McMurdo is in the first time zone after the International Date Line. Know what that means? It means we will be the first in the world to hit midnight tonight! (New Zealand is in the same zone). My friend keeps saying that this year will be very good for all of us since we are ringing it in first. I can't agree more.
I will be celebrating tonight at Scott Base. I would stay here, but, as usual, McMurdo is not celebrating this holiday on the actual day. We are waiting until the weekend to pretend its New Year's, and I will have to work the holiday anyway. I have tomorrow off and I can't let the chance to celebrate first in the world slip through my fingers! Plus, it'll be a cool cultural experience to see if the Kiwis do New Year's differently than us.
This weekend at McMurdo is Icestock. It is exactly what the name implies: an all day festival of music. Like I said, us galley staff will be working, but we each get an hour off to check things out. There will be contests such as "Beautiful Beards," "Best Snow Suit," etc. I will be entering the "Beautiful Heads" competition for baldies only. I'm thinking that I will have an advantage being the only girl competing against a bunch of old men.
Speaking of which, I am still happy to be bald :)
I hope the New Year brings good things for all of you, and I can't wait to see you again next year!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
My First Christmas Away From Home
Christmas here at McMurdo was nothing short of bizarre. For me anyway.
My Christmas usually goes something like this:
last minute Christmas Eve gift buying spree (demanded by long tradition instilled by my father), big turkey dinner, mad wrapping rush, hang up stockings, go to sleep with sugar plums dancing in my head. Secretly wake up and open the stockings with my brothers in the dead of night, wake up again Christmas morning at the crack of dawn to see what else Santa brought, festive breakfast followed by a day of relaxing and a night time drive to see the lights for the last time.
Christmas this year went a little like this:
Worked all day Christmas Eve to get ready for the big party that night and even bigger meal the next day. Went to the party (with almost the whole 1000 people who live here) and danced the night away. Woke up Christmas Day, went into work to have "family meal" (special meal for kitchen folk) and immediately after stuffing our faces had to work a 10 hour shift to feed everyone else. (I think this is worth noting: we stuffed out faces with lobster and duck, and a hundred other delightful little side dishes. Much better fare than I ever expected here). It is probably also worth noting that the delightful fare did not agree with me and I was sent home sick. No tree (there is no vegetation here whatsoever) but I made one out of construction paper, complete with ornaments, and hung it on my door. My roommmate made a fire with stockings hanging on it (also out of construction paper) and put it on the fridge. All very festive.
I ended up celebrating my own little Christmas a day later than real Christmas because a) I had the day off and b) we are a day ahead, so the day after Christmas here was Christmas back home. I got a little tradition filled package from home (that I opened secretly, in the dead of night on Christmas Eve, just to keep things real) and was able to call home, so I didn't feel too far away.
I think if things had been more "normal" here I would have felt much more homesick, but as it was it just felt like another adventure here on the Ice. And really, my first Christmas away from home was in Antarctica. How good is that?
My Christmas usually goes something like this:
last minute Christmas Eve gift buying spree (demanded by long tradition instilled by my father), big turkey dinner, mad wrapping rush, hang up stockings, go to sleep with sugar plums dancing in my head. Secretly wake up and open the stockings with my brothers in the dead of night, wake up again Christmas morning at the crack of dawn to see what else Santa brought, festive breakfast followed by a day of relaxing and a night time drive to see the lights for the last time.
Christmas this year went a little like this:
Worked all day Christmas Eve to get ready for the big party that night and even bigger meal the next day. Went to the party (with almost the whole 1000 people who live here) and danced the night away. Woke up Christmas Day, went into work to have "family meal" (special meal for kitchen folk) and immediately after stuffing our faces had to work a 10 hour shift to feed everyone else. (I think this is worth noting: we stuffed out faces with lobster and duck, and a hundred other delightful little side dishes. Much better fare than I ever expected here). It is probably also worth noting that the delightful fare did not agree with me and I was sent home sick. No tree (there is no vegetation here whatsoever) but I made one out of construction paper, complete with ornaments, and hung it on my door. My roommmate made a fire with stockings hanging on it (also out of construction paper) and put it on the fridge. All very festive.
I ended up celebrating my own little Christmas a day later than real Christmas because a) I had the day off and b) we are a day ahead, so the day after Christmas here was Christmas back home. I got a little tradition filled package from home (that I opened secretly, in the dead of night on Christmas Eve, just to keep things real) and was able to call home, so I didn't feel too far away.
I think if things had been more "normal" here I would have felt much more homesick, but as it was it just felt like another adventure here on the Ice. And really, my first Christmas away from home was in Antarctica. How good is that?
Monday, December 21, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Under Pressure
In the past week I have gone on TWO tours of the Pressure Ridges.
You may be asking yourself, "What are the Pressure Ridges?" Never fear, I am here to answer all!
When a glacier flows onto the ocean it is called an "ice shelf." There are two ice shelves here, the Ross ice shelf and the McMurdo ice shelf. These two meet near the Kiwi station (Scott Base), and where they collide is almost like a frozen earthquake on the ice. Think of how two plates under the Earth's crust collide and form moutain ranges, just on a much smaller scale. These little mountains are called the Pressure Ridges.
They are very beautiful and often intricate ice sculptures. Some of them even look like they must have been crafted by humans. Others look like frozen waves. We hiked out over the sea to get to them and, once there, the trail weaved in and out of the Ridges, almost like a silly maze out of a Dr. Seuss book. There were places where the ice was mostly melted called "melt pools" and also many crevasses in the ice. All of these ultimately lead to the ocean below, but the ice is so thick it didn't feel like there was actually water beneath us.
And now for the cool part. On the first tour, towards the end, we saw a baby seal and its momma across one of the melt pools! It was adorable. The mom was lying there, clearly just trying to bask in the sun, and the baby was flopping all around, slapping it's mom with his little flippers and being the cutest thing on earth. Then, on the second tour, there was this huge seal lying about fifteen feet away from the path! We got so close, it was amazing. And then we continued hiking and that same baby seal with it's momma were there again, but this time they weren't across a melt pool, they were literally two feet from the path! We didn't want to bother them (if you get too close/make the animals upset here its grounds to ban you from the Ice forever) but it was the coolest thing to walk by and see their faces up close. They were just looking at us, curious, and then the baby started flopping around and burying its nose under it's mom's flipper. It was so cool, seeing something so wild and so untouched, so close up.
My friend is sitting next to me, trying to get me to walk down the sea ice in an attempt to see more seals and maybe some penguins. I may just have to take him up on that offer :)
But first, a little treat. One photo (that I did not upload, but stole from a friend) of me at the Ice Caves. Enjoy!
You may be asking yourself, "What are the Pressure Ridges?" Never fear, I am here to answer all!
When a glacier flows onto the ocean it is called an "ice shelf." There are two ice shelves here, the Ross ice shelf and the McMurdo ice shelf. These two meet near the Kiwi station (Scott Base), and where they collide is almost like a frozen earthquake on the ice. Think of how two plates under the Earth's crust collide and form moutain ranges, just on a much smaller scale. These little mountains are called the Pressure Ridges.
They are very beautiful and often intricate ice sculptures. Some of them even look like they must have been crafted by humans. Others look like frozen waves. We hiked out over the sea to get to them and, once there, the trail weaved in and out of the Ridges, almost like a silly maze out of a Dr. Seuss book. There were places where the ice was mostly melted called "melt pools" and also many crevasses in the ice. All of these ultimately lead to the ocean below, but the ice is so thick it didn't feel like there was actually water beneath us.
And now for the cool part. On the first tour, towards the end, we saw a baby seal and its momma across one of the melt pools! It was adorable. The mom was lying there, clearly just trying to bask in the sun, and the baby was flopping all around, slapping it's mom with his little flippers and being the cutest thing on earth. Then, on the second tour, there was this huge seal lying about fifteen feet away from the path! We got so close, it was amazing. And then we continued hiking and that same baby seal with it's momma were there again, but this time they weren't across a melt pool, they were literally two feet from the path! We didn't want to bother them (if you get too close/make the animals upset here its grounds to ban you from the Ice forever) but it was the coolest thing to walk by and see their faces up close. They were just looking at us, curious, and then the baby started flopping around and burying its nose under it's mom's flipper. It was so cool, seeing something so wild and so untouched, so close up.
My friend is sitting next to me, trying to get me to walk down the sea ice in an attempt to see more seals and maybe some penguins. I may just have to take him up on that offer :)
But first, a little treat. One photo (that I did not upload, but stole from a friend) of me at the Ice Caves. Enjoy!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)