TravelStream™ news feed for member austin451 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/austin451 en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:58:24 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1232450940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1232450940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1232450940/tpod.html Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:58:24 -0500 Which way is up??--stories from the end of the earth. Seriously.

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Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica

1/17/2009

I forgot to write about our royal visit. Prince Albert II of Monaco (look him up; one of the last royal-by-birthright types to play a legitimate, active role in government, as well as an Olympic athlete) came to see us the other day, and I don't even think His Serene Highness knew why. But he's an adventurous prince who in 2006 voyaged to the North Pole, no doubt marvelous in its desolation, so he and a small entourage made an equally frivolous journey to Antarctica. I couldn't wait to see if he had a royal chewer, like the Hapsburgs.

That said, he seemed like a pretty nice guy. On some level we all expected a crown and sceptor, so when the crew arrived no one was quite sure which francophone on skis was the infamous Princess Stephanie's big brother. He gave a little speech at lunch over what he called "the best cheeseburger I've ever had in Antarctica," and many of us were disappointed to realize that he was the unassuming middle-aged man with glasses and a distinctly neutral American accent.

I was very tempted, as I'm sure others were, to interrupt and quiz him rudely on matters of state in Monaco: "How is a country of less than one square mile so exorbitantly wealthy?" "Is it true that your sister is dating Charlie Sheen?" "Does your piercing hurt, Albert?" "Where exactly is Monaco?"

But I said nothing, and he enjoyed his burger, sans royal chewer.


1/20/2009

I was a little sick yesterday, and now a few other people are, too.

The dentist, who makes two visits per season to the South Pole, arrived yesterday, and she apparently boarded the plane fully aware that she had the flu. Living on a space station such as ours, this is very, very bad. The season is wrapping up and much of the community leaves in a week, so the impending epidemic will be an especially sour note to end on.

I had already heard through the South Pole sewing circle rumor mill that this particular dentist already had a reputation for being "psychotic." Imagine Little Shop of Horrors. No, it is not safe, and she is currently in quarantine, using half of our medical clinic to do nothing other than wait on the plane that will take her away from us.

Before her arrival yesterday, concerned citizens of McMurdo called ahead to warn us and advise precautions, understanding that when one person incubates a virus here, about 200 people get infected. I wish I could have seen the already eccentrically germophobic GA, hunching against the steering wheel to avoid any stray breaths from the Infected, driving the shuttle that carried the dentist from plane to station. She even had to wear a mask.

Maybe with enough respirators and a healthy phobia of all things that can transmit infuenza, we'll avert this crisis.

But some are already taking their sick days and one of the lounges smells like vomit, and that's my fault.
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Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica

'Twas the day after Christmas
And all through the station
The Polies bitched and moaned
Their tired lamentation
Of headaches and nausea
And feeling really shitty.
When you're at the South Pole
Even Santa shows no pity.


OK, I know the poem was dumb, but there's nothing like a collective Yuletide hangover.

Aside from that, Christmas was a good time. My Secret Santa made me a devil tail to match my horned balaclava. We partied with a new world record-holder (fastest ski journey from the sea to the South Pole... and he did it on foot), then sang an improvised song about him and his frostbite. Other performances of the night included such vulgar classics as "Rich Dumb Nymphomaniac," a country rendition of Snoop Dogg's "Gin & Juice," and, perfect for the holidays, "She Left Me for Jesus."

Christmas morning once meant waking up early to see what's under the tree, but our tree is outside and made of various pieces of hardware welded together into a hideous mockery of the tradition. Instead of unwrapping presents, we upheld the longstanding tradition of the Race Around the World. The three-ish mile route circumvents the geographic pole, covering every time zone and, I guess, going around the world three times. You could race on foot or ski, but why risk burning off that holiday lard you've worked so hard to pack on? Several snowdozers and snowmobiles joined the race as well, and I was obliged to hop on one of the sleds. There's a lot to tell about this race, but I'll leave that to the pictures.

Well, I finally had my White Christmas.
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Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica

They call the Ops GA (me) the "floater," and while that does kind of make me feel like a turd, I must emphasize again the benefit of being able to switch jobs often. I get the lowest pay for being the most versatile, which seems a little backward, but it keeps me sane. So I'm working with the Fuelies for a little while now.

The National Science Foundation realized years ago that despite the ridiculous polar conditions and virtually unmapped territory of interior Antarctica, it is much cheaper to send supply vehicles overland than to fly. Thus the South Pole Traverse was born. Several large tractors of various design trek across the continent from the large station at McMurdo on Ross Island, each dragging thousands of pounds of supplies, mostly fuel for us and a few of the more remote field camps. The convoy is led by a Pisten Bully with a special sonar attachment jutting from the front to ensure that the entire operation doesn't collapse into an unseen crevasse. This is a very real danger, they assure us.

The Traverse arrived recently, and this sudden influx of fuel bladders necessitates one more temporary member on the Fuelie crew--Austin. I'll tell you a little bit about Fuelie life.
They're all fun people, always joking around. I hear them on the radios constantly, jabbering about relevant things in a ridiculous manner. "Cricket to Buttercup. Buttercup, do you copy? What's the fill on tank H3?" That's the forewoman talking to the big, burly, bearded one. "I'm not in the pumphouse, Cricket. Ask Tiger. Is he done training the slave on the snowmobile yet?" That's me. I don't mean Tiger.

First thing in the morning, it was my job to ride to the end of the skiway (our landing strip for huge cargo planes on skis) to check for any little obstructions or clutter. Snowmobiles, for liability purposes, must adhere to a 10 mph speed limit. The skiway, though, goes for a few miles and the end is far enough from the base that rules don't really matter. This is Antarctica, after all. Believe me, limiting these beasts to 10 mph is criminal. I had no idea that snowmobiles could go so fast. I won't tell you my top speed, because I don't want to worry anyone, but I will say that it's about like a motorcycle in acceleration and speed, except no road to lose control and veer off of. It was a good morning.

Now, the bad part of being a temporary Fuelie. They stink. The three snowmobile helmets they use are labeled in big white letters "Stinky," "Smelly," and "Sweet Pea." I don't get the last one.

Diesel is the lifeblood of our settlement. Virtually everything runs on AN8, a slightly modified aircraft-grade diesel fuel. The power plant, whose smokestacks belch their thick exhaust right into Summer Camp (my home), drinks diesel. The innumerable machines pushing snow around to keep the buildings afloat drink diesel. The hot water drills at Ice Cube drink diesel. I've walked in on some of the mechanics drinking it, too. It's a harsh continent, as they say.

This is all to convey that I'm very used to the smell of diesel exhaust, and will likely always feel something is amiss when I don't detect its sweet aroma. Fuel itself, however, still makes me gag, and I'm basically swimming in it now. Keep in mind that Fuelies are allowed THREE showers a week, rather than the usual two. Joy.

The things we do for seven bucks an hour.



Well, Christmas is coming up, or so they tell me. Don't think that I've forgotten about any of you. Mail just takes forever from here, needless to say. If anyone expects to get something for Christmas from me, I'll have to hurry up and send it about... six weeks ago. So just be patient, it's coming.
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Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica

Most people love camping. Good friends, starry nights, cold beer, warm fires, maybe a guitar and definitely s'mores.

Camping in Antarctica doesn't involve any of these. It does feature some things that are almost as good, like inconceivably fierce wind chills and several hours of shoveling out a place to hide and shiver violently until the sun shifts slightly overhead (what the rest of the hemisphere would call "dawn").

If you don't keep yourself covered with several layers of synthetic material, you'll get frostbite. If you don't keep moving vigorously, you'll get frostbite. If you don't consume enough calories at a steady enough rate, you'll get frostbite. If you fail to remember any two of these or don't foresee numerous other potential problems, you'll probably get hypothermia and die, or maybe just get frostbite bad enough that the tissue in your extremities become necrotic and must be amputated.

Some of us knew all of this, and still wanted to go. I guess this is one of those reasons they call Polies crazy. Still, it was a great time, an experience I won't soon forget.
A couple of Pisten Bullies (snow tanks that carry about eight people and drag their gear behind) carted our group of twelve a few miles north of the station. Everything is north of the station, by the way. There was a little ice in the air, so we couldn't quite make out the fuzzy dots of home in the distance. It's funny how living in a modern little ecosystem that we've created can allow us to forget that we are surrounded by such an inhospitable, vast plain of nothing. Camping out there reminds us, and I can't imagine the absolute desolation that someone doing this "for real" must feel.

We had a few experienced snow campers in the group, one a mountaineering guide who taught us everything we needed and was basically our mom for the night. The group also included a couple of guys from Miami and Texas who hadn't ever seen sub-zero temperatures.

We had camp stoves, food, hundreds of pounds of cold weather gear, and several mountain tents. Why use tents, though, when you could carve your own elaborate palace out of the ice? We set to work almost immediately, ten young men, one young woman, and one middle-aged RN, all coordinated in an effort to have fun, and maybe even survive. Our goal was simple enough: to construct snow shelters to harbor us for the night. Getting there, though, proved difficult, complicated, and very time-consuming. But it was tons of fun as we were all flung back into childhood, playing in the snow and eventually reduced to giggles as we pushed our bodies and shovels well past exhaustion. It had been a long week of work, but nothing could stop us from spending about 7 hours making our little homes in the midnight sun. We were all conscientious enough to avoid full-fledged frostbite, but we definitely noticed the cold and a few of us (including yours truly) ended up with sunburn on whatever parts were left uncovered for a few minutes. Mind the hole in the ozone layer.

My crew of three (including KiwiDave and Jonathan the Californian) actually managed to sleep for a few hours in our painstakingly constructed "Quinsey." It began as a large pile of gear and bags which we covered in snow, packed down, covered again, packed again, etc. Eventually we dug a hole and pulled the gear out, then excavated inside until it was large enough to comfortably sleep three. The entrance hole was the hardest part, beginning in a 7-foot-deep pit, then worming upward into the Quinsey itself. This serves as a cold air trap, so that all body heat generated stays inside the higher elevated hut. Getting through was a major pain at first though, and a couple of times I thought I was stuck and the whole thing would collapse on me. Quinsey huts are not for claustraphobics.

I think I was probably the most comfortable, because I awoke last of the whole camp, with one of the guys' head poking up through our narrow entrance, yelling at me. His group had not slept a wink, and when I emerged, groggy and shivering, I saw why. Their ambition surpassed ours, and they had become the first group to ever, as far as I know, create a full-on igloo while camping at the South Pole. It was magnificent, like something an inbred Eskimo outcast would store his embarrassing purchase of popsicles in. Impressive, sure, but I'm glad I got some sleep in my snowcave.
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Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica

Note: it's kinda hard to upload photos everywhere with our shifty satellite internet, so go here for my album.

Right now I am watching the worst movie ever made. It's called "Space Pirates," and it stars no one you've ever heard of. The protagonists are apparently headed to the center of a galaxy in search of water, a thought so absurd it could only have been conceived, just as I was, in the 1980s. The fun-loving gang and their robots were just captured by a band of unicorn-riding Amazon women whose leader asked specifically for Tylenol. The mid-space flight sex scene is coming up. Oh God. It involves a robot, too.

I've seen some real winners, but even I wouldn't intentionally watch something this awful in the real world. Stick yourself in the most remote location on earth, though, and you too would find yourself wandering into the Summer Camp lounge after your one-minute shower, hair frozen from the 30-second walk, to find co-workers enjoying shit like "Space Pirates."

I just finished cutting my hair, which is good because I did almost nothing at work today and I felt like accomplishing something trivial. Normally everyone works hard for long hours, but for whatever reason the station was running at half-speed. I don't know really why, but we like to blame the fickle barometric altitude, which today jumped from 9,000 feet above sea level to over 11,000. So climbing the stairs is a little harder than usual, I guess, and we all secretly sigh to ourselves and wonder how we got so fat on the most expensive food in the world, logistically speaking. I could hear enthusiastic bustling from the gym while I enjoyed my ice cream cone and a book.

I spent most of the day in the heavy shop office, and I was sure glad to witness the intense religious/political clash between Mari-Pat the middle-aged work order scheduler, and Dave the boss. I was actually really proud of this, because it all started with one little comment I made about our President Elect possibly being the antichrist. As the argument heated up for the next hour or so, various people stopped in on undoubtedly important business, listened for a minute, then thought better of it and left.

It was Kevin the former Green Beret from Oklahoma that eventually ended it. He drifted in after repairing a crane (or launching a satellite or something important like that) and said, in his thick southern accent, "Well, I'm just sayin', I believe in God but I don't want nothin' to do with the rapture if He takes up those damn Kiwis, too."

David was also in the room. He is from New Zealand.


And my hair looks terrible. Luckily, I was also very productive last night in the Art Room (when I should have been slumbering and alternately shivering and sweating in my 6'x8' plywood cell). I now have something distinctive and, I think, clever to cover my head: a balaclava with horns. Little red ones. People will see me trudging in from the white barren distance and wonder who I am, because in this climate no one has a face or hair or hands or a distinguishable walk, as we are all bundled up tighter than Ralphie's little brother from "A Christmas Story."

So I gave myself little red horns.


I want to talk for a second more about the earlier religious argument, though. Someone mentioned the Gnostic writings discovered in the forties in Egypt. Among other things, they apparently documented that our Christian-dated calendar is four years off, because the life and times of Jesus Christ were four years off. Some of us can't help but wonder about the end of the world, or the end of time, or the Apocalypse or Armageddon or whatever we're calling it. So many sources (incuding James the crazy laundromat preacher that Taylor and I met in Carpinteria, California) seem to point to the end of 2012 as the last days for our earthly civilization, yet none of them take into account that our dating system is probably wrong.

So I guess we Earthlings all have a few weeks left, and as Mari-Pat eventually said, "My sorry ass is going to be stranded down here in the middle of nowhere with you people."
Further discussion at dinner confirmed that if a cataclysmic event takes place and we're left to fend for ourselves at the Pole, scrawny, hairy Austin Lewis will not be the first to be killed and eaten.


Well thank God for that. Maybe I'll hold off on the ice cream for a bit.


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1228149600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1228149600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1228149600/tpod.html Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:42:25 -0500 Which way is up??--stories from the end of the earth. Seriously.

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Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica

Today we had a fire drill. It was the kind of thing intended to catch everyone off-guard so that we, the Emergency Response Team, may exercise and gauge our abilities to respond to a stressful, surprising, completely unexpected situation. Just to make sure we were best able to measure our skills in the face of totally unsuspected chaos, the powers-that-be warned us a few days before.

Good thing, because anything less than an announced, meticulously planned event would have been a little too scary for us and the drill would have been even more of a "clusterf*#%," as the Fire Chief said.

As twenty volunteer firefighters arrived on scene near the Ice Cube drill camp, on sleds pulled behind snowmobiles, we realized that a total surprise would have left us better equipped to deal with the hypothetical scenario. A drill operator supposedly fell from the top of a 10-foot-high platform. Each one of us carried a forcible entry tool--axes, sledgehammers, I had a Halligan bar, my favorite--and there wasn't a building within a quarter mile of the accident.

Thankfully, we were also ready for any other eventuality clad in our Personal Protective Equipment rated to withstand 1400F temperatures. But it was 50 below, and my Self Contained Breathing Apparatus had a leak in the hose.

Have no fear, citizens of Earth; your South Pole is in good hands.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1227889860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1227889860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1227889860/tpod.html Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:35:14 -0500 Which way is up??--stories from the end of the earth. Seriously.

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Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica

Today I guided in a plane. It was pretty slow at the heavy VMF--vehicle maintenance facility--so one of the fuelies dropped by and asked if I wanted to do something fun.

Before I knew it, I was out on the "flight deck" (a large area of ice somehow made flatter than the surrounding landscape) with wind howling around my headset. Even through this, as the enormous ski-equipped cargo plane approached, I could hear the head fuelie behind me yelling "IT WILL LOOK LIKE IT'S GONNA RUN YOU OVER, BUT DON'T WORRY. THAT HASN'T HAPPENED FOR A FEW SEASONS. JUST STAY CLEAR OF THE PROPELLORS!"

I licked the ice off of my lips as we crouched under the engines to hook up the fuel lines.

Then I slept through dinner and read a book about Mexico. It was a good day.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1227631680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1227631680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1227631680/tpod.html Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:51:37 -0500 Which way is up??--stories from the end of the earth. Seriously.

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Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica

The thing about these overalls is they don't breathe. Their fabric hugs the body right up to the upper chest. If one needs to stay outside for more than a few minutes, one also wears a zipped-up parka and balaclava, effectively completing the seamless pipeline from anus to nose. If NASA were to design a suit for the sole purpose of the wearer enjoying the aroma of his own gaseous intestinal discharge, it would probably be very similar to the USAP standard issue ECW--extreme cold weather--gear.

It's not just that, but the food here is really good. Almost everyone, from station director to lead MAPO physicist to Operations General Assistant (that's me... yeah, lame), performs a decent amount of physical work to keep this place running, and to keep the body warm, so we eat a lot food, too. This gives you a lot of gas which, thanks to the flatulence-enhancing spacesuit, can be enjoyed in its full intensity despite the Antarctic wind.

Today I had dinner and wine with three young researchers, some of the rare type that are brilliant scientists as well as human beings. Two are Japanese transfers to Berkeley, and one is a Princeton-based physicist (a late-twenties girl of Asian descent).
It amazes me how little they seem to think of themselves and their achievements. Part of this, in the case of the two Japanese guys, could simply be the modesty taught in their home country, but I can't explain the other. These three have been working for a few years with the foremost crusty old scientists in the field at the geographic South Pole and elsewhere, researching, among other things that the rest of us will never understand, the Cosmic Microwave Background, dark matter, and the nature of the universe .000000000000000001 seconds after the Big Bang. One of them is also an accomplished musician--he played circles around me in the music room--and another says his dream is "to make space flight affordable to average person."

Yet when I marvel at their persistence, dedication and, no doubt, natural ability, they scoff and only say how "boring" physics must be to normal people. And they don't mean the "normal, monosynaptic ignorant masses;" I think they genuinely view themselves as hopeless geeks that, though not unhappy with their choice of profession, are not particularly proud of it.

They seem to envy those of us who spend our evenings chewing tobacco, watching bad movies, and writing about farts.
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Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica

Today is thursday, so I went to work in the heavy machinery shop, located many long frozen flights of stairs down from the elevated station. The station, completed just last year (although still without the svelt metal siding on parts of it), is the main hub of our settlement of ~250 lost souls. It contains berthing for most of the scientists and higher-ups in the support/administrative chain, but most importantly, it's where we eat.


Note on food: everyone seems to assume that the food at the South Pole, 1,000 miles from anything resembling planet Earth, would be terrible. I assumed the same, and we were all wrong. I don't know how James Brown (yes, that's the sous chef's name) and his crew do it, but we eat very, very well here. Some days I help the cargo department bring food up from the old station, the iconic geodesic dome which is now essentially as giant refrigerator, and I have noticed that some of the New Zealand lamb has been deep frozen since 2002. Somehow, though, almost everything we eat here is really tasty, restaurant quality and even the snobbiest Polie can't complain.


The elevated station, called such because it rests on stilts which are embedded in "snowcrete," also houses almost everything else that gives the community its surprising vitality, including a multipurpose sport court, exercise room (who needs it here?), library, store, post office, numerous conference rooms, a few very well-equipped movie lounges, an art room full of supplies, and a music room crowded with instruments and posters of last year's "Polestock," "Mother of Polestock," and "Red-headed Mutant Stepchild of Polestock" concerts.
The shop where I spent most of today indexing Caterpillar and Snowcat components is in one of the arches, large metal buildings mostly beneath the ice.


I went to the doctor this morning to test my pulmonary capacity, so I should be ready to search and rescue as soon as I get equipment fitted.
Fire doesn't seem like it would cause much concern in a place naturally devoid of anything flammable, but one has to understand that the stakes are high. Supposing a fire did erupt-which is not at all inconceivable considering the amount of fuel and strange chemicals hanging around-we would all be completely screwed. Think about that one for a minute.


So I'm going to be a volunteer firefighter.


Yesterday I braved the cold for about eight hours with the surveyors, a pair of amiable engineers working out of one of the many Jamesway huts that orbit the station. I like working with them because we do things that feel significant. Half the time it's involving cables that go to the sensors that will be drilled a kilometer into the ice for the Ice Cube neutrino telescope's detectors. I thought it was cool. Also, I get to ride across the airstrip in a sled pulled by a snowmobile, which is every bit as fun as it sounds.
By the end of the day, I was exhausted and the ice that encrusted my eyebrows had frozen to my eylashes, making every blink a chore.


I also had snotsicles, my favorite reason to work outside in Antarctica.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1226794921/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1226794921/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/austin451/4/1226794921/tpod.html Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:29:04 -0500 Which way is up??--stories from the end of the earth. Seriously.

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Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica

Check out some photos

11/7/08


I am on a US Air Force C-130 along with the twenty or so faces I can name and about 30 others headed for the great white south. My ears are useless with the engine noise and earplugs and my feet are suffocating in my new "bunny boots" that should keep them warm through the -80 degree weather in which I will be working.


I'm wondering again exactly how I got into this.


Raytheon Polar Services Company was kind enough to fly me from San Diego [where the epic BIKE TRIP ended-look elsewhere for details] to Denver for a short orientation session. I was very happy with the plush accommodations after spending two months camping, hostelling, and Halloween night cat-napping in the airport. Still, I couldn't sleep. Excitement, I guess.
My frame backpack with most of what I wanted with me during my Antarctic experience and afterward didn't make it to Colorado until after we departed on 11/2, but hopefully it will be here soon. My small backpack, still smelly from two months of cyclist's backsweat, went missing after a very long Qantas flight to Sydney and tight connection to Christchurch, New Zealand, but I finally received it last night, complete with two wife beaters, two thin t-shirts, two pairs of holey underwear, and a stack of papers I really should have mailed before leaving my home continent. Alas, I am complete, ready for the cold.


New Zealand was a quick but enjoyable experience, and I can't wait to experience more of it in a few months. Although the RPSC group missed election Tuesday (days disappear like that when you cross the International Date Line), hoardes of gregarious Kiwis were happy to celebrate Obama's victory with us in the streets and at the pubs.
Yesterday we donned our ECW-Extreme Cold Weather-gear for the first time, and it occurred to me that I was just a few airtight gaskets and a breathing apparatus away from becoming an earthbound astronaut. It's not like the firefighter PPE that I was trained to put on in 30 seconds; if I can get myself into this crap in less than half an hour, I'll be happy.
After ECW fitting at the New Zealand Antarctic Centre, twice voted New Zealand's best attraction (by whom I don't know and refuse to believe), our day was wide open to explore the city.


Hotel So was were I stayed, and if I visit Christchurch again with someone to split a room with, I would readily shell out $69 NZ to experience the ultra-modern feel and conveniences again. My room wasn't much more than a crowded, windowless cell, but the bed glowed blue underneath and a large plasma TV greeted me as the morning alarm with soothing music, automated mood lighting, and a time-lapse slideshow of gorgeous New Zealand scenery. The bathroom was interesting, too-I could shower, brush my teeth in the sink, and use the toilet all at once, with an dazzling light show to boot. Gotta love NZ.


I left Hotel So yesterday with a kid from Georgia who is headed to McMurdo for the season, another first-timer. We had some of my favorite Turkish food a few shops down, then explored the city centre. We arrived at Cathedral Square's relativey unimpressive church just in time to chat with a few gathering red-clad members of the Labor Party, assembling to protest the conservative National Party's prime minsterial candidate John Key as he delivered a scathing speech about the evils of "the world voting left."
I saw the whole situation on NZ national news later in the day.
Dennis the black Georgian with dreadlocks and I sat in the square contemplating the events of the moment for a while and chatted with some Maori performers about the futility of modern politics, then another Polie named Darren strolled up and told us that he had just rented a car and would like to drive somewhere. Darren is from Alaska.


He is also a terrifying driver, at least in a place like Christchurch, NZ.


We rode all over the city and quite a distance outside of it to a secluded overlook, then couldn't find our way back to buy ourselves some alarm watches.

The Irish pub had live music and some Irish dancers, but it turned out "the world's largest glass of beer" was actually a Guinness Book of World Records 4 US gallon glass of... Guinness, oddly enough. It was in a display case, and the only beers that the bar served were normal sizes. A good night, still.

* * *
So I'm on this plane. Boarding here was thankfully not like the last few planes. Qantas is a nice enough airline, apparently the only one which has never crashed, or something like that, but as I board a 747 across the Pacific with reportedly $13,000 first-class tickets, I can't help but think of Rosa Parks heading to the back of that damn bus. But I was fairly drunk on Crown Royal, sitting next to G the carpenter and Trudy, the wildland firefighter from Idaho.
Qantas lost my little sweaty backpack for a day, too. At least on this plane I can see all of our belongings palletized in cargo nets in the back of the large cargo hold in which we sit.




11/9


I'm at the South Pole. It's a little past midnight, and my thick curtain can barely block the intense sunlight through the window of my Jamesway hut. My "room" until February is a 6'x8' division of a half-cylindrical insulated tent partitioned off by a curtain. I don't feel like sleeping. I just walked back from the elevated station SPIT computer lab where I had an interesting, somewhat comforting conversation with my supervisor, Dave. My job(s) here should be very... educational.

Yesterday I stepped off the plane to McMurdo to a world of blue and white. -5F was probaby the coldest temperature I'd ever been exposed to, and it seemed like nothing under my ECW. I focused downward on the ice so that I didn't slip during my first few minutes on this continent, but when I looked up, I was astonished.

Ross Island is beautiful!

Immediately behind "Ivan the Terra Bus" loomed Mt. Erebus, an active volcano currently steaming, and white mountains with highlights of exposed rock surrounded the flat airfield. I didn't have much time to absorb McMurdo station, scheduled to fly to Pole the next morning.


This place is f-ing cold. I just trimmed my nose hairs as close as cofortably possible because any mucus hanging around in the nasal cavity immediately transforms to frozen boogers upon the first breath outside. It's a strange sensation. The station is really nice, and the food is good. I can't wait to acclimate so I'm not so tired. Tomorrow is Sunday, the day of rest.


Bed time.


11/15/08

I seem to have picked up "the crud," so I will spend my Saturday in the quiet reading room and movie lounges. For the last few days, people have been quick to assume that I was just having trouble adjusting to the high altitude, but somehow I doubt that a relatively healthy young male who spent all summer at 8,000 feet and just rode a bicycle from Canada to Mexico is unable to get enough oxygen, while geriatric, overweight scientists seem to be just fine. Anyway, fever and all that-must have gotten it from one of the many sick coworkers around here.

So I've been here a week now. People at the South Pole are mostly very nice, but of course they're all slighty insane. I guess you'd have to be a little wacko to want to move to one of the least habitable places on earth.

There are a lot of people here with eyes that don't focus right. For some reason, several people here, no matter their age or experience on the Ice, have an eye that wanders or doesn't seem to look where the other one does. It's unsettling.
That said, most people here are really intelligent or over-educated. It seems that the scientists are the least qualified and well-rounded people here. I can name more than a few engineers and MBAs shoveling snow for minimum wage.
I am a "General Assistant," meaning I get passed around to whoever needs any kind of help that can be taught, from chipping ice off of Caterpillars to surveying cable layouts for the Ice Cube neutrino telescope. It is kind of nice not knowing what I'll be doing each day.
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