| sleeping by the ocean |
[18 Nov 2008|11:24pm] |
This afternoon when I walked into the lounge at my hostel, there was a Dr John song playing on the sound system. It completely freaked me out for a while. He's singing about second lines and Elysian Fields and Lake Pontchartrain and he suddenly shot me right back into -- in middle of beautiful amazing New Zealand --- oh my god I want to go home right fucking now. It made me ache for New Orleans.
(Quick explanation: I won't be there until probably late January, early February. I don't think I explained this to everyone before: I left my truck with my family in upstate New York, the Adirondacks, so I flew from there and that's my return point. I have to be with my family over the holidays, of course. And then I have my Dan in Pittsburgh and other friends to visit on my way back to New Orleans. Realistically we're probably looking at the second week of February before I get home.)
Yeah. It wasn't horrible, because I do love all the travelling that I will be doing before I can get home. It was just a few minutes of ache where I wish I could be there for a few hours and then come back to this.
Today was beautiful, though. Riding and walking around Kaikoura and just relaxing. Tomorrow I go to Picton and hopefully I will find the AntarcticBoatPeopleTM without too much trouble.
(Leah and Nate and Richie: If you're reading, I got your emails but this shitty free computer doesn't recognize most of Hotmail's features so I couldn't answer you tonight. I will answer tomorrow. Leah: HOLY FUCKING SHIT, we need to talk. I love you. Nate: No worries, I got your email about the dive change. I forgive you since we will have many beers in Australia. :-) Will email everything I know about the plans tomorrow. Try Jared's email if you need to know about Tasmania though, because I don't. Richie: Now I have pizza too, bitch. And you should meet me in New York because I have too long there. I don't want vodka, either.
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| whale town |
[18 Nov 2008|12:51pm] |
I only realized the day before yesterday that I'd forgotten to ask the AntarcticBoatPeopleTM (previously known as the South Pole Navy) for the name of their dive company, the company/return location/names of their boats, or basically anything at all that would help me to find them in Picton. I tried the sat phone number that Josiah gave me but it's inactive.
It's kind of entertaining how little this bothers me. I figure I'll just show up the day they get off the boats and wander aimlessly around the docks and the town until I find them. It shouldn't be that difficult to find ten sunburned tweaked-out Americans in Picton. The place isn't that big.
I'm in Kaikoura now. I started to get a little dizzy during the 2.5-hour bus ride from Christchurch because there was so much damn stuff to look at, flashing past at incredible speed. The road had a couple of tunnels that passed through the mountains and I really did freak out for a minute. ZOOM! you're in blackness surrounded by hundreds of tons of rock. Not a situation I experienced over the past year, dude.
Going riding again in a little bit. For now I think I will wander around and take some more pictures.
the road outside my hostel.
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| happy wandering |
[16 Nov 2008|10:17am] |
It's Sunday in New Zealand and I'm not doing SHIT today. (Well, except falling off my hotel bed for no readily apparent reason about three minutes ago. I was reaching for a soda. Slid smack on to the floor. Yeah. It seems that I left some of my coordination back on the Ice.)
Anyway -- on the subject of doing nothing. It's fucking wonderful. I didn't have an actual day off from February 14th to November 11th. I'll be lucky if I can be bothered to go get food today.
I'm staying at the Hotel So. This pissed me right off when I got here, because my room is pretty much the same size as the tiny shoebox room that I just finished living in for a year. (The company makes our hotel reservations for us, and my first choice was fully booked so I got the next available place.) But whatever, I'm over it, because I'm only paying NZ$67 per night (about US$38 right now) and I decided that the extra travelling money was more important than switching to the Camelot or the Heritage.
Yesterday we went to the horse races; it's New Zealand Cup and Show week. I wish we'd hit a thrift store beforehand. Nate and I decided that if we winter together again, we'll do it up right with tails and a top hat for him and a fancy vintage dress for me. We felt like threadbare American scumbags among most of the crowd.
We also felt kind of like dirty old men because we spent hours openly gawking and pointing out dozens of hot girls to each other. Wow. Legs. Bare legs everywhere are a mild shock to the system after a year at Pole. It was nice.
So, Australia. It's happening. I'm meeting Lance and Jared in Melbourne around December 1st. We're roadtripping to Alice Springs and then to Sydney. That will be very cool. Yesterday I started campaigning to make Nate come with us. I bet I can wear him down by then.
I will start taking pictures soon. I've photographed Christchurch several times before so I wasn't really inclined to pick up the camera yet, but I will. And Kaikoura and Picton and Wellington and then through Australia, I promise. That will make for awesome pictures.
Now I want some pizza or something.
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| hell yes |
[15 Nov 2008|05:41am] |
There are many awesome things about being in New Zealand. New socks, for example, that don't have holes in the heels. The sun rising and setting every day. Tasty cheese. Fresh milk. Strawberries. Walking around barefoot on grass. Not walking down a hallway to use the bathroom. Diet soda. Beer that isn't Monteith's Black. Convenience stores. Burgers that don't taste like horsemeat. Bookstores, even at the incredible wallet-raping expense of purchasing any new book in this country. Flowers that aren't plastic. Showers that go on and on and on. (And on.) Your feet aching a little from all the extra walking you're doing. Your legs really aching from being on a horse again. Playing with dogs. Riding in vehicles and watching the world flying past at slightly disturbing speed. Planning to go to Australia because, what the hell, it's not that expensive. Making phone calls without that annoying satellite time delay. Having internet access every minute of the day.
Oh, and sex. Sex is pretty nice too. Thank you, New Zealand, I appreciated that.
(Before anyone asks: no, it wasn't him. Female. Didn't winter with me. Much healthier, really. *g*)
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| the end |
[14 Nov 2008|04:25am] |
I left Pole on Monday.
It's a good thing when the new people invade. It makes the place uncomfortable, it makes it not-yours anymore. Not-home. It isn't hard to go. It's especially like that when you don't leave with the first groups. You want to get the fuck out so badly when most of your winterover family is gone, when it's almost two hundred summer people walking everywhere and being bright and cheerful and eager. You light up every time you see another winterover in the station; both of you exchange the biggest smiles and probably the warmest (sober) receptions you've given each other all year. I didn't know any of the summer people enough that I was very thrilled to see them. It was all about feeling like I needed to get away.
( last pictures from the Ice )
I was at South Pole for almost thirteen months. It's over.
It was a very good year.
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| watching |
[12 Nov 2008|06:56am] |
I have a whole long entry and pictures about leaving Pole. But for right now, I feel the need to post this because I wasn't exposed before, since Pole has no television. I wasn't involved with everything on election day. I haven't had television for over a year. I listened to NPR podcasts of the daily news, but it was always two days late and I didn't get the full effect.
Yesterday I was smoking in the 155 McMurdo lounge with Leah. McMurdo has a couple of live television channels. The BBC news was talking about the President-Elect going for a tour of the White House, and Leah and I were talking, and then the Obamas got out of a car and stood next to the Bushes and I went completely blank and stopped. I just stared. It was totally fucking amazing. Leah had been telling me about a BBC article she'd read, where the reporter wrote that he watched maybe fifteen Secret Service agents flood out and stare at everything and be completely alert to kill... while they surrounded two little black girls. I wish I had that article on hand. I loved it, the way Leah described it. I was silent and amazed and thrilled out of my mind when I watched that first bit of live footage with Barack Obama walking into the White House. It was.. well, fuck, I don't think I need to describe it. Y'all have probably had these moments already. I hadn't had them until this morning, and I keep turning them over in my head and being amazed and shocked and unreasonably happy.
I know that politics are always shaky and there isn't much difference between any politicians and the economy is a goddamn mess and... yeah, all of that, I know it, but I can't help feeling like I am coming back to a slightly better world than the one I left.
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| summer vermin |
[09 Nov 2008|05:26am] |
Yesterday afternoon I was sleeping, as we silly night workers are wont to do, when I was shaken awake by something that felt like a forklift ramming into the station pilings.
It wasn't. One of my neighbors was moving in and working on their furniture. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out which room it was -- sound echoes through the berthing hallways and the person didn't have their door open. I know this because, after my initial hope that they would fucking cut it out so I could fall back to sleep, I jumped furiously out of bed and went searching. And didn't find them. So I went back to my room and wrote this email to Beth, our station support manager in the summer.
Somebody has been hammering away at their goddamn furniture for the past half hour, and I am on night shift and they woke me up completely. If I could figure out where they are –- somewhere in A1, first or second floor, I can't tell -– then I wouldn't have to bother you, because I probably would have strangled the life out of them about twenty minutes ago.
Would you mind sending a noise reminder to the station? Thanks. I am sure the summer crew night shift would appreciate it if the idiots were corrected now. And I'd kind of like to finish my winter without attacking anyone. Things had gradually quieted down by then. I climbed back into bed, closed my eyes, and was just drifting off when the CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! of a person beating apart their bedframe came blasting through the walls, and I jerked upright and screamed, "OH MY GOD WILL YOU QUIT IT WITH THE MOTHERFUCKING HAMMERING!"
Dead silence. Ha.
Also, when I woke up later, I already had an emailed apology from the culprit. I believe this was a combination of Beth's omniscient summer power and a totally justified fear of winterovers.
Fucking right.
I leave in a day and a half.
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| still here |
[08 Nov 2008|04:40am] |
station population: 134
winterovers remaining: 32
I can't leave until: Monday
Tonight I did my last dual balloon launch with NOAA. Johan was training the two replacements for him and Amy, and another random guy had come down to take pictures. When the three of them followed Johan outside, Amy collapsed on the couch, grabbed my arm and moaned, "Sue, I can't handle the new people anymore."
I leaned against her in sympathy and said, "Dude, tomorrow? Eighty more of them are coming."
"Oh my god. They're so happy. They're so enthusiastic and happy to be here and they want to talk to me. And they stand around blocking my way and I want to stab them in the neck."
(For enhanced melodrama, imagine the voices of whispering French peasants who are being forced to billet the Nazis.)
I told her about how one of the new DA girls -- the one who's banging Adit; way to go, chickie, getting an early start on the season's whoring -- was wandering down the hallway drunk last night and POINTED A VIDEOCAMERA AT ME and demanded to know why I'd come to Antarctica. It took all of my self-control not to slap that camera to the floor and start choking a bitch.
Yesterday afternoon I had to get up at 2:30, right in the middle of my sleep cycle, and act as an observer for the turnover emergency response drill. (Thank god that Jill from last summer was doing my Medical Comms position so I had someone I could tolerate.) When I woke up, I looked at my clothes and thought, "Fuck it," and just went upstairs. Screw these people. If I'm not allowed to leave yet, then at least I can be comfortable. I plan to spend the next three days in my pajamas. People can give me all the weird looks they want.
I had one enjoyable moment in the middle of the drill debrief. Someone was talking about going into the incident area. I remembered one of our drills from this winter when Nate used the word "incursion" to describe Team 2 entering a building. I laughed my ass off when I heard that over the radio, because in my previous career, incursion has a very specific meaning. It was awesome to imagine our firefighters going inside and, rather than rescuing them, killing everyone in the building.
It's especially awesome to imagine that now.
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| drunken polies |
[07 Nov 2008|05:19am] |
Twenty-three of my fellow winterovers left yesterday. It was weird to wake up in the evening (I'm on nights now) and realize that I wouldn't be seeing them anywhere in the station. Obvious fact, yet still strange. Thankfully I should see almost everyone in Cheech when I finally get out.
Here are some pictures from a recent drunken evening after 2.0 was closed and the Summer Camp smoking lounge was opened. (It's an old Jamesway -- you can see the various crap scribbled on the fabric walls by past Polies.) Since I've been mentioning most of these fools over the past year, it should be slightly more interesting than the average group of drunken stranger pictures.
( most of these wankers will be in New Zealand tomorrow )
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| sweet money going to thailand |
[06 Nov 2008|12:15pm] |
HA! BFK won the touchdown lottery! :19 after the hour. As the Herc was coming in, my own minutes were so far off the possible time that I was scanning the numbers list and rooting like crazy for the people I hoped would win. So hilarious when it hit Kevin's! I ran out of Comms searching for him and saw him coming down the hallway from the galley -- he wasn't completely sure of his minute until I raised up the $3,000 stack of wrapped bills and yelled, "Yours, baby!" He yanked me into a huge hug, and then he tipped me $200 for organizing the whole thing.
Awesome. Everyone is giving him shit but it's good-natured. That's a perfect way to cap off four consecutive winters.
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| waiting game |
[06 Nov 2008|05:13am] |
Apparently I am now leaving on the 10th (Monday) and flying to Christchurch on the 11th. That isn't too bad. I will believe it when I see it at this point, though. A bunch of people are going to be out today since the weather is good. I hope the weather holds next week.
Todd finally downloaded his camera for the first time since last summer. I like this picture of us.
( cute )
This one also makes me laugh because of the caption, because I am twelve. (We were throwing ping-pong balls around station for the first half of the winter.)
( fountain )
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| election day at south pole |
[05 Nov 2008|08:30am] |
This morning at breakfast:
Polie #1: Today's the election, isn't it?
(other Polies exchange uncertain glances.)
Polie #2: Umm... yes?
Polie #3: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Polie #1: Oh.
(a brief silence, then everyone goes back to discussing the flights.)
Literally the only mention I have heard in three days.
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| the sound of the all-call |
[05 Nov 2008|08:09am] |
Sigh. Now I don't actually have a departure date. Yesterday I was asked to stay because -- surprise! -- people finally noticed that Tim will be here alone with three fingees, two of whom are very challenging since my boss keeps hiring people who have not taken a weather observation before. This summer we have, like, a grad student who specialized in computer weather models and a TV weatherperson from Texas. So they aren't qualified to start work when they arrive and they require extensive training. At this point I'm so disgusted that I can't even get angry or irritated anymore. When they announced the first two flight cancellations this morning, Tim and Lance and I cheered out loud with deep, deep irony.
Last night in the smoking lounge I was carving NO JUSTICE NO PEACE into the bar with a knife and Debbie suggested that I add NO FLIGHTS, so I did.
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| misc turnover notes |
[03 Nov 2008|06:06am] |
We haven't gotten any more flights since the second one, a week ago. A combination of crew rest days and bad weather at various locations. Today we were supposed to get the third Basler and a Twin Otter, but the weather is absolute shit. I have less than a half-mile visibility right now. Lance and I were at morning coffee with Debbie, and I glanced up at the scroll and said, "Oooo, look at all those flights we won't be getting." They haven't officially cancelled yet but they will.
The beginning of summer is always like this. You can't guarantee that you will leave on your projected date. Two years ago, station opening was two weeks late. Last year the first Herc was weather-delayed for eight days. Therefore most of us do not get too excited in the days immediately before departure. It could, and probably will, change a lot.
The new people are still weird but we've adjusted somewhat to their presence. Last Thursday one of the new female dishwashers apparently tried to make some kind of speech during Paul's going-away party in the smoking lounge. That is both extremely brave and extremely stupid, trying to gather attention to yourself as a new person in a roomful of winterovers. Rule of thumb: unless they want to fuck you, they probably do not care about you at all. I was told that everyone was either ignoring her and calling for her to shut the hell up, except for Paul, who was so hammered that he was yelling, "Let her talk, she's got tits!" Hee.
.
A summer person hung signs in the galley and computer lab, telling Obama/Biden supporters to gather outside by the pole on Sunday to take pictures and send them to the campaign. Someone else hung signs inviting McCain supporters to gather and get drunk.
Winterovers tore all of these signs down. It made me laugh. I thought it really showed one of the winterover differences that most summer people don't understand. Politics: don't go there. Just don't. Our community is tiny and we all have to live together, therefore people rarely get animated or confrontational about politics. (Often other people will derail the conversation on purpose if it starts to go there.) Then you add the fact that many of us have lived or travelled overseas for long enough that we sometimes have a slightly removed or cynical perspective about our country. It doesn't really make for political enthusiasm of any stripe.
.
The other day I was wandering in and out of Comms to keep an eye on the weather out their big windows. Beth and Shelly and one of the new Comms girls were looking at two people over by the IceCube drill camp, trying to figure out who they were. It was about three-quarters of a mile. I picked up the small binoculars and watched the two little figures for about five seconds, then put them down and told Beth, "They're not winterovers," and went back to work. I could almost have done it without the binocs. So easy to recognize each other. I will miss that.
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| thank you for your service, wankers |
[29 Oct 2008|11:16am] |
Last night we had our winterover ceremony in the galley. It wasn't too long, thankfully, because I don't think any of us are in the mood for big speeches right now. Two of the summer managers thanked us and then Katie handed out the Antarctica Service Medal stuff.
People on their first winter got the full medal (also with the chest ribbon that isn't shown on that page) while the rest of us got extra Wintered Over devices since you only get the medal once. Our most extreme people last night were Heidi (with five winters, she holds the Pole record for a woman) and six Pole winters for Barry, Steffen and Johan. Although Katie announced us by winters in general, so you heard most of the room react in shock when she said, "And finally, Johan with twelve winters." His total is split between McMurdo and Palmer and here. I got the gold device for my second winter -- one at McMurdo, one here.
Eh. I'd rather have a Wanker Medal if they were made.
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| adjusting |
[28 Oct 2008|08:21am] |
We got the second Basler flight yesterday, so we have 34 summer people on station. Damn. It seems like more, especially when they're fingees. Yesterday I was making tea while most of them sat in the galley; Jon had dish pit and he came out to put away glasses. We stood there whispering, "Dude, there's too many of them." Nate and I have both had people coming to hide in our offices.
It was kind of hilarious when the first flight came. After everything was done, about a third of us immediately retreated to the B3 lounge to drink. It had started with Robin and Siah and Adit hiding in a berthing room to calm their nerves with some beers, but more and more people kept joining until they had to relocate. The B3 lounge is the most distant from other socializing areas in the station -- it was totally a reclusive winterover lair on Sunday. Then we relocated again out to the smoking lounge in Summer Camp. (Oh, 2.0 got closed down last Monday because station management are assholes who don't care about giving winterovers a tiny space of our own during turnover. They suck. I miss my 2.0.)
I'm doing okay with my replacement, Tim, because he wintered last year so I know him from that turnover. It's weird to have our new guy Phillip in the office, though. He's very inquisitive -- which is natural, first time to Pole -- but it was difficult to talk to him for more than a few minutes yesterday. It's hard to engage with someone new. Jared came in to hide during the end of housemouse. He said the new winter station manager was standing around and looking at him while they waited for a mop or something, and it started to drive him crazy. "Stop looking at me, dammit!" I offered him one of my water pistols for the next time it happens.
In reference to this picture, I keep yelling at Jane to quit standing around like a penguin and get back to work.
Here are a few more pictures of the station opening displays.
( ninety south sale )
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| they are here |
[27 Oct 2008|11:57am] |
We have seventeen new people. Most of them aren't new-new because they are old hands returning, but still. They disturb me. I was telling Nate and Jane yesterday that I totally understand the impulse for small isolated communities to kill strangers. I don't want to kill our new people, but I do want to avoid looking at them and sidle rapidly away. This is after only eight months. It gives me a vague sense for how much it would fucking freak you out if you spent your entire life knowing everyone in your community and suddenly strangers appeared. It would be like they weren't really human.
Anyway. We'll adjust. I'm not down with the real hating-the-new-people vibe because, obviously, we couldn't leave if they didn't come.
Here is what greeted the new people yesterday. I'll have more pictures later because Weeks did something else, but this one is great. Jane hung it over the National Science Foundation banner attached to the skiway end of the station.
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| oh the places you'll go |
[26 Oct 2008|12:46pm] |
I just realized that I haven't written much about our travel plans when we leave. It's the near-constant topic of conversation now so I should probably share some of it.
The main redeployment dates to McMurdo are Nov 5th (20 people), 6th (10 people including me), and 8th (20 people). The 5th & 6th people have the same C-17 flight to New Zealand on the 7th, and the 8th people fly on the 10th. Most of us will be in Christchurch together for a little bit. That is the initial unwinding time. Ice people tend to gather at either Bailie's or Dux for first beers and food and celebration. YAY. There will also be shopping, spa trips, and a lot of dazed wandering around the Christchurch Botanic Gardens.
Other than the usual, my Cheech plans involve at least one day of horseback riding in the hills above Lyttelton Harbour. The company picks you up and returns you to Cathedral Square. I'm taking Nate and Todd along, and possibly Jane too because she and Sean will have a couple of days before they leave for Tonga.
People are scattering pretty quickly. I'm going off by myself for more horseback riding around the South Island; undecided on exactly where. Mandi is renting a house in New Brighton for a few days, two blocks from the beach, and people will be wandering in and out. Then there's the South Pole Navy, i.e. Josiah and Andy and JT and Debbie and Jeff and Todd and Jack and Jason and Mandi and Katie and probably others I am forgetting. They are renting two big yachts from Picton and going around the Marlborough Sounds for a week. Half of them are scuba diving from the boats as well.
I may be meeting Nate and Keith and others in Kaikoura where they are also scuba diving. I'll probably meet the Navy a day or two before they come off, because I can catch a ride with the dive company out to their boats. When the Navy disbands, I'm going up to Wellington with Debbie and JT for a few days. Before that we might hit the Golden Bay house that Robin and others are renting for a while.
Jared has also been on a campaign to make me go to Australia with him and Lance. They're driving from Sydney to Alice Springs. Damn, I would love to do that, although the timing may conflict with my Wellington trip. We'll see. I have been intending to just stick to New Zealand until I fly back to the States around December 1st, but I may abandon all plans and frugality to meet them in Tasmania when they come back from Alice Springs.
I may just go insane and keep travelling. It's very easy to do after a winter.
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| lottery and plane and FRESHIES |
[25 Oct 2008|01:24am] |
Today during lunch I sat there and yelled at people, "Give me your money!" And they did. I have almost a thousand dollars right now.
Okay, they didn't just give it up. I was collecting for the Herc lottery. Every year there is a lottery (sometimes more than one, with different betting amounts) for the minute that the first Herc lands. Here at Pole we use the Herc because almost none of us leave until that flight, so it's the real freedom bird. The Basler and the Twotter don't really count. Anyway, our pool costs $50 for a minute. You don't pick your minute and nobody has the same minute -- this week I will put 60 bingo balls into the spinning cage-thing and draw the random minute assignments for everyone. (Some people didn't want their minutes and other people are buying extras, so every minute will be taken.) This is a totally random lottery because you can never tell what part of the hour will be the Herc's landing time. We will use the pilot's announced landing time for impartiality, and the lucky winner goes on vacation with an extra $3,000. Nice.
Here are some more pictures from yesterday's Basler transit. It was supposed to return today with our first load of summer people, but bad weather at Mactown has delayed it. One more day of peace before the invasion.
Heidi and Torphy and Steffen took these. I was sleeping.
( basler sequence )
And here are the presents that our wonderful Canadian pilots brought for us.
( before the hordes attacked )
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