Happy Halloween!
Trip Start
Aug 16, 2007
1
14
61
Trip End
Apr 07, 2008
McMurdo,
Antarctica
Thursday, November 1, 2007
The past few weeks have been a bit of a blur! The chaos seems to never end at times! We have almost reached our max population - we are currently at 1,092! With our increase in population we have also received another vicious round of the Crud! At one point the galley was down 11 DA's! Unfortunately, Aaron was effected this round and was diagnosed with the flu and quarantined to the room for 5 days! The happy news is that he was released right in time for the Halloween party!
For those that know, the Halloween party is the biggest event of the season! Those that have been on the Ice before bring creative costumes from home whereas the rest of us scramble to make ours from what we can salvage in skua or get from gear issue a few days before the big shindig! We then parade around the dorms checking out each other's garb before heading down to the big gym where we are crammed in like sardines and dance until the wee hours of the morning! Since we had to work that evening we unfortunately missed the costume contest, but we still dressed up anyway. Aaron was a McMurdo Super Hero called the 'Dish Assassin' and I went as a Tropical Depression! We had a great time and saw some very creative costumes!
Earlier last week we witnessed the last sunset that we will see for a while! The sun is now up and blinding 24 hours a day! The weather has seemed to calm down a bit over the past few days which have made all of the South Pole crew very happy seeing as they have been trying to fly out for over 2 weeks! There have been a few small storms and windy nights over the past few days, but we have mostly been enjoying clear skies and temps in the negative teens! Although it seems from the previous weeks of stormy weather we are now backed up 60,000 lbs. of cargo with the majority of that being mail...so for those of you who have sent us mail and to those of you who we have sent mail to...it may be a while before it is received!
The biggest excitement around town over the past few days has been the arrival of the NBS Today Show crew. Ann Curry is here to do a live Today Show broadcast on Monday, November 5th called "Ends of the Earth." Apparently they will be broadcasting live from the South Pole, North Pole and the Equator at the same time. *Click on the link (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032633/) and scroll down to "Ends of the Earth" on the right hand side. Look for daily updates at this site as they prepare for the live broadcast on Monday.*
We were able to see Ann in the galley on the day she arrived, but we haven't had the chance to talk with her yet. Thanks to Jadon & Joel posting a comment on the Today Show home page maybe we will get that chance! Although I did find a picture of her in her ECW gear on the I-drive so I have included it to prove that she is actually here!
In other exciting news...Aaron has received one of the four positions to work at the Ice Runway galley! He has done a few meal services already and absolutely loves it! I have also received a special position as an Alternate Lead and am in charge of the night shift crew one day a week. We are happy to say that our entire kitchen team is getting along great and we all enjoy working together...which makes all the hard work more fun!
We hope everyone is enjoying the changing of the seasons (to those of you that have one!) and we look forward to the next few weeks as we prepare for the holidays! We have actually already received our Thanksgiving Day off (yesterday) since we will actually be working that day. I can only imagine how busy the kitchen will be...
