Today was an INCREDIBLE day!...lots of first time experiences today!! It started by Andrea inviting me to go out on a boat of a friend of hers at the hospital. She is a med student doing a rotation as a pharmacist here in Sitka. She is the one that got here 2 weeks ago too...not knowing anyone. So we met at her house really early this morning and drove to the harbor and got on his boat. It was Andrea, Steve (her roomate), Eric (the guy that has the boat) and me. It was raining when we left and didn't stop the entire time we were out...well it turned into snow because we went up north. But we headed towards Eric's shrimp and crab pots that he set out a couple of days ago. It is kinda weird but they attach bouys to a huge cage filled with smelly dead fish and throw them out in the middle of no where and the cages sink and then they come back a few days later to see what they caught. You would think that someone would come steal them or something but they don't...well not many boats go out this time of year. We maybe saw one or two the entire time we were out today. So we were driving along looking for his bouys and found them. We pulled up the crab pots first and he had caught 3 crabs and then we found the shrimp pots and pulled them up and he thought he would have only caught about 8 but ended up catching 51 to be exact. These shrimp were the size of my palm. We are talking HUGE. So we headed back out because Eric wanted to see if we could find some more wildlife and he wanted to hunt some. For deer mostly but he didn't find any...thank goodness. As we started to head north we came across A WHALE!!!!!!!!!! A humpback whale! It was the first one that I have ever seen in the wild. It was so amazing. First we saw a huge puff of air and then it rolled over and it's tail flipped out of the water. We watched him for quite a few minutes and it was just unbelievable!...definitely the highlight of my day! Then we saw sea lions, otters, seals and tons of eagles. The eagles are really cool....they just swarm this place. We kept on going north and as we did the rain turned to snow and the the ground and trees were covered in snow. It was pretty amazing how drastically the weather changed within a 15 minute boat ride. All along the way we were on the look out for more wildlife which was so fun. We finally made it to this cove mainly in search for deer still. It was SO cold...I honestly think it was the coldest that I have ever been in my life and I had several layers of clothes on. We wanted to get out of the boat and walk on the land so Eric had this little row boat that we got down and threw in the water and 3 of us piled in and rowed to shore....it was a pretty funny sight. And then Steve went back to get Eric and brought him to shore. We walked around for a while and it was the most peaceful and quite place I've been to. It was almost scarey because there was not a single trace of humans in sight besides ourselves of course. It was very NEAT! We finally rowed back to the boat and got on. Eric wanted us to de-head the shrimp...so we did and threw the heads overboard. It was very gross but fun. I will never look at eating a shrimp the same probably. Eric took care of the crabs by cracking them open and throwing the guts overboard. Then we finally headed home....FREEZING and wet but I wouldn't have traded it for anything!! It's just crazy to think that that's just a normal day in the life of an Alaskan fisherman. It was such a neat day and I learned quite a bit and I'm so thankful to have gotten to experience something so great today! Sorry this is a long one.
Yesterday (Saturday) was the best day I think I have had yet. It was sunny and no clouds in the sky. It started out with going to breakfast at my new friend Annie's house with several other people. It was so fun. Psalm...who you'll see in some pics lives on top of Annie in their duplex. She has two really cute girls who came down and entertained us for the morning. Annie and Psalm both do Young Life. Then we planned to go hiking later that afternoon. So I went home to a mess in our house. We began packing up this weekend and it looks like a tornado hit. I took Chatham out for a walk to get out of the house and it was SO nice out. I saw the sun for the first time in about a week and half. It was perfect. Then we all met at Annie's house to go hiking. Pat met us at the trail head with the Mt. Edgecumbe kids (well, all girls). They are pretty fun. They are all native kids from northern Alaska...so they all have some interesting stories. Then we hiked up to the two lakes up there and came back while the sun was setting. It was one of the more beautiful things I've ever seen. The things you see here are really indescribable and pictures don't do anything justice but I hope you get some sense from the pictures of what it's like. After the hike I came home again and then went to church at a church called Grace Harbor. They have a really fun Saturday night service. It was great. The church is situated pretty much right on the water...well across the street from the water but it is pretty neat.
Things are looking up here in Sitka! I have made some friends and Christian friends at that! It has been so neat how the Lord has worked. I went to church last Sunday by myself and a very nice man came up to me and invited to his house on Wednesday night to meet the other leaders. He is the area director for Young Life here in Sitka. So I did. And as I walked into his house there was another "new" girl who had been here a week as well and didn't know a single soul, her name is Andrea. So we met and then we went upstairs and met a room full of pretty fun people! I was so excited to see that people like me actually existed here. So we ate pizza and talked quite a bit and then we went to Young Life Club at a church right by my house. It was a lot like K Life. There were about 50 kids which was surprising to me. They have a boarding school here for kids that live up in the "bush" which is way north...well I think anything north of Anchorage. So they take a bus and go pick up all the kids that want to come to YoungLife that night and take them home at the end...it's pretty neat! All of the leaders and Andrea and I all made plans to hang out which made me so happy! One of the guys was taking kids hiking up a mountain this morning but I opted not to go because there other things going on. But yesterday I did hang out with one of leaders named Aaron. He showed me several different places....Mosquito cove (which is a trail that is beautiful) and Stargavin (where you can take water jugs and fill them with spring water and take them home to drink!). Then we went to Magic Island where you can only get to it when the tide is out so that was cool! It was a great day to be outside with NO rain. Those days are hard to come by. THe way they describe their days here are by the darkness of gray in the sky. If it's a real light grey then it's the perfect day! So, basically you see the sun here maybe 3 or 4 times a month...which is crazy to me! So it has been very fun to have "friends" and to have an outlet. The fam here is doing great. We are moving now for sure. We can start moving in on Feb. 1. It should be interesting but hopefully not too stressful. It will be good because it's a much bigger house..well duplex. I will have my own space which I'm going to love! Well I miss everybody and hope everyone is doing great!
My address is (for those of you who were wondering):
Angela Filler
attn: Abby Miller (I think that's how you do that??)
PO Box 556
Sitka, AK 99835
Yesterday was the first sunny day in a long time...I think all week. It was gorgeous! We tried to stay outside as long as we could but it was cold and icey and it gets dark so early. Things are going good. I'm just a little tired and working a little more than I expected but trying to make the best of it! Hope all is well with everybody and I miss you all terribly!
Here are some pictures of the place that I'm living in. We are supposedly moving though within the next week which should be interesting. So I'll have to put pictures up of my new room. Their house is a duplex so there are people living below us causing trouble so we are moving. Kinda crazy!
SORRY..it has taken me so long to get this thing updated..but I have had some issues in uploading pics. Here are a few from a walk that we took on Saturday. It was a pretty ugly day outside but this park was awesome. It's right down the street from the house. There are totem poles around the park everywhere and kinda feels like you are in a rain forest. It is so wet and you can hear all kinds of animals...eagles! It is pretty cool. Then the pictures from far away are of Sitka from the park.
I am finally here!!!!!!! After almost 24 hours of traveling, several missed flights and lots of sitting..I'M HERE! The flights once I was in Alaska were pretty interesting. There was tons of turbulence and when we landed in Ketchikan, Juneau and then in Sitka their runways stretch out into the water...so your about, what is seems to be 10 feet from water below you, and then all the sudden a landing strip with about...not joke, 2 feet of land on either side. It was exciting and a little scarey! Angela and Chatham met me at the airport in the middle of the night and I was so excited to see them. We drove around town a little bit then came to their little log cabin. They are a really fun family. So laid back with no schedule really. I woke up late yesterday morning to HUGE snow flakes coming down. Then we went and drove around more and ran some errands. The way of life here is SO different from kansas city. Everybody knows everybody. Nobody is in a hurry, I feel like we just wondered around yesterday...went to the furniture store and sat and chatted with people there, went to the movie store and looked at movies and let the kids play for a while....it's just hilarious! There are boats and fishing stuff EVERYWHERE. There are a few harbors that are so cool to see. It's like I'm in a movie. We were sitting at lunch with a huge window overlooking a harbor and mountains and the weather changed about 6 times. It would snow big time then the sun would come out and then it would get real dark and dump snow again.....it was bizarre but so neat! We came back to the house and Angela sent me to the store and I bought a box of cereal and some salad dressing for about $12...it's ridiculous how expensive everything is. I came back and we had a fire in the fireplace and just hung out....mind you..it was about only 4:30 and pitch black out! I was ready to go to bed and we hadn't even had dinner yet. So that was pretty much my first day here! It is so beautiful and so incredible that a place like this exists! God is GOOD! I didn't take many pictures...I'm gonna work on that!
