I stepped out the hostel this morning to a cold breeze, and light intermittant rain. Not enough to stop and put on the large waterproof coat that I spent most of last night trying to dry! My hostel has self catering facilities when it comes to breakfast, and although there is a stock of some food and drink, I decided to explore what the rest of Anchorage had to offer. My quick search of 4th Avenue was not successful; most cafes were open from 11am, not 9:00am unfortunately, so I had no choice but to settle for Starbucks. Reading that back, it sounds like I would have preferred not to have dined in Starbucks if I could avoid it; thr truth is, from experience, they always charge more than what you actually get. Knowing this, I made my order carefully, although there wasn't much selection in the way of food. A pumpkin muffin was there at $2.25; instead, I went for a croissant. More bland, yes, but also more cheap! It went down well with a hot chocolate.
My day from there would be in two halves. From looking at the local weather forecast the night before, I predicted rain in the morning more likely than the afternoon, so it was off to the Anchorage Musuem. The musuem is set in a very nice location, with a large green and decorative flower displays. Upon my journey towards the entrance, I saw a group of young people with bags; they were picking up rubbish and I presumed community service. They were my age, and I decided not to question further!
The Anchorage Musuem is a must see. An adult's ticket is $12 but at the desk the lady was kind enough to offer me a student ticket, without asking for ID. For $9, I thought it very very good value. It was also nice that they provided lockers, so that I could take the weight off my back and give my rucksack a break. The musuem has many levels; on ground floor is the art gallery and I proceeded there first. Not being a massive art lover, I didn't know what to expect, but I came out very moved by some of the paintings. Among the great names the gallery is honoured to present is the world famous Sydney Lawrence; (1865-1940 if my memory serves me correctly). Seeing his paintings of Venice (St. Mark's Square to be precise) brought back lovely memories of a family holiday I had there. There amony his collection, too, was a painting of St. Ives, in Cornwall. I later found out that he had visited St. Ives and had done some art work in Britain as well as Alaska. Perhaps the most grand of paintings was Mount McKinley. Its the highest mountain range in North America, and Lawrence painted it very well. It was popular with people with cameras; people like myself!
The next room was most certainly my cup of tea: the Discovery Centre, split into two further rooms. The first was very much geographically themed, with a lot of hands- on artefacts. I was able to listen to glaciers creeping, thanks to someone who had taken a geologists microphone to one nearby. A water cyclinder demonstrated the differences between laminar and turbulant flow, and there was also a wave machine. Earlier last year on this blog I reported on a programme about waves; there was a wave generator very similar to the one I had seen in the programme. As Alaska is on the Pacific Ring of Fire, there were a lot of 'earthquake' machines where you could build a house and test it's strength against different sized earthquakes. A liquefaction machine also gave me a chance to test whether my house would survive a common Alaskan earthquake; unfortunately, not! The next room was the 'Physics' centre, where one could play with a cosmic ray machine and the electromagentic spectrum. There was a 'rocket launcher machine' where I tried to launch a plastic bottle into the air, but the instructions for the different buttons got all too much for me! I did, however, manage to observe myself under a heat-absorbance camera. The only area I am essentially losing heat is my face, which proves my specialised insulative clothing actually works! 
Upstairs, was the 'Alaskan History Gallery'; ample with artefacts from the recent and historic past. I happened to approach it backwards as it turned out, but still a very informative room. There was a great deal of information regarding oil extraction and indeed, the pipeline. I happened to walk into a guided tour group at the 'pipeline' artefects and so listened intently to the lady doing the tour. I was excited to hear mentionings of permafrost, and the complicated system the pipeline has to prevent the thawing of it. There was no actual description of permafrost though, and so I assumed it was just common knowledge! The last set of artefacts were all about Mount McKinley, and I spent a while gazing at the instruments used from the early expeditions, and comparing them with modern tools. A wall asking visitors "Why do you climb mountains?" was also interesting. A lot of people had written something very inspiring; the fact that mountain climbing helps you to find your inner self, although you sometimes came across a very clever comment like "Because the bus never takes you up there". Pondering why I would ever climb one, I bought a latte and wrote up my notes. Very happily bought by the way, because the latte was made properly, unlike the machines I saw at Starbucks!
The second half of the day was spent doing a self guided city walk, around many of Anchorage's most famous landmarks. I started at the city cemetry on 9th Avenue; a vast space devoted to remembering those who had once lived in Anchorage. I am told that Sydney Lawrence is buried here, although my quick walk around to find the tomb, proved unsuccessful! The city tour took me to see Delaney Park; a strip of land devoted to recreation. The USA Flag was flying away, although when I got to it to take a photo, it had been cast down. No one around the area was available to tell me why though. I made my way to the old city hall, the centre for Performing Arts, and the Whale Wall Murals. It wasn't the first time I had seen these whales; I passed them yesterday. I read from my information sheets that these were painted by Robert Wyland; apparently, he has done this type of thing all over the world!
Building design is something of interest here; even the car parks are asthetically pleasing! (See below whale photo)
My city tour continued and I saw the Wendler Building (the oldest building in Anchorage) and also the Egan Convention Center. I didn't go in these, but I did go in the Anchorage Mall. It wasn't on the list of 'things to see' but I was curious as to what shops were in there. Quite a few, in actual fact, spread over 5 levels. I was wandering around, and got talking to a lady who offered me some flavoured tea. Her company is TeaVana and are spreading their branches all across the country! The samples I tried made a refreshing change. I asked about how popular teat was, and she replied that coffee was much more popular. She was very interested in Yorkshire Tea, and what England generally did 'tea-wise'. It seems the American's aren't one for adding sugar and sweetners! She asked me to talk more, but I soon found out that she enjoyed my accent just as much as I had enjoyed the tea samples; "Talk some more; your voice is cute." The conversation then went on to talking about regional accents, rather than regional tea.
The last part of my city tour was at the Captain James Cook Monument, in the Discovery Park, on the coast. I found myself reading about Yorkshire and Whitby and so memories of good ol' Britain returned. Behind the monument were grand views of the coast. I've noticed that Sea-planes are very popular here; I saw five at a time from this monument! In the distance I thought I saw what would have been my very first bear sighting, although when brought up thanks to the aid of my digital camera, it turned out to be a buoy. Oh well, maybe another day!
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