24 hours on Ice
I landed 24 hours ago. It has been exciting and exhausting. It is difficult to describe this place. The surrounding area is beautiful, bright, white, flat, and mountainous. The town is large, industrial, metal. The people are friendly and fascinating. The weather is very cold.
The flight was excellent. Six hours in the cargo bay of a C-17, which is incredibly comfortable. I've never had four feet of leg room before. The cold weather (low around -30C, high around -20C) is surprisingly bearable because I'm not outside for long. I wear my regular winter pants (flannel-lined Carhartts) and a sweater and a jacket. I have a dorm room very much like college and a two minute walk to the office/lab and the dining hall.
The first section of core is supposed to be brought up soon and we'll start working on shortly after. This journal will turn a bit more science-y at that point. Until then I'll be attending briefings. Lots of briefings. And trainings too. Survival training has been re-scheduled toward the end of the month, so I'll be warm at night for the next few weeks.
I've posted some pictures online of the week in NZ and the flight down. If you are using RSS you can subscribe to the Antarctica photos 
or the feed for any future albums I might add . Bandwidth at McMurdo is limited, so I'm only uploading low quality images until I get back to a high speed connection.
