Sunday, 2 June 2019
Fairbanks, Alaska, USA
Leisurely and slow start to the day. That’s the trouble with little celebrations the night before.
Taking advantage of the high speed wifi, upload a lot of photos and videos for you, dear reader. There’ll be a flurry of blog posts coming soon. But you already knew that by the time you read this.
The trouble with Fairbanks, and I suppose with America in general, is that you can’t really judge a restaurant by its external appearance. The Thai restaurant doesn’t look very appealing from the outside. It’s in a dodgy area and has a garage like façade. But it’s great inside.
The same goes with today’s café for lunch. It looks a bit grimy on the outside but once inside it’s a fresh and modern café with excellent food.
Having resorted to Trip Advisor to see what the top 10 things to do in Fairbanks are, opt first for the Museum of the North up at the University campus. By coincidence, an English couple from Cambridge also ask hotel reception to phone for a taxi to the museum at the same time so we agree to share. Museum is indeed well worth a visit and details the history of northern Alaska with many artefacts. Follow it up with a visit to the Fairbanks Auto Museum. Quite a large collection of privately owned cars dating from 1890s through to the 1930s. The 1890s cars are the sort you would see running in the London to Brighton Veteran Car rally but he’s never taken them abroad.
Back to the Thai restaurant I go. In all my years of working and travelling abroad, I have, surprisingly, only ever seen two women eat in a restaurant on their own. One was in Dublin and one was in Gourdes, France. Men on the other hand, I see regularly dining on their own. It’s what you have to do when working away from home. Tonight, however, that tally doubles. There are two women dining on their own at separate tables.
Beautiful Thai waitress takes my order again. Have gone for a culinary change. No Red Thai Chicken Curry extra extra spicy. Explain that I’m on a train for 12hrs tomorrow so need something less spicy.
She replies, “I’ll make it train friendly then!” and an excellent and tasty pork and aubergine dish is served up. As much as I like fresh fish and meat, it’s been nice to have a change of diet.
Approached by another drunken Eskimo on my way back to hotel.
He’s after two dollars.
Probably for another can of Special Brew.
Or whatever it is they drink up here.
