Made it!

After a few delays in ChCh, including a mechanical delay once we were finally geared up (at which point I asked a friend of mine if my bunny boots made my ass look fat and he said "no, but your ass makes those carharts look fat."  ...ah McMurdo, I sure do love a place where we dish it out completely uncensored) we made it to McMurdo 2 days ago!  It's like I never left, and I am so happy to be back.  Lots of old friends are still here, it's amazing how many people have done 10 or 15 seasons on the ice and can still hold a conversation.

In all of my past seasons I've been an inside worker as the outside workers have kindly pointed out (i.e. don't come to lunch after your 3 minute walk from a cozy building where you work all day and complain to your friend who has been outside fueling tanks all day and proclaim "it sure is cold today!" without expecting a little harassment in return.)  But this season, even though I'll be doing my actual job inside, I have to go from building to building to building.  Yesterday I had to wear my big red and goggles, I tried going out without them and couldn't see a thing. The bottom of my jeans froze in about 2 minutes.  But with the proper gear, it's actually quite lovely...ish.

Speaking of buildings and weather, here is a link to McMurdo's webcam http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmWebCam.cfm where you can see what's going on in real time (or with a 10 second delay).  Sometimes snow blows onto the camera, but typically you can get a really good shot of good ol' Mactown.

OK, off to help some poor outside worker with a computer issue...more later.

zisman out...for now anyway

4 hour delay

It's currently 0315 and we are on a 4 hour delay, a 4 hour delay...

Note to self - if you ask for a wake up call, answer the freaking phone, don't just hang up on the nice man at the front desk calling to tell you you can go back to sleep for 4.5 hours even if you think its just the automated wake up call-a-tron.

24 hour delay

Hurray!  Getting paid my full pay to get paid $60 a day to hang out in chch, woo hoo!

Set to pop today

Yesterday's flight landed, we are on deck.

It's 4:24am and we bomeranged from the hotel room to the office and back, we are on a 4 hour delay.  Seems to me they knew soon enough to let us know before we walked all our shit to the front office, but I guess I'm property of the US government so I'll refrain from further bitching.

And so it begins...please stand by

Duh' icebreaker update

Apparently we do have an icebreaker lined up!

Stardate...not sure

Greetings friends and family from Christchurch.  I've been here for a few days now, I want to say 3 but i honestly have no clue exactly how long, time travel confuses a gal!  (and a guy of course.)  I'm just here spending your tax dollars (and my own in all fairness) waiting around for storms on the ice to break so the flight ahead of mine can leave so my flight can get delayed by storms.  That flight is supposedly leaving right now, and for their sakes I hope it does because they've had to get up every day for like a week now (hard to say exactly how many days since I'm fuzzy on what today is) only to have to try again the next day. They haven't had to actually go anywhere because the hotels are called in the wee hours to inform them when the flight is cancelled, so its not like my first season when we boomeranged (get 5 hours into the flight, 30 minutes from mcmurdo, only to have to turn around and head back to chch because the pilots can't land due to weather) or had to board the plane then get sent home day after exhausting day, but it's still a massive pain. They already checked their bags, so everyone on that flight ahead of mine has been washing undies in the sink, etc...for a weekish now. Because of the earthquake damage, there aren't enough hotels or rooms to accommodate both flights, so we all have roommates.  Mine is actually awesome so i got lucky but we were all looking forward to a few last nights of space.  whatevs.  beyond our control.

Storms on the ice are, of course, the culprit.  There is supposed to be a break today, then another, bigger storm tomorrow, so if they actually make it today, next its our turn to check our bags and try every day to fly south, get cancelled, and wear the same shit over and over. But until they leave, we get to sleep in and relax.  All I can do is go with the flow.

Yesterday was gear issue, I got a great "big red" parka with a great zipper on my 2nd try, which is frankly very important!  It's a drag to fight with ones zipper all season (in more ways than one, but that is a topic for a different day!)  So if today's flight was delayed, cancelled or boomerangs, i can relax and get paid to hang out in lovely Christchurch (chch), if not, I'm on deck and will start trying either tomorrow or Monday.  Yeay!  i just figured out that its Saturday!  Phew...

As for chch, we are staying in a new area of town since city center is basically still condemned. Chch is small compared to Denver, so lots of stuff is still within walking distance (as long as you don't mind walking a little farther, which of course i do not!) but the hotels, restaurants and shops aren't as used to us ice folk and are actually even nicer to us than our usual stomping grounds somehow, not yet bored with the hoards of Americans heading even farther south.  There is so much clean up and rebuilding to be done, its just very different here. Kiwis are the nicest people in the world. Sorry Mexicans, but yes, even nicer than you somehow.

I've seen my friend Deane from civvie a lot, he lives really close to my hotel. His wife and kids are awesome too, so that's a lovely treat.  Yesterday he and his wife took me to Sumner on the coast after he finshed his super early workday (he is keeping Denver hours, so his workday begins at 2:00 am) and it was very beautiful and very sad.  The area around here is hilly, and many hillsides were destroyed as were the houses built on them.  I didn't take any pictures because it seems strange to me to document tragedy, I'd be an awful journalist.  Apparently many of the 187 deaths were caused by drivers panicking and killing pedestrians.  Awful.  Just awful.  Deane's daughter Charli did a hilarious reenactment of herself wobbling in an aftershock, that would have been worth documenting! 

Ok, that's all I know at the moment, I will keep you posted as my adventure south continues south.

Enjoy yourselves!

Zisman out...

First Entry

This horribly boring post is just to let you know my adventure starts on August 23rd. I leave Denver on the 23rd and arrive in New Zealand on August 25th. Crossing the international dateline means I miss August 24th completely this year (if only it was my birthday!), but I'll get that day back on my way home.

Tune in toward the end of August for something of actual interest.

Be well, be nice, have fun!