Something that has made my time here a little easier was how awesome my client contact here is. She's a total sweetheart and she's intent on showing me all that her little part of Alaska has to offer. She gave me a tour of downtown Ketchikan during lunchtime, and we ate at this yummy local restaurant.

After work, she invited me over to her house for dinner. We stopped by the grocery to pick up some food and I hung out at her place, watched TV, and played with her dogs while she cooked. Her dog is the sweetest thing and she said that the dog took a liking to me immediately. Dinner conversation was great - it was my client, her stepson, her husband and me. It was nice to relax and socialize with really cool, easygoing people.

So here's a couple things I've learned about Ketchikan, AK:

- Summertime is the tourist season. There's about 7,000 people who live in the town, but during summer it can be about 16,000.

- Ketchikan is a stop for many Alaskan cruises, which livens up the economy.

- A lot of stores downtown are closed when there aren't cruises in town.

- This is the 4th largest city in Alaska.

- Ketchikan is actually on an island.

- The Walmart is where the kids hang out

- People actually stay overnight in town so that they can go to the Walmart - it's a big deal around here

- There are black bears around these parts, but they don't cause much trouble unless you leave you garbage out. Fortunately, the grizzlies are on the mainland.

- Right now, the days are pretty normal length, but in the winter the sun goes down at 3pm and doesn't come up until 8.

- The weather and landscape around here is more like Seattle than it is like the rest of Alaska.

- I'm in the Alaska time zone - one hour after Pacific time. Which means when I start work at 9am, it's actually noon Chicago time. What sucks about this? Waking up and 5am and not being able to go back to sleep so I start working that time anyway.

Hmm...that's all I remember for now.

Posted by Yano at March 2, 2005 03:00 AM

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