Sunday, May 16, 2010

Sandhill Crane

It's been another day here in Gambell, although you do tend to lose a sense of time when you don't see the sun set or rise at all. It is close to being daylight for 24 hours. I'm suprised that I am actually sleeping through the night. Although, I have been waking up thinking it is about noon and I slept in really late, when it is only like 9 in the morning. I'm not sure if that is really bad jet lag, or my sense of time is just really that off....

Today I went with my sis to the school to help her pack up her classroom and get her stuff ready to ship back to Oklahoma. Not really exciting... After we decided to walk towards the lake to see a part of Gambell I hadn't seen yet. We walked for a little while around the mountain, where I learned the reason why the planes don't fly when they can't see the top of the mountain. Apparently, in the 70's or 80's a plane crashed at the top, where only 2 teachers survived.... that is definitely not something they put in your teacher travel guide. I don't understand why you would fly over that one mountain, especially on a day you can't see it, with a plane that doesn't fly too far off the ground. Not smart. We kept walking and finally stopped about half a mile from the school. I kept thinking, "Where is this lake?" Suprise!!! I was practically standing on it. It was still iced over from winter. We continued walking and passed the shed they call an airport. And a TON of whale, walrus and seal bones along the way. I guess you can't walk anywhere without running into some type of animal remains. The reason you don't notice it, it's probably still covered by the huge snowdrifts around. We then went to the beach, the same beach I went to the day before during the white-out blizzard. And I must say, it looked completely different. The weather was just starting to clear up when we got there, and guess what?! I saw RUSSIA!!! How awesome is that? It wasn't clear enough for it to show in pictures, but I definitely did see it and that is ok with me. We then went to dinner at a neighbors house, we had spaghetti and Matilda chocolate cake. And by that I mean, it looked EXACTLY like the cake in the movie Matilda that the boy was forced to eat by the Trunchbull. It wasn't quite that big, but the cake was almost 3 layers. Afterwards, we played more Arctic Boccie Ball, and then called it a day. Not much entertainment, but the sightseeing was good enough.

If you are wondering about my title of this post. That is my Yupik name I was given by my sister's class. I am not sure how to write it in Yupik, but I shall find out soon!

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