Alaska Post 5

Friday late afternoon August 28, 2009

Alaska is divided into burroughs rather than counties. Most of Alaska is unpopulated and is not in need of county-like government. So the populated areas are divided by population into burroughs.

Worth a mention there is a free sushi bar. 'Course there are only 3 choices, but it was fun to try some on the first night.

I am now officially a karaoke fiend. Did half the show last night. No one else wanted to do it (earlier in the afternoon, my relatives had had fun doing some crazy numbers). So there were about 4 of us who traded around. My voice still cracked on stuff and didn't know melodies, but others I sounded awesome on. Two people in Sitka today as they passed by said, "Are you the girl from the Karaoke?" Nice.

Yesterday I did get in the pool and hot pool (indoor). Thought I'd be cold, but I really wasn't. And the rooms come with these robes that are cozy to get into afterwards, so I had that with me.

We had really rough sea weather, even so bad as to be unusual to a lot of crew and cruising veterans. A lot of people were sea sick including myself didn't feel so well a lot of the time. I was able to eat a little dinner which was good since I had the duck. The winds and swells were big enough to be half a day late getting to Sitka. It was simply not pleasant. The storm was big enough to be a "I-am-never-going-on-a-cruise-again" type storm. But as of this writing, all is forgotten. (We are anchored near Sitka.)

Sitka is not that small, bigger than I thought -- sprawled out along the shore among the trees, big houses. Just utterly lovely. It is kind of a tlingit slash Russian place. There is a cute church with a Russian dome. Got pictures of cute houses, bought a few things (blueberry honey and huckleberry bark, Alaskan made earrings, a little Russian box) -- they had a downtown area with lots of shops. Toured a museum -- they had a model of 1845 Sitka, very well done, tiny structures. Sitka is a tender port which means that smaller boats take us from the cruise ship to the shore and back -- the cruise ship can't get close enough. I ate halibut chowder, rose cardamom cheescake, and their homeade bread sticks at The Larkspur Cafe. This is one of those cafes that is made out of an older home, tables crowded together, locals and tourists, and the menu is unique and lots of TLC (I poured my own water at a buffet set up for that). Really yummy and I studied my Spanish textbook and was just thinking, I'm sitting in a cafe in Sitka, Alaska having cheesecake. He he.