alaska v1.0 – anchorage

the first part of our trip to alaska was our short stay at the arctic adventure hostel in anchorage. we met some amazing people from around the world that i hope we run into again sometime down the road. the stay at the hostel was great. joe was a very helpful host and the rooms were clean and welcoming. anchorage itself was a serious let down. i’m not sure what i was expected exactly, but overall that experience fell flat on its face. first of all, the parts of town we visited, which included the downtown area, were actually really dirty. there was trash all over the place. in addition, not only were there cars everywhere but the planning of the city and it’s traffic was horrible.

we walked 90% of the time up there only taking a cab when we really needed to. downtown was 2 miles from our hostel and after going a few times we finally found a route that went through a nice little residential part of town that made the walk much easier. when we first got there we knew that we wanted to visit REI which was just about 1 mile from the hostel. on our way there our noses were caught by a restaurant across the street called Hog Brother’s Cafe. Just a complete dive. Exactly what we were looking for. We went on a Sunday at around lunch time and the place was completely packed, wall to wall. People standing in the doorway waiting for seats to open and staff running every which way. Even though the staff was completely swamped, every single one of the was smiling and laughing the entire time. not a single person didn’t want to be there. in addition to the staff was the crazy, hot-off-the-greasy-griddle food. it hit the spot.

more stories to come. check out pictures here.