Let's go to Alaska!

The main purpose for this blog is to stay in touch with friends and family while Bernhard and I explore the United States and work at the Johns Hopkins.

Preparations are going on and on... almost endlessly. Booking flights. Booking camps. Trail permits. Backcountry permits. Ferries. Busses. Cars. Organizing two visa. An apartment. Transportation for a laptop and spare clothes....

And I'm really caught by terms as Inside Passage. Glacier Bay. Black Bears. Novarupta and its Valley of 10,000 smokes. Denali. Brown Bears. Yukon. Whitepass. Grizzlies. Bald Eagles. Chilkoot Trail. Wrangell. St. Elias. Misty Fjords.... the list is endless too.

Besides I'm really busy doing stuff for university, wedding photography and working as freelance for a medical technology company in Innsbruck. And time is flying by. So I just wanted to start this - let's call it - small blog about our travels and experiences in the United States - in Alaska, where Bernhard, my husband and I will spend a month mostly trekking and taking pictures - and Baltimore, where I will be a research fellow at famous Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Dep. of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery) - a chance my supervisor at the University of Applied Sciences in Linz, Thomas Haslwanter, gave me. This blog - hopefully it will become a blog now - will be updated every now and then, but to start with, I'll show you a pic of me testing out my new 85 l backpack (an American one - from Gregory - I thought they should know how to build backpacks suitable for Alaska... we'll see).

The worst thing about going to the U.S.: I do not only have to leave home, but - although these are only material possessions - I also have to leave my motorbikes, my mountainbike and my books. The good thing: Bernhard is with me all the time - so there's nothing to worry about :)