settle up at the end of the cruise, and I do need to be able to afford this still. Perhaps I'll wait until I get back. Maybe the day I return home I'll be able to head over to Pete's for some hanging out, talking, wine, and maybe movie fun. Or maybe I'll sleep. Hehe. Who knows...
Hmm, this is interesting... For some reason the smell of kerosene exhaust is entering my room. I think I'm going to go apply the Anbesol now, then visit the dinner buffet. As mentioned before I'm not sure if I'll eat anything, but you never know...