The flight was easy and quick enough. Cindy met me to give me a welcome packet and take me to the car rental place. There's a lot going on in town today - the Iditarod started, and there was also the annual Reindeer Run. Her daughter and friends were running it this year, so she asked if I wanted to, and it sounded TOTALLY awesome to me, so we went. What a great welcome to the city, right? So they have about 8 reindeer, and about 2300 runners, and they do it in heats. They bring the reindeer to the middle of the runners, give the runners about a ten-second head start, and then the reindeer come running after them.
It goes for about 6 blocks, though most of the runners stopped after a few blocks. (Don't tell anyone, but I think lots of them were D-R-U-N-K.) Then the bring the reindeer back to the starting line for the next group of drinkers, I mean runners. It was cold and snowy, but there were TONS of people who came out to watch. It's for a children's charity, so that's nice. And people were in costume - at least two girls were in bikinis, I kid you not. With a foot of snow on the ground, and about 27 degrees.
Then we dragged all my luggage to my little car and I was off to the east part of town to meet my host. She made me a lovely dinner of lamb chops and mashed potatoes and we got to know each other. She's very cool and I felt pretty comfortable around her almost immediately. That's so important for a homestay - you don't want to feel like you're tiptoeing politely around someone else's space for a month. Then I was very happy to make it an early night in my comfy new digs. Really a great travel day and a great beginning of my visit here.
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