Monday, August 21, 2006
I Have Arrived!!
WOW! I am here. It is a day after I first got here, and I'm still not exactly sure what to say. I think I'll type up a quick summary of yesterday's events. I'll save the profound thoughts til tomorrow.Yesterday morning we were told to report to the Antarctic Center at 4am. I waited outside for 45 minutes for the shuttle driver from the day before as he said he would pick us up the next morning. Finally I called for the person on duty at the USAP to find out what was going on. I was only about 15 minutes late if that, anyways.
I went in to the changing room to grab my gear from the day before, and packed a few more things in my carry-on orange bag. We took all of our bags and brought them into the Passenger Terminal where the workers weighed all of our checked luggage. And then they weighed us with our carry-on luggage. You are only allowed to bring 75 pounds of stuff per person. But they don't count your carry-on and whatever you can get on your body (the red parkas have a million pockets). All of our checked luggage was loaded into a massive crate with everyone else's.
We had a briefing about our flight and what a boomerang is. A boomeranged flight is a flight that can't land at McMurdo and has to fly back to New Zealand. Sometimes they get right over McMurdo, but because of conditions they can't land. Then we all had to go through a security check point and a drug dog sniffed us. Then we walked out of the building and onto busses that took us out to the plane. The bus had to go through a couple of security gates, and then we stopped right in front of the C-17. We boarded the plane, and my group being the last busload out to the plane had few choices of where to sit. Luckily my friends Lenny and Rhoda had a seat next to them sitting against the wall of the plane in back near the cargo. There were rows of airline seats through the middle filling about 2/3 of the plane and behind the seats were massive cases of cargo including "freshies" for the winterovers. Freshies are fresh fruits and vegetables... something the winterovers have been lacking since February. The rest of the plane was very military... no fancy panels on the sides of the plane... you can see all of the cords and switches. If I am correct in saying this, I believe the Air National Guard out of New York do all of the flights for us. There were a couple of them on the plane and even a few kiwis (New Zealanders) flying down to Scott Base (about 2 miles from McMurdo).
The trip took about 5 hours. About three or three and a half hours into the flight we could see the mountains you see now in my photos in the previous entry. Then with only about 45 minutes left in the air, one of the crew members told us to start putting on our ECW. I talked to Kevin, Phil's buddy, to make sure he waited for me to get off the plane so we could find Phil together. Phil had offered to let me ride in the front of his Delta with him and Kevin as they drove us to base. We got off the plane and found out that there had been a change in plans, and Phil was unloading the plane. So Kevin and I found a van that had some room and we climbed up in it. I got a chance to look around just before we got in, and I could see that we were standing on a plain of snow and there were mountains surrounding us.
The drive took about 30 minutes to get to base. I think they said the temperature was about -23 degrees Fahrenheit. I did get to see McMurdo Station as we drove in just before the windows started to fog up in the van. They ushered us into the Galley (dining room) in Building 155 where we had another briefing about how things work at McMurdo... phone numbers, paging, etc. We were issued our housing keys and then sent on our way.
Amanda, my new boss, took me on a brief little tour of the main janitor's closet and her office. She took me to my dorm. They call it Hotel California (..."you can check out, but you can never leave"...), and it's been known as the party dorm in years past. It's not the worst dorm to be in, so that's a positive. It's very social because the only TV that has "cable" is in the lounge. There's a foosball table and internet connection too. I guess the internet is only in this dorm. Another bonus.
I skua-ed a few things yesterday. A skua is a large scavenger bird that lives here in the summers. I won't see one until end of September or beginning of October, I think. Since they try to recycle or reuse everything on station (and I mean EVERYTHING... there is a 66% recycle rate and they're hoping for 70% this year), they have bins where people can drop off things they no longer want that someone else may want. Yesterday I got 2 T-shirts, a stocking cap, and Cranium (the board game). Today I skua-ed a TON of stuff from the bigger dorms. I got a run-down hamper (but it still works), a sari to decorate my room, some colored paper to write letters on, a quarter bottle of body wash, a shelf to put up on my wall... lots of great things. And tomorrow I'm going to skua again. They use the word skua as a noun, verb (past and future tense), adjective, etc. It's been a great way to get "things" to have in my room so I feel like I have just as many possessions as everyone else!
I'm off to bed. More tomorrow hopefully!
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Gosh, what you're about to experience is just so amazing...thank you for blogging about it! :-)
Cheers, Carissa
I'm slightly upset that I can't see any of your pictures- but thats not your fault- blame it on my country. I will have to use my imagination :)
Sounds like an adventure Katie. And nice score with the findings! I'm sure Cranium will provide some great entertainment.
I watched 8 Below a few days ago and thought of you. Any Paul Walkers down there?