Juneau ... pretty but a little boring

MP3 Track of the day: When we were young - The Killers

Weather: Spitting, it's spitting!

Last night I went to sleep at around 2am and I had to get up at 7:30am so I could be out before lock-out at 9am. Tory (a very good looking Australian woman), John (Another Aussie), Jeff (An American) and Chris (another American) invited me for a hike up mount Roberts. They had also invited me to the Independence Day celebrations (you know, the day the British realised how bad the USA was and decided to leave) last night, but I was quite busy so I didn't make it; therefore I decided to take them up on the offer of the hike and so I headed into town, for breakfast, and then met the group back at the hostel.

The trek was very muddy but beautiful; the mountain is covered in a huge forest with breaks in the trees for views of Juneau and the surrounding area. Once at the top the view wasn't the best as the clouds were low; we spent a little bit off time up there before trying to board the cable car back down. If you catch the cable car at the bottom of the hill it costs $28.00 for a return trip, but if you hike up the mountain you can spend $5.00 in the restaurant / souvenir shop and ride down for free. None of us wanted to spend $5.00 and so we tried to blag ourselves onto the cable car but it wasn't to be ... therefore we went to spend $5.00.

I have never had so much trouble spending $5.00 (£3.50) in my life. The restaurant was closed and so we headed to the souvenir shop which had the tackiest selection of souvenir's ever; in the end it was a toss up between 2 pens with my name on, 20 postcards or an Alaskan coin ... I decided to opt for the coin (which actually cost me $6.25 due to tax ... gurrr) and I had never felt so ripped off in my life (well maybe the £28.00 for the underground train in London at the start of the trip was worse). The other guys bought small stuffed animals, taffy (basically a box of sugar sweets) and a small water bottle. It was a good laugh and when I get home, I will look at the tacky coin souvenir with fond memories.

After this we walked through town but there really wasn't that much to do, Juneau is beautiful but there isn't allot to do in the city. The hostel has a curfew until 5pm and so we killed 3 hours in a coffee shop talking (which was great, getting to know other travellers). At around 4pm we headed to the local grocery store and I bought some snacks for the ferry tomorrow and a frozen curry for tonight's dinner.

Tomorrow I head for the ferry terminal and I'm on the ferry until Thursday; I don't think there is internet on board and so you won't hear from me until Thursday. I'm off to go and cook my curry ... errr .... I mean warm up my curry.

Toodle Pip!