One of the things I have heard the most about Seward is that "It rains all the time there," but my first week here has done its best to prove me wrong. Since I moved in, the clouds have been at bay... until today. It's a good thing the weather has been so nice because the last week has been full of lots of training and walking. It is so nice to live in a town where everything is easily in walking distance (especially since I don't have a car). As with most jobs, a good part of our training was filled with listening to people lecture us about all of the rules and regulations of the SeaLife Center, but all of the time spent watching powerpoints was made up for a hundred times over when we got our training for going out on the boats. Basically our day consisted of sitting back observing the park ranger and enjoying the ride. Here is some of the wildlife from that day:
Sea otter
Dahl's Porposies (look closely and you can see their shadows under the water)
Sea lions
Mountain Goats (its the little white dot in the middle of the mountain)
Another part of our training was taking a hike to exit glacier. All in all, its been a pretty good week.
Dan helped me move to Seward yesterday and I start work at the SeaLife Center tomorrow. I am very excited about this summer. The SeaLife center is a very cool organization and I think I will enjoy getting to see what it is like to work in this type of atmosphere. I am also very excited about living in Seward for the summer. I have visited Seward twice, once for fishing, once for the SeaLife center, but today was the first day that I have gotten to really look around the town on my own and find things out. This is what I have learned so far:
You can walk around almost the entire town covering most walkable area in about 3 hours
If you walk along the shore line, you will almost certainly see wildlife (sea otters, sea lions, diving ducks with fancy markings and fancy names)
The coffee shop not on the main street in town has more character but doesn't take cards for purchases under $10
bunnies run wild here (really, like the kind you would find in a pet shop)
I will have pictures to post soon. I don't have internet where I live, but I will try to re-start blogging again, as I expect that I will have something to write about this summer.
I got a summer internship with the SeaLife Center in Seward!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
I'm very excited about it. I am going to be spending half my time doing programs at the Center and half my time with the National Park Service helping a ranger lead programs on a boat in the Kenai Fjords National Park! I can't wait to get to live in Seward and am looking forward to all of the amazing scenery and wildlife I am going to see.
Also, I have decided to stay in Alaska through next year. I am going to do my internship again once my summer one is over.
Tuesday nights are LOST nights! I have a growing group of friends who watch the show which is awesome because we can get together to have dinner and discuss theories before the new episodes. What night is complete without getting into arguments about quantum physics? hahaha, I love it!
Dan and I got to take a day last week to visit the SeaLife Center (for enrichment purposes only, of course). It was really really cool. They have a lot of great exhibits that really draw you into the center and make you care. They also have one of the world's largest underwater aviaries (think puffins and tons of other diving ducks), sea lions and seals. AND the SeaLife Center is in Seward.
Seward is a special Alaskan town because it has a really nice little downtown area where Dan and I got a bucket of Halibut for lunch and walked around looking at the mountains. Exit glacier is also in Seward, but it is too dangerous to try to get to this time of year. The drive between Seward and Soldotna can be a little treacherous; luckily we decided to go the day before a big snow storm. Now the whole town is white again, and I am happily back in Soldotna.
P.S. I applied for an internship at the SeaLife Center as well a bunch of other places, so wish me luck!
Dan and I thought that we were going to be having an easy Sunday by skipping our usual hike on the refuge to go for a walk on the beach. First of all, we should have known our walk was doomed from the start when we couldn't get to the beach from the parking lot because of the lake of melting ice slush blocking our way. Then it might have been a hint when we were walking towards trouble when we had to keep on getting closer and closer to the water because all of sand on the bluff side of us was covered in massive ice chunks. But really we would have been okay if we had just paid attention to how fast the tide started coming in. Ok, so actually our timing wouldn't have been that bad if it wasn't for all that ice. While we started out having a great walk on the beach, we ended up slipping and sliding our way back while the water crept closer and closer, and our walk ended with a climb...up the side of the bluff. oops. I didn't remember my camera which is too bad because it was a beautifully clear day and we could see all the mountains across the inlet, but I do have proof of our trip...
With a couple of odd months standing between me earning my master's degree and starting my new job, I decided to spend the summer hiding out at my parent's house. At the time of decision making, it seemed like a great idea: free food, no rent, spend the summer warming up in the town I grew up in before I start my first year teaching! Right? Well, sort of...
