This is at the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) in Christchurch and on the wall is a sample of all the clothing that we are issued. I took a picture of my luggage cart to give you an idea of what I was bringing down for 6 months.

In Christchurch as we pack our final belongings. See everyong getting dressed for Antarctica weather?

This is our first day in Antarctica. We were taken on a full tour and had our picture taken in front of the sign. Troy is on the left and Mandi on the right. We met in CO and now we work and hang out together.

This is ice on the Ross Ice Shelf

This is the ice left in my champagne glass after our Last Flight Toast.

Last Sunday they had a field trip where we got to go out to an old crashed airplane, take pictures and climb around. One of the entertainments was to try to sled on the galley trays. You can see Emily here as she has just been thrown.

Sandy, she's the first winter DA that arrived, she's a nurse that came with her husband, Glenn, who is the station Doctor.

Pegasus is the plane that was attempting to land back in 1975 or something. There was a storm that they watched come in and cover the runway, they circled until they only had enough fuel for one more landing, they got a glimpse of the runway just as they were about to pull up and abandon their last landing attmept. They would have made it except a drift had formed on the runway, the right wing dipped in and you can see in this archive photo how the plane looked. There was no casualties but with the storm it took the rescue team 3 hrs to find the plane. Since this was during Windfly they decided a crashed plane at the end of a runway would be bad morale for incomming flights so they towed it out onto the ice and that is where we went to see the wreckage.

We took Deltas. This is the same vehicle that picked us up on our arrival to Antarcitca.

This is what the plane looks like now

Dr. Gleen is playing patient, Sandy is overseeing. I like the T-Shirt in the background that says it all. It's a McMurdo Station Fire Station Tee.

Me!

All boarded up for winter.

the various waste bins across the street

A statue that I was asked to bring from Alaska and leave here. I took some pictures with it and plan to send them to Yukon Jack, the one that carved it.

A better picture of a pickle. Really look at the shadows in these pictures. It's amazing. I was taking pictures from about 12:00-2:00.

too bad these pictures are so small but this is a good variety of vehicles parked

The firehouse. The have regular trucks I think what is outside is for out on the ice.

A line of trucks do you see the cable strung across the top to plug them all in? They have to be plugged in at ALL times or left running.

the clinic

an intersection

the yellow building is 155. The big main building where I work in the Galley

The Chapel on the Hill and a good view of all the pipes that are everywhere. Nothing is buried.

A great picture of our shadows. The building that you can barely see are from the left, Southern (the bar), Crary which is something about science, and Acey Duecy aka the Gerbal Gym with all the tread mills.

That's the Gerbal Gym with a kiwi truck from Scott Base parked in front. I thought the "kiwi parking only" signs were a joke but I realized today that they would have differant plug-ins.

A glimpse of the dining hall. The buffet tables are through the big doorway. You might be able to make out Emily sweeping. If you continues straight back you would go through to the kitchen.

Bertha, the dishwasher and Simone running the dish room.

wall of gloves

Ceasar boiling potatos. That vat he's fishing in is the kind that people have been rumored to have used as hot tubs.

Christine baking. I love the crappy stove she uses. She only needs to melt things sometimes. Only one burner works and only on high. I think it makes our kitchen look rugged.

January 19 - I'M GOING!!!

YOU GUYS!!! I HAVE THE CRAZIEST STORY FOR YOU!!!  I will try to sit still and I will try to tell you what's going on in the order of events but I can hardly control myself. It has been so long since I have been on a computer.  Actually, it has been so long since I have seen a computer, I think.  Oh my goodness, I haven't even e-mailed since I left home have I.  
 
So, I left home, mozeyed on down to Texas to visit with Charity.  We had a blast as always, drew, watched Mystery Sciense Theater 3000 episodes, and her dad went through and pionted all the hazards of my pick-up.  Turns out that the power steering hose had 3 holes in it.  Mr. Goddard was a great help, I got to pretend like I knew what I was doing, got all greasy, thought of my plans for New Orleans.  I only stayed a few days to say hi before I headed on down to the wreckage.  Charity is doing much better.  I can't believe I forgot to get a picture of her returning hair!  Sorry. 
 
I headed on over to Louisana on a Monday.  I watched the gas prices slowly climb. The first sign of disturbance were road signs.  I kept thinking there were a lot of drunk drivers around because just about every road sign was pushed over at a crazy angle.  I finally realized that it was Katrina's doing.  My aunt has a sister living down here in New Orleans so she was my first contact.  I got to see their house and the damage.  It was a little tricky finding the place, the road didn't have a street sign.  There's a lot of that down here.  There's places where there are no street signs.  Imagine navigating in that.  Debbie had an armload of information when I stopped by, there were pages of Help Wanted ads, Job newspapers and some places where you could just stand and wait for someone to hire you. 
 
The first place I went to was the French Quarter,  I wanted to see where Mardi Gras would be.  What a scary place.  Not that it's so shady but it's super narrow streets and crazy oneways.  They don't indicate if a stop sign is a 2-way or 4-way stop.  I drove around lost for most of the day trying to decide what kind of work I wanted to go after.  There are signs all over. Walmart needs a cake decorator, Olive Garden was hiring.  Wendy's was offering a $250 bonus every week.  Then there was cocktail waitressing on Bourbon.  That was the adventurous one.  
 
I had no contact with people. I slept in my truck in various mall parking lots and I hadn't yet found all the other campers and homeless people like me.  It was like being homeless in St. Cloud.  I was alone and out of place.  I'm surprised what a short time it took for me to go nutty.  Nothing but pavement and cars and malls.  I had no human contact unless I was buying something.  I'm back to being penniless, I think, so I was spending very little.  I didn't even eat.  I don't know what it was, what got into me but I almost panicked.  I think it was poor sleep.  Did you know that they street sweep mall parking lots every night?  And there were semis coming and going.  Not to mention the traffic.  I woke up bleery eyed and depressed, annoyed about my focus on money and generally hazy from the noise and flourescant lights.
 
One cool spot that I had to go see for myself was Lee's circle.  It's down near the river, a big round-about and it's where the unemployed wait to get hired by contractors.  It was so cool.  A parking lot full of milling Mexicans and various homeless sort of looking guys.  Everyone ready for some hard labor.  I thought I might have a chance at getting hired but this is for those not in the system, I left them to thier devices, several had very useful information.
 
Wednesday I got horribly lost.  A policeman even pulled into a parking lot that I had stopped at to ask why he kept seeing me driving around in circles.  It was neat to talk to him.  He pointed out the police station that he had weathered the storm out in and the little building next to it that used to be two stories high.  "We watched that second story just blow away," he told me.  Wow. 
 
I was seeing wind damage.  Most every building had blue tarps on the roof.  There wasn't any whole McDonald signs.  Only the main traffic lights are working.  It all looked a little trashy.  After talking with the policeman for a good while I went to the Labor Ready that he had pointed out to me.  It was a shell of a building, no windows, not much inside, maybe some strewn insulation.  I think they were closed.
 
The days have run together a bit, on Tues I looked for work on Bourbon street.  There was a Daquari bar that was willing to hire me for the short time that I was to be in New Orleans.  Wed.  I went in the evening to see if I could find some bars that might give me a chance to bartend or waitress.  I found the Opera House.  I filled out an application, Miss Gail took it to the boss and that was it.  I was scheduled for Thursday.  Can you believe it?  No experiance and on Bourbon Street.  Ha. 
 
On Wed. I needed to find a shower and buy some black clothes for my new job.  I ended up on a long straight street, you could see a whole little suburb and there was a camper in every driveway.  Somehow I ended up out East in unfamiliar territory but I was beginning to see green again.  I hadn't realized the absence of nature until I saw it again.  There was a big stables and people walking horses.  HORSES!  I stopped in immediately just to reconnect with creation.  A really nice lady told me about her horse's adventurous evacuation and how she still drove 150 miles twice a week to ride him before the 8 ft of water had gone down.  The owner of the stable lost her house, so did her sister and her mother and I was shown a large spot where 3 trailorhouses had once been to make up the stable offices. 
 
My big break came from the horse lady, what a bummer that I can't remember her name.  She told me that straight down the road that I had stumbled onto was a camp of workers.  I first met Ron, he has set up a pup tent with good food for a good price.  He sent me on to SHOWERS.  I was desperate for a shower.  Craig runs the showers.  I got to meet him by locking my keys in the truck.  "Two questions, how much are showers? How do I get my keys out?"  I couldn't believe his helpfulness. I  met Jessi as well.  She's a sweet little spitfire.  A combination of a hairdresser and Harley girl.  Imagine that. 
 
Craig is a godsend.  He is here keeping workers civilized.  He's got a shower unit.  Have you ever even heard of that?  There's 12 showers, divided up on a trailor, floors extend, tarps unroll, all you need is electricity, propane and water and you can have a hot shower anywhere.  He supplies fire fighters with showers out in the forest fires in Idaho.  He was contracted by FEMA and when they no longer needed him he came to the city park to see a campground that people had been living in for months with no running water.  Now there's a TV, and a semi truck of ice.  He said there was no ice to be found.  THIS is what I was looking for when coming down here.  I wanted to see how people were filling the needs of others, how people were making do.  Craig told me I could pay every other day for a shower, or I could pay when I got some money.  He really didn't care.  Jessi is here with her boyfriend.  She watches the showers for Craig when he's gone.  She really is a hair dresser.  She did my hair for my first night as a cocktail waitress.  Craig said I could park here at night.
 
Just like that I had a job and a place to stay.  I've had a great time waitressing- for the most part.  Unfortunately I don't have the business side of it down yet. I like to talk and vist with all the customers instead of forcing everyone to buy drinks.  We have awesome live music every night.  Mom, you'd love the Friday and Saturday band.  They do all the classic rock stuff.  ZZ Top, etc. 
 
I had a lot to learn as a waitress.  My fellow male coworkers had plenty of advice to give me, all along the lines of acting more "flirty" which actually means slutty.  There were lots of contractors, people from all over, they all have a story.  My first night I was even hit on by a transvestite.  That can't be right. He was saying something about our witches and angels casting spells and I really don't know but it was a unique pick-up line.  I am learning that I have no talent for waitressing.  Nobody would tip!! I make $2.38/hr.  So much for finding the big New Orleans money.  Bourbon St. is such a rip-off.  $4.25 for a Coors.  All our liquor is generic and the prices are crazy.  32 oz of draft, $8.00. 
 
After my first night of work, after getting lost on the way home, and sleeping outside.  I was woken at 7:00 by lightening.  That's about the time I met Dustin.  He's a young guy from South Carolina, out working and making some money.  He's very sweet and flirty of course.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that he's younger than my little brother.  He does know how old Ben is so I think he understands now.  We have had so much fun though.  Since he's on construction he has been all over the city.  He's been a priceless navigator.  We went out to breakfast at Joe's Cafe where the roof was patched with tarps.  They have a new short order cook in training, the waitress recommended that I stick with scrambled eggs.  Every place you go they are advertising for help.  It's nice to feel needed.  We made a stop at Walmart afterwards so that I could buy a pair of black pants for work.  While I was trying on pants the fitting room lady told about sitting on the roof of her house with her family as it floated off the foundation, spun around and was only stop from floating down the street by a pecan treen in their front yard and there she is at Walmart. 
 
Back at camp, as soon as Dustin got out of the pick-up I flopped over on the seat and slept for about 2 hrs, ignoring when Dustin tried to get me up but finally Craig came knocking as well.  Guess what, it just so happens that Craig is watching an empty camper.  The owners were here for awhile but went home, leaving him in charge of it. He sleeps in the sink trailor.  See, there is a camper sort of trailor that is 2 shower rooms and there is another sort of horse style trailor with rows of sinks along the wall.  Hot water as well.  There's no charge to use the sinks.  Anyways, there's a little partition and behind that is where Craig sleeps.  So, just like that Craig offered this other camper me to borrow.  Can you believe it?!! I've got hot showers next door and my own quiet place to sleep.  I was SOOO grateful.  Friday night was my first real night of sleep since leaving Tyler on Monday.  I didn't wake up till 1:30 on Sat. morning.   I had such a great Sabbath.  Craig trades meals with Ron for showers so he fed me leftovers.  I have only used my cooking stove once since I got here.  I will use that again today.
 
Parking at the French Quarter is another exciting story.  "How exciting can that be?"  You ask.  Well, it's a mess.  All these narrow one way streets with all these no parking zones.  If you can't parallel park (that would be me!) then it's $5 at the least.  I found one spot at $4 for the first hour.  I think it ended up being over $12 for 4 hrs of parking.  I was also very paranoid about leaving my poor little truck. I can't lock the back, you know.  All my stuff was just sitting there.  Of course, who is going to come and steel a jar of rice or my shampoo?  But they could.  With my wages $5 is big money and on weekends it's $10 to park for the night.  Ouch!
 
Finally, I looked at a map, and researched what street I could park on outside the French Quarter for free.  I found a theoretically great spot on the map and after my circlular driving I was able to get to it and there was a vast Winn Dixie parking lot.  Empty! Free!  I could park and walk all the time! I asked a cop and that's when he pointed out the projects across the street and told me to park by the lights and what-not.  I parked by the lights and prayed a little prayer of protection when a security guard came out and informed me that the parking lot was going to be rented out or something and that you needed a permit to park and not be hassled.  Bummer!  That's when he gave me a permit.  Score!  Can you believe it?  Just like that.  Free, unhassled, easy parking.  I mean, this place it so crazy to drive in.  Every other stop light works.  Flashing yellow for caution, flashing red for stop sign and sometimes there is just a stop sign.  Signs are bent and twisted and your aren't always sure which direction they mean to be pointing.  My favorite is the "figure it out" intersections.  There will be a sign pointing you in the direction you need to go to get on the freeway, you go under the freeway and then you have to figure it out on your own that you must drive to a designated U-turn, turn around back to the intersection under the freeway and make a right.  I had to guess to figure this out the first time.  I only went the wrong way down a street once and that was my first day.  I am still paranoid about that. 
 
The next time I parked at the empty parking lot next to the projects  there were trucks and campers from Wisconsin pulling in.  My little corner is now full of contractors with their big duelie pick-ups making my truck look worthless and I feel all safe.  Good.  The workers at the Opera House are cool and helpful.  Trish clarified for me the first time that I asked to have someone take me to my car that that is how it works down here,  you never ever walk to your car alone at night, everyone expects that and we make the rounds to our cars together. 
 
On Sunday it was such a perfect Sunday day that I dragged Dustin out with me to take me to all the disaster areas.  That was the first time I really got to see the scope of the devastation.  You just drive and drive and look at block upon block of utterly destroyed houses.  They still have cars parked in the driveway.  The water marks went up to the tops of windows.  There was 2 houses that still had stickers on the windows, one didn't have the doorknobs installed yet, it was that new, and now a yellow line across the top told you that it was ruined inside.  Piles of garbage that was recently really nice furniture.  It's just crazy the waste of it all.  Houses have spray painted messages and 'X's from being searched by boats.  One house read 4 DOA in black paint.  At first it was morbidly exciting to see how much destruction you could capture in a frame but it just didn't end.  We didn't even see a whole area.  We drove all morning and took a bunch of pictures but it was just one neighborhood.  I almost cried. People in BMWs and Hummers were out sightseeing as well.  The other day a tour bus drove through our camp even.  You know you're off the tourist track when you become part of the tour. 
 
We drove until lunch time, then I bought Dustin lunch.  I was so grateful for the guidance and for the perspective it had given me.  We ate at an empty little biker bar.  Dave, the bartender was really cool.  The hamburgers were gigantic.
 
I was talking to someone at the bar/work last night about the mess and he was saying that the differance he sees in Bourbon St. is that before the hurricane people came out drinking to have fun but now they come to drown their sorrows.  There is workers working on this day in and day out and no sign of an end in sight.  Today I heard of a contractor, he's a plumber that finds the sewer lines to houses, taps into them and hooks camper trailors directly to the city sewer.  His contract is to do 2,000 connections.  2,000!  That's just one guy.  Opie has a lease on an apartment that his contractor has paid for for the next 2 years.  Craig has been here since September.  He was giving almost 1,000 showers a day.  Now he's down to 250.   Joe is a project engineer or something he "gets things done"  he says, this city park is privately owned and they are renting it out to pay for the costs of rebuilding it.  They figure it's going to take 8 years to restore it.  He's got a job till the project is complete.   This is some crazy good money he is getting.  Benefits, etc.  He said he left another job because they weren't paying hime $75/hr like they had agreed to.  I have no idea what he's making now but I'm in the wrong business.  Hey Dad, I met Don from Kenai, AK last night.  I told him about Peterson Sawmills.  He says that we should go in together and saw up the trees around here.  There is a pile, just of wood that is about the size of 2 of our barns.  It's just massive. Can you imagine?  There would be so much money in it.  You could get paid to clear away the trees, turn around and sell lumber, probably at a crazy price. 
 
There's one photo that I want Dusty to find and help me get.  It's a parking lot of cars, it goes on for 2 or 3 blocks, rows and rows under the freeway and it's all water damaged cars.  There was a James Bond BMeR that had the telltale signs that it had been underwater.  Just like that.  In a couple places there is so much mud that they are digging down to get to the street.  I have a lot more pictures to take.  I hope I get the chance before I leave.  
 
I'm still backwards.  I don't have a cell phone.  My manager almost fell over when she found that out.  She expected me to get one for work too.  Sheesh.  Yes, I should have one so I can be callled in but I'm not going to get it just for that.  Anyways, between Jessi, Joe, and Craig I have been able to get in touch with people when needed.  I was saying before how I enjoyed work but I don't make any money.  With tips I am around $6/hr.  After talking to my family I decided I needed to find another job.  The very next night at work I saw the potential in all the contractor customers.  Networking as a cocktail waitress.  The first people I mentioned it to hired me to wall paper.  Pete said he would train me and then pay me $20/hr! Can you believe it?  I couldn't.  The job isn't ready yet but Opie was another worker, he asked me out on a date so matter-of-factly that I didn't say no.   
 
I had another genuine New Orleans experiance one night at Winston's.  Winston's is a quiet little bar not far from the campground.  This "campground", by the way, has only allowed people to camp in it 4 times in history.  One of those was during the Civil War.  Anyways, Winston's was after Winston Churchill and sort of had the antique English feel, big stuffed leather couches, various Beatles posters and a collection of tobacco pipes.  I was a little surprised when I peered around a partition to see what Dustin was snickering and saw a girl sitting on a guy's lap. . . wearing only a pair of underwear.  It was his birthday, they got reprimanded for it and she claimed to lose her purse of tips later on that night.  Dustin thinks she was scamming.  I give her the benefit of the doubt and say she was a little out of it.
 
Last night was my date with Opie.  I was wined and dined and treated like a lady.  I told him that if I have boys I am going to raise them down South till they learn manners like that.  He pulled out my chair, opened the car door- even though I was the driver, and paid for insistantly everything.  Those contractors have no problem spending money.  I finally got to see some of the French Quarter away from Bourbon St.  Saw an art gallery, ate some Cajun food, and I really did have wine. 
 
Every time I see Bourbon I like it less.  It's like Las Vegas in a small town.  You either have bars trying to entice you with their drink specials or you get guys who you think must have never seen a woman and think I'm just as excited to talk to them.  I'm thinking of Mr. Jim's in Foley.  I think it would be fun to work there when I get home.  I want to bartend for all my highschool classmates.  Wherever I ate by Royal St was wonderful and empty.  Quiet.  The Old Opera House is so loud it makes my ears itch.  After crocadile tail for an appetizer and after supper itself, Opie and I stopped at Sing Sing ( I personally found it funny when Opie stopped a cop on the street to ask directions to Sing Sing)  which is popular for its Blues, listened to that, had a couple drinks with his friends, the same ones that I had also met before- Pete and Tom.  They were great.  Tom was off dancing and drunk, same as when I waited on him- I haven't talked to him much, and it was Pete's turn to be hassling Opie to drink.  
 
It was so nice to feel taken care of.  I'm a girl and that's a good thing!  At camp I'm grungy, at work I'm brushing off drunks.  I got offered $1000 to go to Mexico, how does that sound?  If I ever get evicted from my camper the contractor trio has 2 extra bedrooms in a real house. How nice.  I'm staying here though.  I like Craig and Jessi and Dustin too much. 
 
Hey, Craig got married one day before Mom and Dad did.  April 8, 1978.  Mom and Dad, April 9.  Can you imagine?  How bizarre.  Actually, he might be younger than Mom and Dad.  He is!  I think he was 19 when he got married, M&D were 22(?), Sheesh.   We were in the Martin Luther King March.  Not the one with the shooting.  I got to see the now famous mayor and even shake his hand.  I don't know what part of the speech you might have seen on TV but he said some really good stuff, I told him so.  Dustin says that him and his uncle were blocked on the freeway and got to see the President drive through.  A big fire got set by some angry drunk indians somewhere in this park, it was a huge pile, the fire department decided to just contain it and let it burn.  That was on the local news too at least.  I was just trying to think of things that you might be hearing about New Orleans.
 
I just had a question for you guys, do all men's bathrooms smell as bad as the one at the Old Opera House?  I have prided myself in my lack of smell but that knocked me back.  If I would have been blind I would have thought that the floor had 3 inches of standing pee. It smelled like 50 wolves had come and marked their territory.  How can you stand it?
 
After the full moon I sat around by the showers and listened to 3 separate stories of all out brawls.  The first guys told his story with a split lip.  An actual crazy guy wanted to stab him with a knife or an ice pick, he had one in each hand.  Another guys showed us his chewed up ear.  It had been hit by a log that some guy had pulled hot and glowing from a fire.  Dustin said another guy got beaten out of his clothes.  I don't know if he saw that himself or heard about it.  I'm sorry to be making all you worry-worts nervous.  I am really in a wonderfully safe spot.  Craig is a devout Mormon, he's very easy going and enforces respectfulness.  Joe is watching the showers while Craig is out of town welcoming a new grand-daughter.  Joe is another no monkey business sort of guy.  He was already shooing away some weird indian today.  Says he had probably been smoking piotti (how do you spell that?).  Dave I just met today.  The day I desperately needed internet he was right here in the shower tent typing away.  I am doing the same now.  This pup tent is like the waiting room and hangout around here.  there's green turf so it doesn't get muddy and benches to lounge around on.   Jeff is another devout Christian, his wife homeschools their 4 kids.  Then there is Dustin and his Uncle.  They have about 25 bottles of some nice wine that they got from gutting a house.  It soundes like houses are systematically gutted, owners are given a time limit and what they don't take with them is thrown out.  People are foraging all sorts of stuff.  Some guys found a 3 karat diamond ring in the street.  Craig thinks its worth $2000, Dustin and his Uncle now have a suit of armor statue gaurding their tent.  I think it's a candle holder, almost life size.  Jessi has patio stones and a sign for the stables, I . . . don't think I have picked anything up.  There is a pretty cat I would like to take home.  Craig says this whole area was 8 ft under water for about 3 weeks.  Near his showers is a huge tree that people reported seeing several racoons and cats living in.  When the waters went down the cats came down and Craig adopted them.  One is gray with yellow eyes and the other is beautiful as well.  Their named Katy and Rita. 
 
And so,  I have settled in well.  I am preparing for Mardi Gras, I've got my place, friends, connections, and even though I don't have a phone I have still been able to keep in contact with my family.  Goddards, I am so so so sorry for not calling.  Once I forgot a couple days the days ran together and it totlally slipped my mind!!!! I made it just fine, even with no rear brakes.  Opie says he can easily replace the brake lines.  Sounds great.  There's just one more little piece of news to mention.  I told you that I am able to keep in touch with my parents?  Jessi has half a cell phone that still works.  Anyways, yesterday I had a message about a message they had recieved.  I borrowed a phone (what a mooch) and this and that, you remember a company I was all obsessed about this summer?  Raytheon?  Ring a bell? 
 
I'M GOING TO ANTARCICA!!!!! I'M GOING, I'M GOING, I'M GOING!!!!!!
(and now I'm crying)
BUT I'M GOING!  AM I STILL INTERESTED?  WOULD I WANT TO   WINTER OVER????  I moped around and waited for their call so I could be in Antarctica for thier summer but when that time period was up I made new plans and came down here.  I was jumping around the camp.  Jessi was there to celebrate with.  Today the news is official, I ran and gave Joe a big hug, he was the only one around and what a quinky-dink, he's been to Antarctica as well. They are setting up all my flights, ALL paid for.  It's terribly confusing but I will fly from Orlando.  Remember the plan with picking up my parents in Florida in March?  They already have the tickets so I will leave my pick-up with a friend of the family.  I fly to Denver for a psych evaluation (pray for a miracle:-D) and a chest x-ray and then they are flying me HOME for about 8 days,  they'll fly me RIGHT TO THE ST. CLOUD AIRPORT (Dad).  I have enough time to buy some pricey boots, some more long johns, pack, say hello and good-bye and then they will fly me back to Denver for orientation then to Christchurch New Zealand (howdy, Jennifer but sorry I won't be able to stop in until I'm off the Ice) and on the 17th of FEBRUARY I WILL BE FLYING OFF TO ANTARCTICA!!!! AAAAAAHHHH!!!! SEVEN CONTINENTS!  THE NEXT TIME I AM IN MINNESOTA I WILL BE SAYING THAT I HAVE BEEN TO ALL SEVEN CONTINENTS!  They give you an $1800 travel voucher for you to trade in to anywhere.  When I get off the Ice I am going to stay in New Zealand for about 2 weeks to visit with Jennifer and I have been thinking of the 110 meter bungee jump since I last visited New Zealand.  I've GOT to do that. 
 
As for everybody that I made summer and fall plans with I am really really sorry.  Charity, I sure hope you haven't bought your tickets yet.  SHOOT Half Full!  I MIGHT still be able to make it to your wedding.  I will be down there from February to August OR October.  I want to get out of Antarctica as soon as possible, visit South America for a month and then come home.  I'm going to play it by ear.  I don't want to miss your wedding either Naomi.  I am really, really sorry.   Michelle and Donna, sorry but I do still want to do that hike, we could always do that next summer.   More time to prepare.  I hope you- hey, they aren't even on my mass e-mail.  What am I saying?  I wanted to call you right away Charity and tell you to wait about your plans.  I am really sorry to reschedule.  I suppose you could come to MN even if I am gone.  My sketchbook is misplaced at the moment.  I know where my sketchbook  is but I am not sure how to get there.  No worries.  I'll get it back but your phone number is in that. I'll have to Google.  Dad, why are you always right?  Am I ever going to be able to help you on the boat?  You will at least save the sail sewing for me, right?  I am breaking the news to the Opera House tonight.  Poor Miss Gail, she is going to flip, she doesn't handle bad news well and I told her I would be here through Mardi Gras.  This and a death in the family is the only reason I would have quit.  I am a crappy waitress and last night was dead.  Hope it stays dead till she can adjust.  CAN YOU BELIEVE IT????  I can't, Christine is my contact and she has been so good and helpful she says that I am actually doing them a favor.  And guess what, I am in the galley as a dishwasher and everything else.  I'm on call basically 7 days a week with one day off so this position should be more flexible so that I can negotiate to keep Sabbath, not like it really matters down there, the sun is down the WHOLE  time.  THIS IS THE CRAZIEST WEEK, EVER.  EVERYTHING IS COMING TOGETHER.  I just need to be able to get to Orlando with my brakes and pass the xray and pass the psych evaluation, ah, there's always a million things that could go wrong but look at how it has all come out right.  I am so sorry that it took me so long to write and I am so sorry to bog you down all the more now.  I will talk to you all later.  We'll see I guess. Bye ya'll.  Some of you I will see soon and some of you I won't see as expected.  Please forgive my wild hair tendancies, the last leg is in sight!!!!!!
 
Love,
Rachael

February 1 - Rockin' in Denver, will be home soon

Sorry I didn't have time to highlight last time.  It would have been more helpful.  I made sure to do it this time.
 
Hello all.  I've been getting back into travel mode, I've been composing e-mails in my head.  It wasn't until literally 1 hr before I fly out that I realized that there is free e-mail here.  Crazy!
 
The flight was great.  I got to pretend I was in First Class.  I got to sit in the very front row but this aircraft was so small that there was no classes.  My favorite part was security checks. I've got it all worked out.  I wear my ugly Waldees for easy removal (those area a brand of those hole-y sponge shoes you see people wearing), and this time I even had contraband to turn over.  My lighter.  I had gotten a real small lighter for waitressing, lots of people ask for a light.  Unfortunately, they are banned in carry-on.  I realized it was in my purse and was all sentimental about giving it up to be thrown away.  The lady I tried to hand it to said to give it to the people at the metal detectors so I just put it on the top of my coat that I sent through XRays.  My bracelets from Sri Lanka didn't set off the metal detector (finally) and they never even noticed the lighter.  Can you believe it?  In plain view and through the XRay machine. 
 
Speaking of crazy, that's what I've been doing.  Well, for about 4 hrs or so.  I went to my psych evaluation for Antarctica.  After all the questions I thought I was crazy.  It was really not as fun as I thought it would be.  I did get to do a little interview and sit on a couch and all that but it was a real couch.  After that it was literally an 800 question multilple choice test with the old school blacken-the-circles sort of answer grid.  Lot's of true and false.  I was trying to remember the best ones.  There were other people there as well and we started laughing and picking our favorite statements.  Mostly it was "Everyone is out to get me"  rephrased in many differant ways.  "People are plotting against me", etc.  Here take your own test:  True or False
 
I like to fix door latches
I have had an out of body experiance
I know who has caused me all my problems
 
Whatever, boring.  This whole experiance, though, has tainted me.  This is the way to travel!  My room, my shuttle, my food, ALL paid for by Raytheon.  My daily budget for FOOD alone is $42.  I've had a cushy room all to myself, ordered take out and watched TV.  Hey, I'm still sick.  That's the excuse I came up with today.  That's why I didn't do a thing.  I still couldn't bring myself to pay $4 for a bottle of water in the room, even if Raytheon will pay it. 
 
I was totally lost and confused about the whole hiring process.  I also had no idea where I was and then learned that I would be given  a company car to drive me around for the idea.  I mean, I had to drive and it was actually a mini van.  It turns out that there is psychologists that are contracted to give psych evaluations to prospective employees for various jobs.  They first had me fill out a form about why I wanted to be a fire fighter.  I got all hopeful thinking maybe a dish-washer in Antarctica would get some cross-training.  Then I  went for my last check mark on my Physical Qualification sheet - XRay. 
 
I spent most of my day driving.  A lot of it in the wrong direction.  I ended up being so lost that I missed everyone finishing work for the day and had to call for help from a movie theater.  I think this is another check mark  to officially qualify me as a travelor;  driving myself through 8 lanes of Denver traffic holding mapquest directions and it wasn't my car. 
 
Hey, I joined WAYN (where are you now)  on the web.  I was going to put my hotmail contacts in.  Does anyone have any objections?  You'll be getting a spam invite to join.  They have a free level and it looks like a computerized way to keep track of your travels.  Could be cool.  Well, that's about it.  I'll be home by midnight tonight.  I get 12 days to shop and pack.  Are you ready, Bethany? Oh, and Charity said that she updated my website again.  Now that I remembered I'll have to go check it out.
 
Talk to you later.
 
Love,
Rachael

February 12 - heading South

Hey!  It's just after 5 am, haven't slept, I am on schedule.  I think I will write down my style of red-eye packing as a travel tip for preventing jet lag.  Think it would work?  People keep asking me if I am excited about fulfilling my dream of getting to Antarctica and I insist that I don't really think about it but since I'm not tired and I am about to type out a good long rant I think that maybe this is a sign of my excitement.  To be honest, this 24 hr packing session has evolved a bit.  I think I am getting old.  I took a nap today so I could prepare for my all night vigil. 
 
Anyways, I thought that with this out-of-world place I should try to let you know about things that I have been learning.  First of all, I passed my last tests, the Psych eval and the xray.  
 
This experiance is going to be so educational!  So, let me just review what I understand so far and try to answer some of the repetative questions.
 
Is it a military base?
I don't think so.  The National Science Foundation has been put in charge of America's research in Antarctica. 
 
Who do you work for?
I'm working for USAP (US Antarctica Program).  They sent luggage tags with that logo and I get an e-mail address when I am down there, Rachael.Sorenson@usap.gov . So official.  The Department of Defense helps out the scientists, my flight to Antarctica from New Zealand will be on a military plane.  So cool.  I believe  Raytheon was contracted by USAP to support the scientists.  There is a lot of stuff that Raytheon takes care of in including washing the dishes and that's where I come in. 
 
Do you get mail? E-mail?
They have 24 hr computer lab and access to the web.  Whew.  So I will hope to be keeping you updated.  As for packages, that's the fun thing about winter, I'll be snowed-in in a big way.  The last flight to Antarctica is scheduled for March 1.  After that the weather is too dangerous and unpredictable.  There are NO flights in or out, no mail, no food, no visits.  Can you believe it?  I was hoping to be having tons of letters going back and forth.  You can still mail me stuff and I will get a huge hoard to open when I get back to Christchurch, I don't mind! Address:
 
Rachael Sorenson, RPSC
McMurdo Station- Winter Over
PSC 469 Box 700
APO AP 96599-1035
 
Ok, I'm tired of the flat format.  No more questions, please.  Sweet ol' Biff (our dog) just puked on the living room carpet.  Sigh, my last going away present.  Well, I am ready to go.  There are just afew missing items that I'm not sure I'll find and that I can live without for 6 months.  I'll be do my best to describe the South to you.  Talk to you all soon hopefully, I plan to take advantage of that high speed internet in the Denver hotel.  Did I tell you I got a laptop?  Can you believe it?  Come to think of it, my most major purchases have all been tickets.  I paid $1100 for a train ticket and it took me all day to spend $800 on a laptop.  Imagine that.  Talk to you later.  I think I'll lay down for a little while.
 
Love,
Rachael

February 21 - First contact from the Ice

For you lazy bums that only want highlights, here it is:  I'm working in a cafeteria in Antarctica.  You can skip the rest.
 
Well, I am finally figuring out how to access my e-mail so maybe you can say that I am finally settling in but it feels like that will never happen. 
 
I should have gone and found a computer in New Zealand to say hello while I was in transit but I was too busy getting in as much sight seeing as possible.  I think the last time I talked to you I was on the verge of being bleery eyed as I packed the last of my things and got ready to leave MN. 
 
My first stop was Denver.  It was a return, I got to pretend that I do this all the time since this was my second paid trip by Raytheon.  I stayed at the Marriot again but this time I wasn't some lone crazy heading down south.  The hotel bar was full of old timers, repeat winter-overs, and I shared the shuttle with 2 other people.  In all, I think there was 27 people all gathered in Denver for our safety training.  It was then that I found out that we are provided with uniforms for the kitchen, that the work boots I had purchased for outdoor use were way too warm and that they also provided you with Carharts for the outdoor work.  Great, I had a half day to buy new boots, and repack and mail an entire suitcase home.  Have you gotten that yet, Mom? 
 
I tried to count how many girls there were and how many people total and I'm afraid I got the numbers all wrong but I think there was a total of 7 girls ( me included) and when I counted myself and all the new people in the group we totalled 3.  Yikes.  Everyone else were veterans, 3, 6, 7, year returns.  Greg says that this yearly flight to Antarctica is his commute to work. "Here we go again."  They have a nice saying down here too: The first year you come for the experiance, the second you come for the money, and the third and so on you come because there's just no other place that you fit in.  Greg also related about a flight he took to Iceland between working  winters in Antarctica.  When he awoke to seeing ice flows below he suddenly panicked.   Thinking that he had begun the early stages of Alzheimers he thought that he had blanked out on the last 2 months of his summer and he was now heading back to the Ice.  He ransacked his brain hoping he had remembered to pack everything. 
 
The plane was absolutely packed to Christchurch but I got in some movie time.  I also met a really great Ohio teacher and we had some nice conversation.  She was so friendly.  It feels like I've been flying for weeks.  Once in Christchurch I had the land sickness just like during fishing.  Every once in awhile it would feel like I was in a descending airplane. 
 
Christchurch was the first hint of what was going on.  I mean, in Denver it was like a little museum at Raytheon, they had posters and things about Antarctica and a manequin wearing the issued gear, but in Christchurch they handed that gear to us with our name on it (mine was mispelled).  We newbies are all DA/GAs (Dining Room Attendant/ General. . . something, it means general labor).  We had to get outfitted for kitchen stuff and outside stuff.  There were bags of socks, gloves, various Carharts and boots and just a bunch of things.  Basically, there is no replacements in the winter so they provide you with almost double of everything. 
 
They stuck us newbies together in the same hotel which we all appreciated.  We've hit it off rather well, I think.  There's Troy, who's funny and outgoing and nearly obsessed on finding "the black guy" in the crowd.  It was funny and almost a little sad at how few we saw in New Zealand.  There were so few that we were even able to review days later.  "I saw two,"
"No, there were more like 4, remember, the two that walked by on the street."
"Oh, yeah!"
Troy is black, I think he was feeling a bit isoloated.   Mandi who was quiet at first but she's been traveling all over and has a lot of stories about Africa when she was in the Peace Corps.  She is also nearly phobic about falling which has really hampered her speed on this snowy, icy, gravely, slanted, terrain.  We've just spent our time laughing at each other.  A favortie, was as we were unpacking and Mandi showed me what she had brought, "This is just like a humidifier but it's a lamp."  Well, she didn't say that exactly but that's how I took it. 
 
Anyways, an awesome thing about Raytheon is that they just hand you travel money.  They gave us each $250 in Denver, that we spent on cheap housing and great food in New Zealand.  The old timers all met at their bar and pretty much stayed there.  We bought a couple bottles of wine and relaxed in the apartment.  Mandi and I were able to share a room and save that much more.  The best was the wake-up call in the morning to tell us that our flight had been cancelled for 24 hrs and that we could go back to sleep.  That's what Mandi and I did not wanting to disturb Troy.  Never mind that, Troy came pounding on our door 5 min. later.  We suddenly had a whole day to do what we want, not only that but a trip down to the CDC and we were handed another $200 in NZ money.  We moved to the YMCA for even cheaper accomadation, we went shopping, went to the beach, had some more wine and ate a whole bunch of great food.  Smoothies, icecream, Japanese. . . I can't remember. 
 
It was so great with those two.  We wore our cameras like proud tourists and snapped pictures of everything, unabashedly asking each other to be our personal camera man.  I also scoped out the places I want to stop when I get back from the Ice.  I found the Army backpack that I am going to buy, I found my Blundstones (Aussie boots that I wanted) and I found a huge strip mall that is just full of second hand stores.  I am so excited to spend some money.
 
We were finally on our way on Saturday.  I was sure the flight would be cancelled again.  Bummer.  Our plane was a C-4.  MASSIVE.  It was great fun having military flight attendants.  I got pictures of a guy in a flight suit demonstrating how to use the life jacket.  The army guys also brought out a giant penguin and took pictures with that.  I slept a good deal and didn't think about where I was going.  It was so cool to be on a military plane!  The leg room was fantastic.  The only down side was that you needed to wear earplugs.  The veteran workers were a great help, they recommended what to bring, what to wear, and they came and told us when you could actually see the continent out the window.  That's when Mandi and I started getting excited.  We're on our way!  They actually let us come! 
 
Then we landed and they didn't even let us take a picture of our first steps on Antarctica.  Technically, we weren't on Antarctica, we were on the water in Ross Sound- or is it Bay?  We got to ride some tank contraption and I found out the name of it but I can't remember.  It was like riding in a bull dozer with and extended cab.  I liked the warning sticker.  Instead of reading:"It is not safe to open door until driver has dropped stairs",the word "stairs" had been crossed out and "pants" had been written in.
 
On the station we were taken to a briefing and maybe another briefing, we got our luggage and found our rooms.  Mandi and I were roomed together but this is just until March when all the summer people finally leave.  This dorm will be shut down and we'll get a room of our own some where else.
 
For the most part, every part of McMurdo looks like the back side of a warehouse.  Ramps, boxes, oil drums, pole building, nothing looks attractice and everything looks vaguely familiar.  I think the road is in a spiral or something.  I really haven't figured out where anything is.  I've found some places but I wouldn't be able to get back to them. 
 
The first night I was here the planned activity was a showing of The Dark Side of the Rainbow.  That's when they play the Wizard of Oz to the Pink Floyd's album, Dark Side of the Moon.  I have been wanting to see that forever and what an appropriate surreal ending to such a mind boggling trip.  So, I found the bar the first night I was there and tried to enjoy the movie but I was beginning to crash from jet lag and that did not help my tolerance for the people who couldn't coordinate the music and timing of the movie.  There were lots of stops and rewinds and confering and I just wanted to go to bed.  There were some interesting quirks to how the two medias sort of came together sometimes.  We should watch it when I'm not so tired.
 
As for routine, Mom had written about wanting to hear what it is and the routine so far is to get up and be lost.  I'm lost as to what to do with the few hours I have before work.  Once I am at the galley I am lost as to how I fill my time, how to be responsible and efficient and CLEAN.  Sheesh, the safety videos are crazy.  So far every day has had at least two hours of some sort of training.  First it was part one, then part two of the kitchen, then outdoor, then a walk through of the kitchen, a job expectation review, and today it was another outdoor safety.  The outdoor safety lectures were no fun.  I wanted to learn cool stuff like how to build an igloo or survive a blizard.  Their advice was to watch the weather and run, for the most part. 
 
And how do I like my job?  I'm working in a cafeteria, what do you think?  Actually, so far it's a real let down.  I wanted the true grit, man against nature, the crazy survival stories.  Instead, for survival stories someone summed it up best: "The quickest way to become a McMurdo legend is to get drunk and drive off base."   Someone compared this place to a college campus and I clenched my teeth when I saw the similarities.  They are absolutely right.  Everyone here is normal.  There's people in Carharts but there is the young crowd, the bearded professors, and all the in-betweens that a liberal univeristy has to offer.  The weather is beautiful, it's always sunny, and we have want for nothing, they even have sprinkles for the soft serve ice cream.  The food is absolutely delicious and such a variety.  The cafeteria has carpeting and the chairs are stuffed.  What kind of luxury is this?  Except there's no mail.  Oh, and chopsticks.  There's no chopsticks!
 
Being in the kitchen I get to hear the gripes of all the other departments and it sounds like any other job except Raytheon has built itself up as some sort of elite military company or something.  There is no order though.  We new DAs are patching together the tidbits of info that we've accidently acquired in order to help inform each other.  One girl was never issued outside gear for her GA job.  I was first given chef's coats for my uniform and now I find out that I COULD have gotten Blundstones for my kitchen shoes instead of these ugly, ugly things that I have.  I hate my shoes.  I think I will focus my frustrations on them.  I also see that this uniform shirt that I am  wearing is full of little holes on the belly.  Real attractive. I also found out that the Carharts that we were provided for work gear are not pants so I probably sent home a few too many pair of pants.  I have one pair of jeans. 
 
Am I sounding grumpy?  I think I am.  Sorry about that.  I shoudln't be doing this after work but there is just no other times.  In fact, the longer I sit here the more I want to gripe and complain about something.  I am really working myself into a huff.  Sorry, don't mind me.  This whole base is in transition.  There are 3 more flights to go out and they will take about 300 people with them leaving us with right around 200.  After that it will only be us winter folks and I won't be seeing a sea of strange faces.  Nearly everyone I meet is like,"Nice to meet you, I leave in 4 days."  Great.  That sort of spoils the mood too.  Remember hiking South on the trail, Skittles?  It's just like that.  Nearly everyone is itching to go home, counting down days and hours and I feel like I'm being conned.  I'm staying?  What am I doing? 
 
Bah, please don't mind me.  It's only Tuesday.  I'm just way to overwhelmed to sound posative.  I am hoping to do some cross country skiing tomorrow.  Guess what, Troy is a certified trainer!  I could have my own personal trainer this winter!  Woo-hoo.  And Mandi knows Yoga.  See, there is stuff to look forward to.  The library is looking for volanteers, a chef is going to get a Spanish class together, Greg might be starting up his Yoga classes.  I still need to get to the climbing wall and Observation Hill is free to go up without checking in or having a partner.  I could make that a daily hiker.  We'll see.  Never mind that the DAs work when all stores, offices and activities are shut down.  Today I finally snuck away to try to get a special Antarctic stamp in my passport only to find that they had packed it away the day before I had arrived they won't bring it back out till October.  I hope to be leaving in Aug.  Tough luck, thanks alot.  OK, ok, I am going to bed.  Troy plans on summering. I'll mail him my passport for him to get stamped.  Talk to you later, after I get some better sleep.
 
Love,
Rachael
 
PS.  Mom, I think I left all my addresses at home!  Have you seen them?  They should be by the futon in a leather date book that zippers shut.  Let me know if you've seen it, otherwise I'll keep looking for it.
 
Miss you all.

February 22 - Update

Hey you all, quit trying to cheer me up.  It was great to be able to check my mail during break.  I had almost forgotten about my sulking.  I had the day off yesterday, burnt a CD of my music, listened to that while I washed dishes today, it goes from Beatles to Everclear.
 
Want to hear something really bizzare?  The other day on of the DAs was telling me about a Travel Log presentation.  People put together presentations about thier travels for everyone.  Well, this guy hike the trail in 2003.  That was the year before me.  This girl said that his trail name was Skittles.  I do know another Skittles besides my hiking buddy in AK.  Anyways, I kept an eye for this guy, wondering if it would be the Skittles that I had met and it was!  I saw him yesterday at the store.  I first met him at Neils Gap when I first started the trail in 2004.  He worked there.  Then I saw him again at Trail Days last year.  Anyways, we hung out last night and talked Trail talk.  Then I watched He-Man cartoons with Troy.  Fun day.  Back to work.
 
Love,
RAchael
 
PS.  Mom, I would like any addresses you would be willing to send.  Relatives first.  I have Bethany and Charity's but that's it.

February 24 - Slowly Settling

Hello!  Today is my day off!  Woohoo.  First thing, after sleeping in and getting lunch was to e-mail and say hello.
 
One thing with settling into the Antarctica lifestyle is that every day is something differant.  I think I already told you about the evening of He-Man videos.  The store here, which is like a gift/conveiniance store, also has videos to "rent" which are all free.  I looked over the selelction and it looks like I am set for the winter.  Hey Casey, you'd do just fine, they have the entire season of Monty Python.  The videos available are really odd. 
 
On Thursday I went off exploring.  Thursday is Scott Base night.  Scott base is the New Zealand station that is about 2 miles from McMurdo.  Every Thursday is American Night and we are all invited over to the bar. I've told myself no drinking till the sun is down completely.  The sun is beginning to set but not until midnight and I'm not sure if it actually gets dark.  At Scott Base I was introduced to our fire crew, they were busy playing a Swedish card game for quarters.  They let me play even though I did't bring and money.   I thought McMurdo had a small winter crew.  I was counting some winter crews at Scott Base, there were several recent years where they had 9.  I think the most was about 15.  Can you imagine that?  I did check, there was always at least one girl.
 
I've been trying to find the little things that assure me that I am really in Antarctica.  You see the USAP emblam all over and lots of pictures of penguins, that's about it.  The one distinction I saw yesterday was the gallon pump of 30 spf sun screen at the community sinks.  There's just really nothing here to really say,"Hey! You're in Antarctica!"  Any nature is miles away, we are sitting on top of a dirt heap, the only interesting thing about that is the gravel is actually those little lava rocks like the ones you put in your garden.  We were standing on a 4 ft hight dock yesterday and the DAs were telling me that the snow gets that high and is constantly blowing into the dock area.  That's what I'm talking about.  Now that I know that the snow will be MAJOR I am trying to get as many "before" pictures as I can.
 
Since I have all the time in the world this morning I can go on for hours about my work area and my routine.  So far I have had a really great work schedule.  Of the winter DAs I am the only one that has been scheduled the same shift for 2 straight weeks.  I'm on pms.  That means that I get up around 7:00 or 8:00,  first thing I do is roll up our window shade and let in sunlight.  I was able to check out a pilates video and I have been finding an empty lounge to do that in.  The workout I tried yesterday was great, I am all stiff from it. 
 
I have enough time after that to shower, which is down the hall.  The building I am in, by the way, is so confusing.  I have been trying to figure out how to describe it to you and the best I can do is to say that it's the shape of a football goal laid down.  Not exactly the correct proportions.  Can you imagine a football goal laying down?  Then change that to 3 long buildings, in that same layout with hallways connecting them in the middle.  Whatever it is, it's terrible confusing trying to walk around. 
 
The building with the galley is terribly confusing as well.  I wandered around the upstairs and I still have no idea where I was.  Troy laughed at me the other day when I realized that I was ending each day at the kitchen exit where I would gather my coat and then I would walk back through the entire building in a big horseshoe to come out the hallway exit which is actually about 20 ft along the exterior wall from the kitchen exit.   Both exits are across from my building.  
 
Everything is numbers and acronyms.  I'm in 203A, Galley is 155, I just found Hut 10 last night, a lot of the DAs are in MMI.  There's the FMEC which is something about field, maintenance. . .I think it's a maintenance and mechanic shop.  BFC I don't have a clue but they are the out door mountaineer people/enviormentalists that help the scientists out in the field.  I just like the acronym because someone also said that it stands for "building full of chicks"  which I guess is also accurate.   
 
Am I back to talking about routine?  Maybe later, I feel like it's getting boring.  I wanted to tell you about our amazing dishwasher.  Yeah!  Does it seem like I'm stretching?  Well, I am totally impressed.  In the summer they serve 1000 people at each meal.  Imagine the machine it takes to keep up with that.  Well, the Dishwasher, aka Bertha, is about 10 ft long and is actually a conveyer belt of plastic teeth which allow you to set up plates, lay out bowls or you can place the ordinary dish racks on them and they will pull those through.  There's stop and start switches on both ends and a safety bar at the end of the belt.  We've got 2 sprayers that are now operated by foot pedal (too much carpel tunnel before) and there can be 2 people spraying off dishes and 2 others unloading when it's full capacity. 
 
This is the new year of improvements.  The DA job is the most injury inducing task.  Some people are still in therapy or out of work from injuries from earlier this summer.  It's mostly carpel tunnel and stress related things.  Now they closley regulate how much work you actually do which is awesome.  The day is constantly changing and breaks are all the time.  My schedule is from 11:00 to 8:30 but there is at least 1 and a half hours of breaks.  You wash, pots in the back of the kitchen, dishes up front where people have scraped and stacked them.  There's restocking products, cleaning service areas, cleaning dining areas, some breaks in between and then do it again for final clean-up.
 
I still can't get over the food. You actually get a healthy selection.  Right now there has been salad every meal.  That won't be for too much longer.  We unloaded our one and only "freshy" order yesterday.  That was cool in itself.  There were 4 pallets of fruits and vegetables that were still wrapped with the cargo netting that was used in transporting it on the plane.  We also unloaded 2 entire pallets of eggs.  I got a bunch of various stickers for my scrapbook, "do not freeze", "eggs, handle with care,"etc.  It took us an hour and a half to unload all that but that's 6 months of produce for 200 people.  I don't see it going very far. 
 
This morning I had barley, brown rice, they also offer a chick pea salad, a vegetarian entree.  I'm still surprised to see the choices of condiments, chinese mustard, Heinz 57, A1, Tobasco,  Horse Radish, everything.  Angie told us that we could basically take whatever we wanted from the kitchen- withing reason, then she pointed out the Fig Newton bars.  I didn't know we had Fig Newtons!
 
In the winter they will provide a cooler of leftovers and a 24 hr deli line.  The bread and desserts are baked from scratch daily, most of the salad dressings are hand made.  We've had awesome variety with those, tomato and basil, avacodo and lemon, raspberry vinegarette, cillantro, pesto, I can't even remember them all. 
 
Another 100 people are flying out today, in fact they are all heading out now.  I think some of the other DAs are supposed to arrive today.  That will be cool.  Did I tell you that I am volanteering this winter?  There are all sorts of place to volanteer and there are even part time jobs.  One thing I thought I was volanteering for turned out to be a job. That's pin setting.  Antarctica has the very last operating manual pinsetting bowilng alley and I get to learn to run it.  The rumor is that the Smithsonian or some museum had offered to trade McMurdo for an automatic bowling alley just so they could get ahold of this one.  The major bonus is that you get a pair of knee high striped socks.  It turns out that they are for safety because they use black lights and the socks will show up so people know where you are.  I didn't realize that we would be in the path of bowling balls.  Another bonus I found out, besides getting paid you also get tips!  Cool.  The trick will be trying to get off work in order to go set pins.  The library job sounds like fun as well, I THINK you get your own key to the library.  That makes it totally worth it.
 
Last night Niels Gap Skittles invited me to a going away party for the summer people.  I met a bunch of them, met some winter overs and at the end of the night they gave me all the alchohol.  "You're going to need this."  Oh, and I had some Bailey's and hot chocalate myself.  So much for that "not until it's dark."  Hey, I've been in Antarctica a week now.  They played Spaceballs while everyone visited.  I met Sandwhich who, guess what, is an STA travel agent.  Awesome!  My own travel agent.  I have her card.  She's going to find me my ticket to South America.  It sounds like the travel deal is nothing like it used to be.  You get your flight back home and that is it.  You can add some layovers for cheap.  Australia and Hawaii.  I MIGHT stop in Australia.  I almost have to since I'm here but I don't know if I will have time to make it worthwhile.  Anyways, I talked to one couple and they are  doing exactly what I plan to do.  They paid $620 for a round trip ticket from LA to Peru.  I could handle that.  We'll see if I can beat it.  We'll see.      
 
Monday is toasts and champaign for last flight.  Yikes, then I'll be trapped.  We all keep warning each other about our diminishing chances of escape.  I'll talk to you all later.  Guess what I finally subscribed to a blog sight.  www.blogger.com it won't make any differance to you guys, one cool feature is that I can simply e-mail a blog entry.  So I just added the address to my list.  Now these entries will be immediately available on the internet.  All right, I'm gone for real.  Time to call home.
 
Love,
Rachael

March 1 - Officially Stuck

Well, I eagerly read all my e-mails and just as I was getting ready to send out another update I was kindly interupted and offered a chocalate by a stranger.  This week just keeps getting better and better, that is my whole message for right now.  Everything is just such a blast.  Hey, do any of you think that I might be a tad bi-polar?  I was wondering about that tonight as I gleefully scrubbed down the pot room. 
 
I've got my music, I've got my new room in Building 207 like I wanted (haven't seen it yet), the package that I mailed to myself is waiting for me, all the winter DAs are here and are awesome, and I think I am going to get my way on everything.  I have been assured all Saturdays off, I get to have pm shift all winter, I get to volanteer at the library and I get to do pinsetting!  Next week we'll actually be starting our GA jobs (General Assisatant).  Oh, and today I also found out that there is so much fruit that it will rot before it is eaten so we have actually been encouraged to make all the smoothies we can!  Awesome. 
 
Sunday was such a hilarious day.  The last of the winter DAs had arrived including our lead DA, on Saturday, all the summer DAs were off getting ready to fly out (ie. getting drunk) and it was all of the other boss's day off.  So, that left Troy, Mandi, and me to teach all the new people.  We are the same 3 that arrived the same time.  Sunday was my 5th day of working in Antarctica.  I got to train DAs all day.  It was great,we kept talking about our seniority.  All they had been told was what time to show up.  They had been flying across the world, across time lines and the date line with only one night in New Zealand.  It was just crazy.   The best part was an hour long meeting that we were all scheduled to have with our lead, Simone.  She found out about it by reading about it on our schedule.  See, everything is all high tech and computers.  Every day there is 2 pieces of paper taped to the dish room wall, it's a spreadsheet that spells out the entire day, hour by about hour.  We have to write this all down in our green brain.  I should explain that our green brain is a hardy little pocket book.  I guess everyone on base is issued one and they are priceless.  I am seeing people pull them out when they are in the bars.  Hey, there are 200 or so people here and there are 2 bars, Gallaghers and Southern.
 
Anyways, Troy, Mandi, and I celebrated surviving our first week of work and we had a little house warming for Mandi as she recieved her winter room assignment and moved in immediately.  I have no room mate any more.  Then there was Monday when the last flight was canceled and then there was Tuesday when Last Flight really did take off. 
 
Last Flight is probably the highlight of the week.  All work stopped on base.  Everyone went to the chalet were a semi-circle of country flags are raised around a bust of some famous guy.  Everyone was handed a glass of champagne and then we were ushered outside (around the flags) for "7" minutes which was really at least half an hour.  The winter weather had showed up as well.  It was FREEZING.  Our champagne glasses iced up, the champagne in the narrow stems froze.  It was cold.  And it was a white out.  There was a sea of red parkas standing in snow drifts on a very expansive deck.  Like any cook-out deck - except for all the flags.  This deck looks over the Ross Ice shelf and there are mountaints behind that. 
 
The C-17 was going to fly right across our horizon.  The take-off was finally announced over radio, people within ear shot cheered and then we watched for our last touch with civilization to leave.  At first you could only hear the plane and I was afraid our last glimpse would only be a noise but then a grey shape emerged from the clouds, The C-17 tilted her wings and then began a slow curve away.  The experienced people were at first pretty unimpressed with the slight tilt and said so but the arc grew, the tilt grew and we realized that the pilot was actually making a circle so as to come flying right over us and he DID.  Right over the top of these crazy workers who hadn't left when they had had the chance.  I was able to get quite a few pictures before my camera froze up, it's ok, everyone had a digital camera.  They did the fly-over, went around Observation Hill then came out of the clouds and buzzed the chalet again.  It was just awesome. 
 
I was standing at the railing, in the full wind, in pain from the cold, all I had to focus on was the oncoming plane and the ice in front of me.  That was my moment of panic as I realized that the plane was going to New Zealand and that there would be no more until August.  I was actually trapped.  "We are really wintering over," Mandi said.  That didn't help.  It's only when I turned around and saw the sea of parkas that I was reminded that I wasn't alone.  All these people are here as well.  A lot of them came back for this.  Once the plane was out of sight and everyone was done howling and cheering someone made one last toast,"To telling the truth on our psych evals!"  Here, here.
 
Things have just been random.  Tonight  I was left a bunch of Antarctica postcards and stamps.  I don't know by who.  Mike gave Troy, Mandi, and I a bottle of Tequilla to share.  Troy took care of that before we even got off work. So much for that but it was a generous offer.  Probably one of the sweetest things was to come home after a full day of work and find that my load of uniforms that I had left in the dryer had all been neatly folded. 
 
I am hoping to take a huge advantage of all the skills people have to offer this winter.  Emiily knows computers, she's going to help me send out pictures to you guys, Simone is fluent in Spanish and is a wonderful and  patient teacher.  She's giving me a crash course in "street Spanish".  Jana's (pronounced Yana) first language is German so we were in Deutsch dialogue oneday as we wiped tables.  I'm hoping I can remember to talk to her in German at all times.  I'm still working on what sort of workout schedule I want Troy to make up for me.  Did I mention that he was a personal trainer? Mandi had so much fun picking on him.  When Simone had her meeting with us, you know, the one that she didn't know about, we had to do the usual and introduce ourselves and tell about our work experience.  When it came to Troy's turn to share he casually told of his experiance managing bars.  "What kind of bars?" Mandi innocently asked.  She had recently found out that it was stripclubs that he had previosly managed and she didn't let up until everyone got to hear about it.
 
Speaking of bars, the baker is evil.  I think everyone agrees. Everyday is a new wonderful irresistable dessert and not just one but many varieties to try.  Everyone has the same message for her.  Make something bad!  Today was a variety of cookies and "extra" fudge brownies.  You work around that all day.  How do you resist?  Seriously, any suggestions?  Other suggestions I am looking for:  Hand treatments.  My knuckles are already red and scaly and this is only the beginning.  I am hoping the store has vaseline, Simone and others have suggested wearing that under gloves at night.  The problem here is availability (hey, another chocalate! Score).  Anyone know any kitchen remedies?  I have full access to that.  I also plan on taking advantage of the kitchen access.  I am planning weekly olive oil and weekly mayo wraps for my hair. Nice.  Hey, don't think I am only taking and not offering any services of my own, I just learned today that people who had offered $50 and $60 massages were fully booked all season.  That Thai Massage might be paying off again.  Heh, heh.
 
Party plans are already under way.  There's a ladies' get-together on Sunday, an "all hands" meeting on Friday, and Troy is talking of his own risque theme party. I don't want to really say what it is because of some of the more delicate readers out there so I will just say it's called something like, "Pimps and their lady friends."  So far the sun is still up past 11:00 pm but it's snowing more and the wind has been blowing pretty steady.  Kimmy was getting after me for not talking about the weather.  It's Antarctica, what sort of weather are you expecting?  I think on Tues, the day of the flight, the high was 10 and the low was minus 4 but whatever the windchill was had to bring it down at least 20 degrees.  We were all frozen.  Did I say that before?  Well, we were.  Definately frozen.
 
All right, last thing I can think of,  I had to tell you about Simone,  mostly for my mom's benefit. Some of you don't know my Mom but she's 4' 11 and one half inches tall.  That's 60 inches, Simone's inseam is 40 inches.  Oh that's funny!  I just did the math on that now.  I wish you were here, Mom.  Simone is already claiming to be the tallest woman to ever visit Antarctica.  I hope she's right.  We'll check it out.  She's the only one that was allowed to wear her own work pants.  She had planned on this, the provided uniforms didn't even qualify as capris.  Tell you what, there is a Thai lady here, if she's close to my mom's height I will try to get a picture of them together.  I also plan on taking advantage of Simone's height.  Most of the sinks and what-not for the hard labor tasks are way too low for Simone.  In the pot room  the bottom of the sinks are mid-calf on her.  As for me, I love working the pot room and Simone is happy to trade to save her back.  Win-win for both of us.  Today was also Ego Boost for Me Day.  Two of the new DAs were thouroughly impressed with the way that I loaded Bertha, the dishwasher,  with my lightening quick speed.  Yep, that comes with the 5 days of experiance.  The pot washer is called Slim, by the way. 
 
Oh, and I already found theme songs for this trip.  For the DA job the dish room and pot room was easy, that's "Little Room" by the White Stripes:  "When you're in a little room and you're working on something good, but if it's really good you might need a bigger room," accompanyed by pot and pan banging percussion.  Of Montreal has a song called, "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games" which makes no sense but the chorus is:  "Let's pretend we're in Antarctica, Let's pretend we don't exist."  How cool is that?  Jason (New DA) says he has 3500 songs on his computer. Hey!  I think my music library might be expanding soon!  All right, I really need to stop talking.  I will try to find time to e-mail everyone that wrote.  It's so nice to keep in touch.  That's another event this week, the system went down.  I saved the e-mails from that, here's one: 
 
This is an email to update you on the status of the network outage we are esperiencing.  ALL off-continent IP services are affected during this unscheduled outage including off-continent phone calls, ATM, Internet, and E-mail. . .We will inform you once services are restored.
 
I think that covers pretty much every way to reach the outside world.  I wonder how long that service could stay down.  It was out for maybe 2 days.  I think it was part of the reason Last Flight was delayed.  Well, I'll talk to you later.  You know where I'll be.
 
Love,
Rachael

March 11 - Another Week

Another week is going by and I have still not been able to catch up on e-mails.  Hopefully, I will be able to work on that tomorrow/today.  Right now I am sitting as Troy and I wait to do our GA duties for the day.  A schedule is working out.  Today would be Friday.  Mondays and Fridays I am a GA which so far means following Lance around and then finding a department that needs some grunt work done.  Right now it is a beautiful 16 degrees (Fahrenheit) outside so we are going to be doing inventory.  This is what I got to do on Monday with little warning and we FROZE.  Imagine counting little plastic cups and syringes in 20 degree weather.  Earlier,  I had been so hot that I had traded out my work boots for my trusty hiking boots.  At one time Troy and I stopped to do push-ups in order to warm up. 
 
 
I have been getting a lot of questions about Antarctica, namely from one un-named professor.  I printed them out and I am trying to find the answers.  I thought that others might be curious about the same things so I will do my best to answer a few now.  It saves me from having to think over my week. 
 
What is the power source?
Not a good question to start with because I don't know much.  I know there is a power plant, that 3 generators power McMurdo and that there are massive tanks holding the diesel fuel.  Those same huge containers that I have seen down south. They remind me of gigantic above ground swimming pools. 
 
What about fires? 
There is a complete fire crew down here with trucks and everything.  There is insulated fire hydrants, fire alarms.  You can dial 911 in an emergency, there is always a doctor on call and they have a real ambulance as well.  Right now they are recruiting people for mass cusualty drills.  If 4 people get injured at the same time the medical facility is overwhelmed.  I might get to learn first aid.   In fact, I just got to talk to the doctor and he says that they hope to train people to give IVs.  Awesome.  I told him about my dream to learn to give stitches, the computer room laughed at me.
 
What sort of science research is going on during the winter?
I'm sure there is weather reading and regular stuff like that but for the most part there is nothing.  The winter people are just here to preserve the base during the time that no transportation is available.  We're all basically caretakers.  This is also the time for improvements and changes.  Sometimes there are construction projects but I don't think there are much this year.  This is also the time for supply to do their inventory. 
 
What sort of winter sports and acitivities are there? 
Well, there is a 3 person department that is here just to entertain the other workers.  Bowling leagues have already started signing up, soon there will be dodgeball and volleyball leagues as well. There is also open basketball but I don't know if teams are formed. We had a poker ternament this week, Troy came in second.  I had my first yoga class, I helped organize the craft room, there's women's crafting circles, lots of knitting gets done, you can rent cross country skis and snowboards.  It sounds like there is some snowboarding on Ob Hill although it's against the rules.  They don't like people doing dangerous things.  Right now Ob Hill looks scary to snowboard, it's really steep and all volcanic gravel. There's some hikes but you have to sign up, have someone with, bring a radio, leave a foot plan, and have completed a winter safety class.  I found out that one of the hikes I did this week I was supposed to sign out for.  Oops. 
 
Does anyone get Seasonal Affective Disorder or Cabin Fever down there in the winter?
GOOD QUESTION.  Answer:Everybody.  Funny thing too, we newbies just learned about the "Toast List" this week.  It's an ongoing little speculation of who's getting burned out, who's going to go over the edge first and what-not.  It sounds like everyone gets affected but you don't really realize the extent of it until Winfly when the wave of new normal people arrive.  They call the syndrome "the winter stare".  Where you just sort of lose ambition, lose focus and stare off like a zombie.  Everybody is like that.  I am curious to see this. REC is setting up a sun room to help combat that.  It's a place with full spectrum light, lots of color and they will even bring in some plants from the green house.  They are also looking for volanteers to be peer counselars.  It's sort of strange to have the people you work with be your friends and mentors and customers. 
 
I've noticed a couple more things that make this distinctly like no other place, there are no plants anywhere, not on desks, no palm fronds, no vines, no vases of flowers.  They are around but they are all fake which seems more of a reminder that there are no plants.  Most outside doors have freezer door handles or some sort of levered latch and I think it's really neat that no matter how small the building is it will have an enclosed entry way which is always unlocked.  I love the idea of a storm suddenly coming up so strong and so bad that you have to duck into the nearest doorway to wait it out.  They tell you that that happens too.   
 
This week we started out GA duties.  I got to see more of McMurdo, see people at their jobs instead of handing me their dirty plates.  Troy and I happen to have both of our GA days together, we unloaded the food order for the kitchen on Monday and on Friday we helped supply with inventory.  I already told you about that.  There is a computer system, Mapcon of something.  Absolutely every supply is assigned a number, is placed somewhere and then it is documented in the computer system where they are.  It's really neat to see it in action. The down side is that every item has to have it's number written on it by someone and once a year somene has to go and make sure the stuff is where Mapcon says it is.   All right, I'm distracted.  I am going to go and hopefully I will write again soon.   I was trying to figure out how to put pictures on my blog.  Emily is going to help me with that some time.  You can see how long the shadows are getting.  We've had some great weather and some not so nice stuff.  For the first part of the week the windchill was always at least -30 below.  Yesterday it was 16 with no wind and we thought it was beautiful.  Talk to you later.
 
Love,
Rachael  

March 13 - Monday is Groovy

hello everyone.  I was thinking of my last e-mails and how lame they were and today was such a great day that all I've been thinking about is writing to tell you about it. 
 
Saturday is my day to sleep.  I sleep all day and even when I'm awake it's not really for real.  That's how I was writing to you.  Like I had just risen from a coma or something.  Today I was up bright and early at 6:30.  It's my second day of work for the week and it was lucky GA day.  That meant being outside and shoveling the first of the snow.  It has been snowing since I arrived.  Every once in awhile, fluffly little flakes here and there but this is the snow of winter, like this snow probably won't be leaving.  It snowed and blowed for most of the day yesterday and snowed today as well.  It didn't snow heavily just nice and gentley and today the wind died down and it was absolutely beautiful. At one point the temp was 18 and I bet it was higher.  It was just so nice.  One thing, I see myself marveling at these low temperatures, surprised at how nice they seem but the thing that they say is that it is so dry down here that you don't feel the cold.  I think they're right.  Another funny thing, tonight I found out that at one piont yesterday they announced the weather at level 2 conditions.  Level 1 is the worst, I don't know what happens when it's  2  I guess you can't leave for any hiking, and level 3 is the norm.  
 
Well, since I was a GA today I got to shovel.  Our first duty is to shovel the public walkways.  The system is to throw the snow out towards the street and let the grader come and take it away.  They say the snow gets so cold and so packed that it becomes the consistancy of styrofoam.  When we went on our little field trip out to Pegasus we got to see packed snow and it was amazing.  The ground was all gently blown with whispy little drifts that you could step on and not leave a footprint.  Jason was able to break off a piece from somewhere and it was a solid block.  It's not like the light styrofoam like those cheapy coolers it's like that pink styrofoam insulation.  Well, the snow we shoveled was fluff.  It was great.   Till we got to occupy our time with about 2 feet of it on a long dock.   Still, I was happy to be out laboring. 
 
After shoveling we (this is Troy and I) helped to unload the food order.  It's interesting that we order food when all the supplies that we need are now in Antarctica - or, all the supplies available to us are in Antarctica.  I think we are out of medium sized gloves, in fact, I think soon we will be running out of vinyl gloves and we will have to switch to latex for the rest of the season.  There is nearly a year's worth of food on base, it has its own warehouse and that is where we order the food from which we then stock in our coolers and freezers.  Isn't it interesting to have refrigerators in Antarctica?  But Angie warned us today about checking the door ( the one that opens to the outside dock for easy restocking), if it's left ajar everything in the fridge will freeze.  Yes, in Antarctica the fridges are heated.  It's an odd concept to go into a fridge to warm up as well. 
 
Today I had the first sign of winter really hit me.  I was told that we are now out of bananas.  That means NO MORE.  I will not see another banana until at least August.  I'm not sure when the first freshy shipment arrives so I might not see another fresh banana until I leave McMurdo.  I thought of colonists and Europeans and way back when there were lots of people that never saw a banana in their whole life.  I have never had that experiance before but as of last week, that was my last encounter with bananas.  Maybe the baker froze some. 
 
Bananas may not seem like such a huge thing but the freshy cooler is full of fast ripening fruit and vegetables and the reality is that ALL of that will be running out.  I was looking at the last of our lettuce today.  Shane says that we will be out of lettuce by the end of the week.  Lettuce!  I had anticipated this and have made sure to have lettuce at every meal.  As I was marveling at the concept of the bananas Sherri's remarks really made it hit home.  She says that once I am back in New Zealand I'll be marveling at the sight of green peppers.  She was slicing a crate of green peppers.  I just can't get over this.  I guess there will be lettuce, that's grown in the greenhouse.  Still.  It's a little spooky.  I wish I could have been more stocked for this. 
 
Another thing we did in the kitchen was pack away the old plates.  We have been using white old style diner plates and now they have replaced them with the thin microwaveable kind (chip resistant, Johnnie even threw one on the floor and it held). The new ones are a lot easier to carry, harder to pry apart when you have gawky green dish gloves on.  Anyways, it's all for the DAs' injury prevention.  All I wanted to say was how cool I got to feel when I hefted a box of plates to try to guess the weight.  " I used to be good at this,"  I told Troy as I thought back to backpacking days on the AT.  I guessed it at 35 or 36 pounds.  Troy laughed at me and got out a scale.  It weighed the box of plates at 36 pounds.  Yesss!  I'm cool.   
 
After putting away the food orders and setting the meats out to thaw Troy and I got to go and inspect windows for the Housing Department.  Most of the dorms on the station get locked up, some solution is pumped through the pipes to prevent them from freezing, the water is turned of, the heat is kept at 40 and everything is locked up tight.  Our part was to open every room and see if the windows were shut tight, not broken, latched tightly and had velcro to stick up the blinds.  There are heavy window shades to block out the sunlight.  There's a rectangle and a square pane.  My favorite room was to see a square blind velcroed to a rectangle window, with a rectangle blind velcroed to the square window. 
 
We had a great system.  I had a master key and a cilpboard.  I marched the hallways unlocking rooms as Troy followed and went into each dorm to jiggle handles and call out problems.  Between writing and unlocking I would also double back and relock the rooms that Troy had already been in.  It was all official-like since I have one of those necklace/shoestring keychains, a souvenior from Quantas.   My downfall was when I lost my timing and began to lock a door right as Troy opened it to exit.  I was yanked into the room by my neck, landing on my knees at Troy's feet.  I had not been expecting to come through the doorway following a doorknob at such speeds as that or in that posture and my cry of surprise sounded something like what maybe a lamb would make if it was dropped on the ground.  Needless to say I was helplessy stuck kneeling in front of the door, clutching the doorknob - key still inserted, attached to my trusty keychain - laughing histarically. 
 
There was nothing to top that.  We scored some stuff from the dorms that were closing down, some books, a game of pictionary, an Abs of Steel video and a cardboard Guinness shamrock.  That's for Emily, huge St. Paddy' Day fan. 
 
Emily is hilarious.  She told me tonight that she had told the Doctor on base that she plans to get Med-evaced so that she can avoid having to make flight lunches.  Flights or no flights, a flight lunch is what a bag lunch is called.  Putting them together is another DA duty.  Did I also tell you about the incident with getting Emily to take a tablespoon of garlic?  That was last week.  She said she felt like she was coming down with something so I told her about the garlic.  Judy had told me to take 2 T everyday, 4 if you were already sick.  I haven't been very diligent but it's supposed to be great for your immune system.  Emily had no qualms with the idea, we got ourselves chopped garlic in oil ( I hope it has the same affect as the fresh stuff).  The way that I have been taking it is the way Judy suggested, with a glass of apple juice.  To remember how Emily went from a compliant open minded friend to a gagging wretching swearing sailor is still so funny it makes me cry to remember it.  I almost peed my pants right in the dish room.  I was lucky I swallowed my spoonful so quickly because I chocked on the rest of the apple juice and spit it all over the sink.  Nothing that she said is really repeatable but later on that day she would go up to random people to say, "Hey, if Rachael ever tells you that it would be a good idea to take a spoonful of garlic with some apple juice, don't believer her."  Even after returning from her break, "Hey Rachael, you know cinnamon rolls?  Not good with garlic belches."  Ah, Emily.  Our group is just too much fun.  Last night turned into a movie night with some of the other kitchen staff showing up to the lounge in building 207.  We watched Boondock Saints and Napolean Dynamite.  I am so glad everyone has seen Napolean Dynaomite now.  I can incorporate the quotes with work.  
 
Tonight was Yoga night at the Chapel.  I attended that for the second time and got to feel about as flexible as a board.  Today was also the first official Bad Music Monday in the kitchen.  Jason and I went through his music list and burned a doozie of a CD.  We've got Mr. Roboto, Turning Japanese, New Kids on the Block and good ol' Vanilla Ice.  Too bad I'm always a GA on Mondays.  Anyways, it's time for bed.  I just want to leave you with an e-mail that was more myself and I hope I was able to explain that key thing, you really had to be there.
 
All right, I have been doing good at getting up early but I am doing bad at getting to bed at a good time.  I really have to sign off.  Everybody, have a great week.  I will talk to you again later.
 
Love,
Rachael
 
Mom, you know that little book, that shopping guide to the Maker's Diet, it has the cloud background?   It's about the size a postcard.   Have you seen that any where?  If you have could you look something up for me?  In there it tells you how to ferment cabbage to make sauerkraut.  Could you e-mail that?  One of the cooks was really interested in the idea, he says we have a bunch of cabbage that will go bad before people eat it.  Glad to know that you guys made it home.  That's pretty cool.   Did Dad make any purchases?  Sorry, I should have just sent you a seperate e-mail.  Bye again.

March 18 - needles and things

Gooood evening all.  I have had another interesting week.  Nothing so much to be glaring reminders that I am in Antarctica but I just like to say that phrase sometimes to remind myself.  I was saying that last night as we hurried from Dodgeball to the bar with the wind howling.   i was being teased for wearing windpants when I was FREEZING.  "You're in Antarctica, get over it!"
"I'm in Antarctica!  What am I doing here?!" was my reply.   Just now  I had to run over to the TVs quick to see what the temperature has been.  I was right.  56 below windchills.  That's for yesterday and today.  Really though, the weather has only been at around minus 3.  Today's winds were at 28 knots.  It's cold but I can tell that it could be colder.  Cool drifts are forming.  Trucks left unplugged aren't starting. 
 
Let me say a quick thing about the TVs here.  There is only a few channels.  I haven't kept up on it enough to seperate them all.  One plays movies throughout the day, one is mostly the weather report displayed and it rotates to the highs of yesterday, forecasts for tomorrow and the record temps.  Somewhere there is also a channel that posts people's photos to music or NPR or something.  One of the Channels does constanty have NPR which I think is absolutely awesome. People down here know about Click and Clack and The Prairie Home Companion.  Jana was playing George Brown in the dish room the other day.  That is the right name, right Mom?  I think he sounds a little (just a little) like Leo Katke.  Then there is the "normal" channel which is military. It plays sports, news, and popular TV shows but all of it's comercials are directed towards military.  It's one after the other about how joining and then there are ones about stopping smoking and prevent sexual harrassment.  Actors are ALWAYS in uniform.  It's funny.  I didn't understand that this was a militarty TV station when I first arrived, it's really sort of weird to be constantly told to be a soldier when you're not sure who's telling you.  Peter, do you get this same station?  
 
Troy and I got to have more adventures for our GA day.  Sheesh.  It was the counting supplies in unheated storage sheds again. How many Nalgene bottles does Raytheon have?  This was at -3 degrees.  We watched our own Nalgenes freeze solid.  I found an amazing ice crystal.  I couldn't get my camera to focus on it properly but it looks like something you would see under a microscope, hexagons and what-not, it was amazing, and it was all in a jar.  The one thing we learned was that the door had a way of locking itself from the outside.  Fortunately Phil came by soon after we had realized we were trapped off in some storage area, besides, we had a radio with us.  We told our story to Phil and at the end of the day we all 3 were in the same storage shed for one final check and the same thing happened except we didn't have the radio.  It was great.  Can you imagine if we had needed to call for help on the radio?  I laughed histerically and they rigged cardboard and use a leatherman and then just shook the door a lot.  We finally outsmarted it but for about 2 minutes we were building up to a great story. 
 
Last night was also more Yoga, the guys played Dodgeball.  I took pictures.  Jana played too.  I just don't want to be back in Middle School.  They play with the mean balls.  The guys are all hurting today.  Stupid boys. 
 
I think it was Wednesday that Sandy and Emily were helping in the waste barn for their GA day.  I haven't done that yet.  All garbage in Antarctica must be shipped back to LA. To make it pay they have a very vigorous recycling program.  We had our training on it last week.  Can you imagine actually needing training on where to throw your garbage?  Well, I learned some things, for instance, tin foil is a burnable.  The main thing is that there are about 9 differant garbages and all this goes back to the waste barn where it is all hand sorted by people.  Imagine that.  There are advantages to this.  Emily reported back how they used to have a corkboard where they would display love letters and other personal things that had been thrown away.  They also get to see what people give away as well.  Kelly has already gotten me 2 pairs of pants.  One is Carharts in need of major repair and the other I haven't even gotten yet. 
 
This brings me to Skua.  Have I told you about Skua yet?  I think  I told you about it being a gigantic dirty looking seagull but it is also the term they use for the free box, or hiker box.  Whatever you don't want but someone else might, goes in Skua.  There's a building just for skua items.  Emily and Sandy were in charge of sorting through all the stuff.  In the lounge or at the end of the hallway in every dorm is a can for each sort of garbage as well as a bin for skua.  Everything gets taken to waste so if you want to be on top of things you can make the skua rounds to all the drop offs before it goes to skua center.  I've already gotten a bath robe, misquito netting, and a McMurdo 3/4 sleeve shirt from the skua bin downstairs.  There's always towels, Nalgenes, soap and shampoos.  I  am hoping to never purchase anything from the store while I am here.  When Emily and Sandy were sorting we took our lunch break to run over and collect free junk. 
 
Last night was some bar hopping.  There's only the two places.  Chad lost at darts and will be wearing a dress to Scott Base on Thursday.  I guess we'll be going to see that.  There was a trip out to Castle Rock on Thursday which I had to work during.  It was to see the full moon.  The plan was for the DAs to hike up Ob Hill instead but the wind was crazy so we played Scattegories in the Lounge of 207, my home. 
 
Today has already been fun.  I was woken for lunch about 12:15 by Jason and then I did my mayo treatment for my hair, I got to call home and talk to my parents and be reminded about how poor I am.  Then I had to hurry over to the medical center for my first Auxillary Medical meeting.  We were learning to give IVs!!!  How cool is that!  Now THAT was a reminder about how differant this world is in Antarctica.  That they would just take volanteers to learn how to start IVs because there might not be enough people in an emergency.  We also got to have a MCI (Mass Casualty Incident) meeting about the DAs' responsibilities.  They have a plan for everything.  One of the worst case scenarios is 155 burning down.  That's the kitchen, the galley, some dorms, some offices.  Everything would have to be moved, everyone would have to be moved out.  They have plans of using the survival gear from the BFC- I finally found out the real meaning of BFC, it's not Building Full of Chicks, or Bird and Field Center but the Berg Field Center.  It's the survival support, where gear is fixed, stored and whatnot.  They have loads of sleeping bags and tents for the scientists going out on expeditions and stuff. 
 
If 155 burned down there are a bunch of small kitchens around base, like, normal kitchens.  A cook would be assigned to each, DAs would be helping and they would be responsible for feeding 60 people per kitchen.  The BFC has a kitchen, there's the Burger Bar at Gallagher's, one at the Science Building. . . I don't know about the kitchen areas.  Anyways, it's highly exciting, no one has heard of there ever being an incident down here but there's a drill every year.  Anyways, we had a tiny doctor's office packed with people getting stuck and volanteering to be practiced on.  I got to do both.  Our teacher was Sandy the first winter DA that arrived on the Ice.  She is with her husband who is the one doctor here.  It was cute to see her demonstrate on her husband.  I bet that's a unique couple experiance.  It was great fun.  Like a geek I have tons of pictures.  I'm surprised that I'm the only one that brought a camera.  What a photo opportunity! Simone missed my vein and I missed Nathan's.  For the most part I think everyone got it on their first try.  It was funny because it took a coulple mishaps to realize the signifigance of tapping into someone's vein, lot's of little spills, I have a great picture of Wendy's arm covered in blood.  I'm glad I'm not as afraid of needles as I used to be.  I will try to post some pictures on my blog.  I'm finally figuring out a system.  If I can only get my blog to work so that I can put the pictures where I want them. 
 
 
I've got to get going.  Tonight is the Post St. Patrick's Day Celebration since most of the base has the day off tomorrow.  The DAs are finally off work so we'll be heading out soon.  I can't really think of anything else.  I am having a really good time.  It's so fun to be able to sing my music at work and to be able to talk to everyone as I wash their dishes.  Everyone is nice and appreciative, usually saying thankyou.  It means a lot.  I really like my coworkers as well.  We really hang out and watch out for each other on our off hours.  Troy was trying to take pictures of the moon one night and called me so I could see it.  He didn't actually get through but I was just glad that someone was thinking of me at 11:00 at night.  It wasn't until today that I found that I had hooked my computer to the phone line.  Troy didn't have too much luck with his photos.  He mistook a street light for the moon and got a bunch of shots of that.  Yeah, he had been celebrating a bit.  Speaking of celebrating. I still haven't made it to Bingo night.  I was too tired after work on Wednesday but Troy won the $200 jackpot.  Nice.  That's incentive to go.  All right, all right.  I will talk to you later.  I am going to think about playing Dodgeball for this coming Friday.  I just don't know, it seems to be the sport that would emphasize how awful I am at any type of coordination, reflexes, and throwing.  We'll see. 
 
Well, my hair is wet and tangled, I have a cotton ball taped in my elbow, and my shirt is stained.  I think I'm ready to head out to the party.  Talk to you soon.  I'm hoping to start e-mailing more than once a week.  Talk to you later.
 
Love,
Rachael

March 20 - Just Saying That I Had Fun

I have about 15 minutes before another day as a DA begins but I was just going to say hello and whine about how sore I am.  Man alive, last night I did the 1 1/2 hr of yoga, a tougher routine and then I went from there to train for pinsetting.   It was the first night of the league games. The DAs had their first game.  They are wearing the blue DA shirt and calling themselves the Blue Ballers.  Cute.  Chad and Justin are on the team as well.  I got to be behind the scenes and reset their pins.  It was great.  It reminded me exactly of my days of pitching fish, you jump down into a hole, lift up heavy cumbersome objects, and throwing them into a target area.  It really is manual pinsetting.  I couldn't believe it.  You get to peak through blinds at the players, you have to keep track of who is up, is it their second try?  And on the 10th frame the players shout it out so we pinsetters know to give them a third set of pins. 
 
I took some pictures but they weren't that great.  Maybe once I get some better ones I will explain the whole process.  It's pretty simple really.  You've seen the regular automatic contraptions that come down and set the pins, that's almost the same except instead of a big arm comi