“Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be...Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before.”~~Erich Fromm
The last two days have been a whirlwind, but a good whirlwind. There’s been a lot of sitting, a lot of listening, a lot of meet and greet. But all the questions that have been running rampant in my mind for the past few months have finally been answered for the most part.
Saturday’s Orientation consisted of learning what you can and cannot do on the USAP’s (United States Antarctica Program) intranet network at McMurdo. You were told that anything and everything that was sent thru the USAP network became the property of the USAP while you were down there. Personal emails, blogs, anything that you posted within a social network could easily be followed or tracked if they felt there was a need to. While you were in Antarctica you were representing the USAP and therefore had to maintain a professional face to the outside world. We were required to take a class and then pass a test in order to qualify and be allowed to connect our laptops to the network down there.
I passed with flying colors!
We then met with finance and human resources and learned how to do our Labor Allocation Sheets (basically our time sheets so we could get a paycheck) as well as document any expenses that we could get reimbursed for. We were briefed on what options we had for medical and dental benefits. We were given our travel funds that would get us thru to New Zealand and then at the end of the day we were handed our travel documents and given a rather extensive presentation on exactly how we were going to get to McMurdo.
Our bags would be checked from Denver all the way to Auckland, NZ where we would have to pick them up and go thru Customs with them and then board a domestic flight to Christchurch. In Auckland we would also have to exchange all our travel funds to whatever the New Zealand currency was.
Once we flew to Christchurch, we would be taken to our hotel and have the rest of the day to ourselves. The next morning we were required to go to the CDC (Clothing Distribution Center) at the USAP Complex on our designated outfitting time to get fitted for our extreme cold weather gear. It was there that our expected departure time to the ice would be revealed to us.
Oh, the suspense!
The day we would officially fly to McMurdo we were supposed to arrive to the station around mid-afternoon sometime on the 14th. If the weather was good, we would land with no problem. If the weather was bad (and for the last few days it has been too cold and stormy for them to land) we would then do what was called “boomerang” and turn around and fly right back to Christchurch and wait the storm out. In Christchurch we would then be on call, waiting in suspense for them to say it was clear to try to fly again to McMurdo. If we made it to McMurdo, we would have a brief orientation there, get our housing arrangements and roommates, and then we would have the rest of the day to ourselves.
We were told to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate and get plenty of rest since we would be going thru multiple time zones as well as the International Date Line. By crossing the International Date Line, we would be losing a day. We would be flying on October 10th, but we would be landing in New Zealand on October 12th. October 11th would be gone.
October 11, 2011 would not exist for me.
Today’s orientation consisted of a presentation on environmental and safety concerns/hazards, serenaded by none other than the awesome 80’s one hit wonder, The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats:
And say
We can dance, we can dance
Everything's out of control
We can dance, we can dance
We're doing it from pole to pole
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody look at your hands
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody's taking the chance
its a Safety dance
Oh well its safe to dance
Yes it safe to dance
We can dance, we can dance
Everything's out of control
We can dance, we can dance
We're doing it from pole to pole
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody look at your hands
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody's taking the chance
its a Safety dance
Oh well its safe to dance
Yes it safe to dance
With our presentation over, we then boarded the complimentary shuttle and were trucked off to the Denver airport to board a flight to L.A.
And that is where you can currently find me. I am sitting here in L.A. on a six hour layover. We are supposed to board our flight to New Zealand at 11:59pm and off we go for the third leg of the journey.
I have to laugh a little bit as I reflect on all of this. There has been absolutely nothing about this journey that has gone normally or “easy,” by any means. I had thought for a brief moment that once I got into the hands of Raytheon and orientation got rolling, it would be a smooth ride from here on out.
Not exactly.
We had just gotten onto our shuttle to go to the airport when the woman who gave us all our travel documents yesterday boarded the shuttle with one last announcement.
An earthquake rating around 5.0 on the Richter scale had hit Christchurch last night and had done a bit of damage so the city was a little shook up. This was a pretty major concern for us because in February New Zealand had been hit with a massive earthquake (6.3) that had pretty much devastated downtown Christchurch. The damage was so bad that the city center was still closed to all public even now in October. Since then, the area has been hit with several pretty large tremors/aftershocks all summer long.
I have never been to Christchurch, but I was told that the economy has been hard hit due to the damage that occurred. Hotels are very expensive and far and few between. A lot of the buildings that have survived the quakes are slowly settling and crumbling apart and are not safe to be near. They’re upright, but many are leaning precariously toward other buildings or even collapsing with little notice.
We were told to be prepared for the possibility that we may be evacuated out of there if another earthquake occurred of such magnitude. It was advised to not necessarily walk around the city, but if we did, we were to take a backpack of spare clothes, money and other basic necessities in case we found ourselves stuck somewhere if another quake happened.
If that weren’t enough to think about, we were also told that Qantas Air had gone on strike last night. Qantas was the airline we were supposed to fly with out of L.A. to New Zealand. What that meant was that we might not fly or if we were able to get on another flight, our bags may not follow us until a few days later since they would be checked in Denver to Auckland.
With those promising words, we were wished a safe and successful journey and shipped out of there to the airport.
There is truth behind the words; flexibility is a key to success.
There are just some things that are out of our hands. You can’t get frustrated. All you can do is listen, nod, and move onto plan B. If we didn’t fly, we’d be put up in a hotel. I’ll admit, I wanted to be on my way to New Zealand and Antarctica more than anything, but I knew I’d get there when I got there. If my flight was cancelled, there was a reason I wasn’t supposed to go right away.
My time would come.
Until then I would settle for acquainting myself with the numerous people that were going to be a part of my experience at McMurdo.
I’ve only been here for two days and I already have a good feeling about things. Granted, we are still very much in the honey moon phase. Being an outdoor educator I am all too aware of the stages of group development. I know that there will come a time when our friendly, uncertain pretenses will fall away and we will see the true colors of ourselves presented to one another. This is not a bad thing. It’s simply that right now we are all consumed with this new experience and are eager to put our best foot forward.
That being said, I know that I am surrounded by unique, amazing people. My orientation group consisted of around 30 individuals that were coming from all walks of life across the globe. I found myself surrounded by 20 year veterans of the ice as well as people who were just as wide eyed as me.
The common theme behind every conversation consisted of three questions. 1) Where are/did you come from? 2) What will you be doing on the Ice? 3) How long have you been going down to the Ice?
When the response to the last question was 15-20 consecutive seasons, I found myself wanting to bow my head to these seasoned, wise veterans. They’d been going to Antarctica for decades, yet they were still there taking part in orientation and they were full of energy and enthusiasm. Just one look at them and you could see the quiet wisdom they exuded. I could only imagine the things they had experienced and seen. And they were all eager to take us young pups under their wings and show us the ropes.
I felt as though I were in good hands. Ages within the group ranged from mid-60’s to early 20’s. There were women and men that had just gone thru their second retirement and then made the decision to go to work in Antarctica “just because.” I met people who had been going down there for years and it was clearly obvious that they were people who were good at what they did, yet they had no need to boast of their accomplishments. It was obvious that it was more than just a job; it was a way of life for them.
It was inspiring.
If that weren’t enough to think about, we were also told that Qantas Air had gone on strike last night. Qantas was the airline we were supposed to fly with out of L.A. to New Zealand. What that meant was that we might not fly or if we were able to get on another flight, our bags may not follow us until a few days later since they would be checked in Denver to Auckland.
With those promising words, we were wished a safe and successful journey and shipped out of there to the airport.
There is truth behind the words; flexibility is a key to success.
There are just some things that are out of our hands. You can’t get frustrated. All you can do is listen, nod, and move onto plan B. If we didn’t fly, we’d be put up in a hotel. I’ll admit, I wanted to be on my way to New Zealand and Antarctica more than anything, but I knew I’d get there when I got there. If my flight was cancelled, there was a reason I wasn’t supposed to go right away.
My time would come.
Until then I would settle for acquainting myself with the numerous people that were going to be a part of my experience at McMurdo.
I’ve only been here for two days and I already have a good feeling about things. Granted, we are still very much in the honey moon phase. Being an outdoor educator I am all too aware of the stages of group development. I know that there will come a time when our friendly, uncertain pretenses will fall away and we will see the true colors of ourselves presented to one another. This is not a bad thing. It’s simply that right now we are all consumed with this new experience and are eager to put our best foot forward.
That being said, I know that I am surrounded by unique, amazing people. My orientation group consisted of around 30 individuals that were coming from all walks of life across the globe. I found myself surrounded by 20 year veterans of the ice as well as people who were just as wide eyed as me.
The common theme behind every conversation consisted of three questions. 1) Where are/did you come from? 2) What will you be doing on the Ice? 3) How long have you been going down to the Ice?
When the response to the last question was 15-20 consecutive seasons, I found myself wanting to bow my head to these seasoned, wise veterans. They’d been going to Antarctica for decades, yet they were still there taking part in orientation and they were full of energy and enthusiasm. Just one look at them and you could see the quiet wisdom they exuded. I could only imagine the things they had experienced and seen. And they were all eager to take us young pups under their wings and show us the ropes.
I felt as though I were in good hands. Ages within the group ranged from mid-60’s to early 20’s. There were women and men that had just gone thru their second retirement and then made the decision to go to work in Antarctica “just because.” I met people who had been going down there for years and it was clearly obvious that they were people who were good at what they did, yet they had no need to boast of their accomplishments. It was obvious that it was more than just a job; it was a way of life for them.
It was inspiring.
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