Alaska Day 2018

For those of you that do not know, the great 49th state in the USA was sold to the US from Russia. That selling occurred on October 18th 1867 at Castle Hill in Sitka Alaska. So for all of my Ed Sheeran fans out there, lets all say he was singing about the Sitka Castle Hill. Now the castle is no loner standing, but people everywhere in Sitka celebrate the day and the historical moment that occurred in the tiny town of Sitka. This also means that there is a half day at school, parades and drinking with the Seattle Firefighters Pipes and Drum group, which are bagpipers that travel to Sitka every year for the parade. In the past, I most associated bagpipers with funerals, but now after learning them and hearing them in the bars and school hallways for about 3 days straight, I'm down with the bagpipers and understand peoples fixation with them. Since it was a half day, I only had to be at school from 6:50am to about noon. So I was able to actually look forward to the end of the school day and the parade. The kids were all jumping beans in the classroom unable to concentrate for no more than 10 minutes. Alaska Day is compared to the 4th of July here. At around 12:30 I met up with Julia and Micheal at Mean Queen to grab a drink and food before the parade. Even with it being only 12:30 in the afternoon people were ready to party. It also means that the bars were packed. But in this tiny town, once you meet everyone you then see them all over town. So we know everyone at the bars. People even fly in for Alaska Day. After a round of drinks we all made our way to the parade which was going down Lincoln Street(basically the main street). The parade was filled with kids throwing candy, people dressed in Russian and old era clothing, marching bands from the schools, dancers, and all of the military in huge trucks. Here in Sitka we have the Army, Navy, Coast Guard and several smaller groups. They even do a flyover town in the coast guard helicopters. Coast Guard is the biggest by far. Sometimes those guys are all at the pool doing laps for all of the swimming tests they need to take......and they are not bad to look at. I got to also see many of the students that I work with out and about which is nice. It proves to them that In fact I do not sleep at school. After the parade we all met up with friends at Earnies....another bar where the bagpipers were going to play again. There we also got to meet one of the new AmeriCorps members who got to Sitka that morning. Her name is Mary and she came from Washington, D.C. She too chose to drive across the country so she could have her car here. I don't know about the others but I am fine without a car after I thought I would not. I have a bike and Sitka is so tiny it take me 5 extra minutes to get places than someone driving a car. The supermarket is kinda hard since then I have groceries but I have found that going with an empty backpack and only getting what fits in the bag is a system I like. I also see it as one less bill I need to pay. But back to AK day....so we are all at Earnies and the bagpipers are in full swing and it was just a great time. After Earnies we all ventured back to mean queen for food. Mean Queen has great pizza. All while this is happening, people are chanting Alaska things just showing the love they have for Alaska Day. Overall it was a cool day and it was another side to Sitka that I was shown only making me like it here more.