After that we picked up Yavor and went to Fred Meyers. We had to do some shoppings for the party tonight at Diana's. It was a potlock party, which means everybody has to bring some food. I made 'hutspot' (typical Dutch recipe with carrots, onions, potatoes and meat all mashed together) and Yavor made Russian salad.
The party was a lot of fun, and the food was good! We stayed until 1 AM, and even drank some whiskey, which was good. Here are some photos...
Sunday March 7
In the afternoon I got a phonecall from Honie, if I wanted to join her at the sledgehill nearby. I went there with Yavor and even went down two times with Precious (Honies daughter) and their neighbour. It was very speedy and I fell out both times. After that I was very cold!


At night Kim and Brandon came back from Fred Meyers with two bottles of Margaritas, they said they were going to give me a late "Welcome to UAF" party. We are not supposed to drink here, so it was a secret party ;). We drank and played cards all night, Yavor joined us later. It was fun!!


Tuesday March 9
I spent some time making plans for the Spring break with Kim. We made some phonecalls, and we found out that students get a 65% discount on the train, this is good! We are now planning to take the train to Anchorage, then the bus to Seward, stay there and go back the same way at the end of the week.

Wednesday March 10
At night, Millie and me searched for a place to stay while in Seward. We choose this hotel. Expensive in Summer, but a nice price in winter! We'll pay 62 dollar for a room with two double beds, that's cheaper than the youth hostel! Our plan is the following: we leave on Sunday at 8:30 AM by train to Anchorage, we'll arrive there at 7:45 PM. We will sleep in the youth hostel there, and on Monday we'll take the bus to Seward, whick will take 2,5 hours. We will stay there for 4 nights, and we haven't figured out what to do yet. We want to visit the Sea Life Centre, almost next to our hotel. On Friday we'll take the bus back to Anchorage, sleep in the youth hostel again and on Saturdaymorning we'll take the train back to Fairbanks, where we will arrive on Saturday night.

Friday March 12
I went out to photograph the northern lights with Yavor. Unfortunately, they were not as spectacular anymore by the time we found a place to take photos from. Here are two photos:


Yavor took this photo of me taking a photo of the aurora.. And later I took a photo of the Gruening Building on campus.



Saturday March 13
On Saturday I went skiing again! I used parabolic ski's for the first time, it is supposed to be easier. They were very short, only 1.60m!! I had to get used to them, but that went pretty fast. I am getting better at skiing, at least I don't use the full width of the slope for making turns anymore ;). With Mihailo I tried a remote slope. According to one source it was blue, according to another it was black (here it is green-blue-black from easy to difficult) I think it sure was close to black! The problem were all the trees and bushes on the slope, there was hardly any room for making turns, so it was not so good for me. My hands were all cramped after it! But we had a fun day of skiing and the weather was really good. We skied until 4:30 PM. Here are the pictures!


Sunday March 14
On Sunday we had to wake up early, we had to be at the train station at 7:30 AM! Brandon took us there by car. It took some time to find it, bit we did. And what a trip!!! Before boarding, everybody got a poster with the train route and things to see on it. The train is not very long, but it has room for around 200 persons, while I estimate we were only about 30 :) The views are amazing! Between the two cars there's a room where the windows are open, we took a lot of photos from there. Especially when we reached the mountains it was very beautiful. We saw a (frozen) river, went through tunnels and over bridges, and close to big mountain tops... We drove along the border of Denali National Park for a long time. I've never had a better traintrip! It will take 12 hours, we still have almost 3 hours to go. I am sitting here with my laptop, chocolate chip cookies on one side and the best view you can wish for on the other side... Here are some photos! The first one is of the Ice Classic in Nenana, it's a lottery where you have to guess when the ice breaks in the Spring. The tripod will collaps and the clock will stop.


At arrival, Millie saw a girl who also lives in Nerland Hall, and she arranged a ride to the Youth Hostel :). When we saw the youth hostel, we understood why they didn't have a picture of it on the internet, it didn't look very inviting. We had a room for 3 persons that was really simple. We only got a pillowcase, no blankets. We decided to go out and get some food. We ended up at Humpy's, a real nice bar!


Monday March 15
On Monday we got up early. We wanted to find out where the bus to Seward was leaving, which took us some time. Micah said he was going to be in Anchorage with his mom on Monday, so we called him. His mother was great, and she took us all for lunch to Taco King, Mexican food! After that they brought us to the place where our bus was leaving. Here some photos of Anchorage: a Russian church (that was actually catholic), two cars that haven't been used for a long time, and the four of us at Taco King.


The bus was a big van and really full. But the trip was so beautiful! The weather was good and we saw nice reflections of the clouds in the water. I took some photos and they turned out fine in spite of the dirty windows. Unfortunately I fell asleep after a while and woke up when we got to Seward.


The driver was nice enough to bring us to the hotel. The hotel looks really beautiful. We have a room with two big beds and a good view. We went out to get something to eat. Seward is a really touristy place in Summer, where everything is closed in Winter, but I like that atmosphere. Eventually we found "the place to be" in Seward, an Italian/Mexican/Greek restaurant.

Tuesday March 16
We started our day with breakfast at 8:30. I took my chocolate sprinkles from the Netherlands, it was so good to eat that again! After breakfast we called Renown Charters & Tours to book a tour. Just for Millie and me, Kim would go for a hike&camping for 3 days, the hotel was too much for her ;). We walked to the small boat harbour. There we found out that the 2.5 hour tour was not going, we were going on a 4 hour Whale Watch Tour for the same price! That was a nice surprise :) On our way I took this photo of a sign warning for tsunami's (flood waves caused by an earthquake)


Boarding started at 11:45. The boat was small, but there were not so many people. Everybody walked straight inside, while Millie and me stayed outside. Suddenly I saw something big moving in the water, it looked like there was a man swimming. But it was a sea otter, they're huge!
After we departed we saw two Bald Eagles sitting on a platform in the harbour. We sailed around it so everybody could take pictures. We also saw more sea-otters. The views were so amazing! Our tour guide grew up in Seward and knew a lot about it. We saw a lot! We went into some bays, we saw glaciers, and starfish. If you were hungry you could get a free lunch, which was very good! Later we saw sea lions on a big rock, we could get pretty close! Right before we went back we saw a humpback whale! It was a young one that was ill when the group migrated, and he spent the winter here, waiting for the group to come back. We also saw a sea otter very close to the boat, they are so cute! They swim on their back, roll in the water, it even looks like they're waving at you! After arrival we were the last ones on board and we talked to the tour guide and the other guy. They gave us a bag of left over sandwiches, and he pointed us his house in case we wanted to ask him something while we're in Seward. It was such a great day!!

Later we walked through Seward looking for a grocery store, but it was closed. On our way I saw my first moose here!! Up till now I kept missing them when they walked by. Here's a photo:

Thursday March 18
Thursday the weather was clear again, but there was a strong wind. Millie wanted to stay in the hotel, while Kim and I went for a hike. We followed the road for a while, and a sealion decided to follow us :) Because of the strong wind there had been an avalanche but the road was cleared up already when we got there. At the end of the road we sunbathed on the beach ;) Here's our proof... This place was also the beginning of the trail we wanted to take. It was a small path through the woods and through the snow, first uphill. We had to cross some streams on the way. At the end the path went downhill, it was slippery some time. At the bottom there was a bridge crossing a creek and that was where we stopped. We did walk to the sea. If you want to follow the trail further you have to know the times of low tide. After resting a while we walked back. We were back at the hotel by 4:30 and I was exhausted!!

Friday March 19
We had to get up early, the Seward Bus Line would pick us up at 9 AM. I didn't sleep so much this time, so I saw more of the surroundings, which was beautiful. There are a lot of dead trees however, because of some beetle. At noon we arrived in Anchorage. We took a City Bus to the bus station in downtown Anchorage, very close to the youth hostel. Here's a photo of the youth hostel.

Saturday March 20
At 7:15 AM we left the youth hostel and we walked to the train station. Soon we realized there were far more people than on our way down. There's a wedding party in a seperate car, and there's a big Japanese group making a film. And many tourists!! We couldn't even choose our own seats, the train is full. The good thing is that we have a viewing car now, a car with a second floor with an amazing view! The weather is very clear so we saw Mt. McKinley from the train. The only mountain with a cloud surrounding it :) The train trip is beautiful again... only too bad it is so crowded, and there are a lot of annoying crying kids on board ;) Here's a photo of a icefall that we saw on the way, and of two boys in the viewing car; their conversation was amazing! I spent a while listening to their discussion about the big bang and the beginning of the Earth...

We met some real nice people in the train, and we had a good time. We also saw a beautiful halo and sunset before our arrival. Here's a photo of the sunset/halo, one that Yavor took of us with the train, and one of Kim showing how a Bald Eagle flies.

Tuesday March 23
At night Yavor and I drove to Ester, looking for aurora, but it wasn't there. So I took this startrail photo, it was such a clear night! The photo next to it is the same but with a shorter shutterspeed. You can find Orion in them! Actually, these aren't photos, but my first slides :))

Thursday March 25
On Thursdaynight we went to the Ice Sculptures with a group of people, this is in Fairbanks. Everything is lit at night and it looks really beautiful. They have a "Kiddies Park" with lots of slides, a lot of fun! It was very cold though... There is also the real competition, with huge ice sculptures, wonderful! In spite of the warm temperatures earlier this week, everything looked good. At the end of the night we were all frozen... Here are some scanned slides and a few digital photos!

Friday March 26
At night I went to a party with Kim, Brandon and Yavor. Real Alaskan party, the road was full with parked big trucks, it was in the middle of nowhere in a cabin in the woods... well, "in"?? It was outside! They made a huge fire and some small ones. You could drink shots through an ice-slide, there were couches outside, there were dogs walking around everywhere... It was great! Special atmosphere.. The same band as yesterday in the pub was playing at the party, so the music was fine :)

Saturday March 27
On Saturday, Yavor, Millie and me had nothing to do, so we decided to visit North Pole. This is a town close to Fairbanks where it's Christmas year round. They say Santa is living there ;) There is a Christmas house where he is present year round so you can get a photo with him. His reindeers are walking around in the garden, and you get crazy of Christmasmusic! Besides this there's nothing to do in North Pole, we drove around but we got bored so we drove back to campus.

Sunday March 28
On Sunday it was skiing time again! :) We went with two cars this times, Mihailos and Yavors. It was much colder than last time... This time there was also a girl from Switzerland with us, Celia. It was fun! We even did a black slope and it wasn't that bad. Although I don't know if that slope was just easy or I'm really making progress ;) Here are some photos!