week in Nome

We've had beautiful weather for almost two weeks. This is a picture of the plane we took to Nome. It seats about nine or ten people.

On the way to Nome...

Funny girl.

The ice can be blinding.

I sat behind the pilots.

On Sunday night we went to St. Joseph Catholic Church to watch eskimo dancing, and there were several Diomeders there participating. It was really fun! I only danced during one song and very badly.

Diomeders.

These two were very impressive!

The girls were addicted to the smoothies at Airport Pizza. Ain't no smoothies out on Diomede...

This is the beautiful NACTEC house where the students from the district's villages stay during their sessions.

The middle schoolers from Diomede, Shaktoolik, and Gambell.

Homework time!

I should work so hard. :)

The simulators in the NACTEC house. Pretty cool!

I love the art in the NACTEC house!

At NACTEC, the students have to make their own meals.

This is me and one of my students getting the lettuce ready for tacos!

YUM!

Signing each other's T-Shirts. It was cute...like it was camp!

 I love this picture. This was somewhere in between Nome and Diomede.

 And finally, Little and Big Diomede.

 The north side of Little Diomede.

Little and Big Diomede.

guerrilla shopping

When I got to Anchorage, the Welcome Wagon crew picked me up and took me to the UAA dorm. I finally got to meet Adrienne, my housemate in Diomede. It is her first year teaching in Alaska as well, and she is from California. Before we went guerilla shopping, I briefly and barely studied for my Alaska driver's test, but thankfully, I passed. I am officially an Alaskan resident. Whoo-hoo!

 We went to Wal-Mart, and we spent about $300 on food. We bought everything from spices to flour to frozen veggies. Both of us, having never cooked before, were pretty unsure of what to get, how much to get, how long it will last us, and how much it'd cost. The total was not as high as we expected it to be. We went to Lowe's and bought two 60 qt. coolers, and then we went to Mr. Prime Rib, a meat place in Achorage, and spent about $150 on a package deal with 45 lbs. of various kinds of meat and some veggies. The only chicken we bought was a whole fryer, which you can see below. We took our food back to the dorm, and the Welcome Wagon crew (returning BSSD teachers) helped us pack all of our food up into boxes. I cannot emphasize to you how helpful everyone at the BSSD has been. They've been so great. Everyone is generous with their time and resources! I am so happy to be working in this district!

All the food we bought.

45 lbs. of meat, some veggies thrown in.

This is my & Adrienne's whole fryer chicken.

Our stuff, nicely packed up. We took our two boxes to the post office and shipped them to Diomede for about $50. That is a great price. It is significantly cheaper to ship stuff within the state than it is to ship stuff out of state.

We taped down our coolers and took them as checked bags on the plane. When we got to the airport, the check-in guy asked for our current weights, which I thought was strange. It turns out that on little planes, they will put big people up at the front of the plane and smaller people at the back of the plane. Then, they will move everyone around based on their weight so that the plane is balanced. Adrienne and I were moved to the back of the plane, but at least we got to sit next to each other. The clouds were so thick we couldn't see anything the whole way to Unalakleet, so we did a crossword puzzle.