Tomorrow we arrive in Juneau, a town of several tens of thousands of people which is the capital of Alaska in the same bizarre tradition of small nonentity cities being capitals, like Canberra and Baton Rouge and Sacramento and totally not like Wellington.
Tomorrow is also the Fourth of July so we’re expecting big celebrations. The Inuit we met in Hoonah might dismissively refer to the rest of the USA as “the lower 48” (not counting Hawaii because, you know, it’s not contiguous…) but otherwise I think most people consider themselves ‘Murican. We met a lovely couple from Missouri on the boat today who asked us how we celebrate the the 4th of July in NZ. Obviously it’s a big day for them. Looking forward to it.
NB it is a little known fact that Americans cannot pronounce the name “Kirsty” and will instead address the unfortunate owner of this name with the substitute moniker of “Kristy” if they can possibly get away with it.