Thursday, November 23, 2006

A Busy 2-Day Holiday Weekend Coming Up...

I'm sighing right now as I think about everything I have going on in the next three days. So much for those two free days Raytheon gives us for a holiday "break". I've signed up for the Sunday run for work, which means that I get Friday and Saturday off when most people get Saturday and Sunday. I have a light run of trash pick up in all the dorms, cleaning of the major hallway in the main building, and cleaning of the bars. There are always two people that do Sunday run together, so my co-partner in crime on Sunday will be Bethany. The beauty of a Sunday Run is that you usually finish in 5 or 6 hours instead of working a 9-hour work day.

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to sleep in until 10am. Bethany and I are going to walk the Cape Armitage Trail which takes us on the sea ice from McMurdo to Scott Base around Ob Hill. Should be a nice brisk one and a half hour walk. I'll be putting in my first shift at Burger Bar starting around 6:30pm. For 2 hours, I'll be the cashier while some guy named James flips burgers and fries fries. Hopefully I'll make some good tips. Then I'm going to meet up with some people to end out the night, I'm sure.

Saturday starts off with the annual Turkey Trot 5k Run/Walk at 10am. I've recently convinced an acquaintence named Lori to walk it with me. I'm a lot more excited about it than she is, but it will be great to get out and exercise again and get to know someone a bit better. The Run/Walk starts at the Chapel of the Snows, loops through town, down to the Ice Runway, and back to the chapel. I'm signed up to have Thanksgiving dinner at 5pm, and my friend Richard has booked the Coffeehouse for 2 hours so that a group of us can gather there and enjoy dinner together. We'll each have to take whatever food we want and meet up at the Coffeehouse... there is no delivery service here!!

Sunday early morning... like midnight, Bethany and I will start our Sunday run and hopefully be done by 5 or so in the morning. I'll crash for 6 or 7 hours, and then head over to the Galley for Sunday brunch. I just found out tonight that I won a drawing for a trip to the ANDRILL site near McMurdo. ANDRILL is our largest science group on station with something like 50 people, and only 8 of us were picked to go out and see their work. Should be pretty interesting. But that lasts from 1pm until dinnertime, and then my weekend will be almost over! Werner Herzog is going to show his film, White Diamond, about Kaieteur Falls in Guyana (which I actually visited this January) so I definitely have to make that too.

It's going to go sooooo fast!!!

Posted by Katie from the Ice @ 10:43 PM