Monday, October 27, 2008

The Journey is now just my own...

So today is the day that my best friend left me all alone at the bottom of the earth! Damn him! Haha. As cool as it has been to experience this together it's probably best for both of our healths that he has gone. We've been going a thousand miles an hour ever since I got here. I am yet to have gotten a good nights sleep in 3 weeks since I've left the states. And let me tell you I am ready to get some sleep!

I am however starting to get into the swing of things. The food has been pretty good as of late. I have been able to get myself into some sort of routine which has been nice. I don't think I'll ever get use to this 6 days a week work thing. Sunday's are a Godsend though.

I just finished playing some volleyball tonight, it was good times. Our league started tonight and my team is undefeated! Go us! I am absolutely ready to take on this continent without the influence of alcohol in my system. Yesterday Anthony, myself and my roommates girlfriend Kim took a hike up Ob Hill (Observation Hill, pictures on shutterfly!). It was an absolutely gorgeous day, I couldn't have asked for better weather to take a hike. There was virtually no wind until we got to the top of the hill. Next time I will definitely get some snow grips for the boots because that was definitely a challenge.

I know I've said it numerous times already but the scenery here is absolutely breathtaking, now it could be the altitude but I think it's more than that. I'm proud of the pictures that I have taken but they honestly do not do this place justice. I'm not turning into a tree hugging hippie by any means but we definitely need to try our best to preserve this world that we live in. There is so much beauty that is out there to be seen and we can't be so selfish to not leave it behind for those that come after us.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to get my love to ever come down here but I can't wait to see the world with her and to share these beautiful sights with her. It's funny to me to hear some of the people down here talk. We had to watch this God (that better?) awful movie last night at the science lecture called "Ice People." Please do not waste your time watching this or thinking that this is what it's like. They really ignored all of the people who work down here at the bases and focused on about 5 people who are out at a field camp. To get back to my original thought though...

I hear people down here talk about how this is just a job. The discussion came up about the movie and somebody tried to say that the movie "sucked" because they didn't show that it's like any other job. To which I basically told him he was retarded. Yes it is a job down here but it is nothing like the regular world back home. There is virtually no privacy or alone time down here unless you hike really far out with nobody else. And it's not like we can pick up and go wherever we want whenever we want. Every time we want to leave we have to check in with the firehouse. Not that that is a bad thing. It's really good because there are no cell phones, if you have an emergency and no one knows where you are you are dead. And that's really the shocking thing about some people's comments down here. I don't think they realize they live on such a harsh continent.

I hope to have some pictures for you within the next couple of weeks that will absolutely blow your mind. They recently have discovered something out here really cool, I'm not going to give away what it is but the pics I've seen from some people who have already gone are amazing... Just something to wet your appetite! Anywho, that's all for now. Hope all is well at home with everyone. Please email me just to fill me in. It's tough to get updates without being close to home and I'd love to know what everyone else is up to as well.

Much Love,
D

Monday, October 20, 2008

Sleep Is Overrated!

So I've definitely come to the realization that sleep is definitely an overrated thing when it's daylight nearly 24 hours a day! It's been a crazy first full week down here on the ice. I'm getting into the grove of how things work down here. Unfortunately I haven't spent too much time outside yet (still going through all of the training), yet I'm eating like a pig because there is so much good food! The best of all of the food though are the desserts. Just as an example last night we had Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with marshmellows on top! And about the fourth night here we had smore pie! They are amazing, not as amazing as patricia's ice cream dessert but that's a tough one to top!

So where I was actually going with this tangent about food is the fact that I've been eating so damn much I've already gained like ten pounds and I've only been away from home for two weeks! I really need to exercise more for sure. One thing that has been really great however is there is a good number of half way decent volleyball players down here. One thing I'm really excited to say is there is a good chance I am the best player on an entire continent in the world! If not the best overall easily the best American!

It being Monday right now the week just started and I'm ready for it. I caught up on some sleep a little bit yesterday but not too much. Other than playing volleyball on Monday the rest of the week last week was pretty relaxed. It's nice to just get off of work talk to Noelle, go eat dinner and then hang out with friends. There are a lot of truly amazingly interesting people down here. I've learned how much of the world there truly is to see out there and how lucky I am to start my tour of continents off with this one!

It's quite amazing how you can go from pretty chill relaxed nights every night of the week to everyone you work with just going crazy on Saturday nights. People enjoy themselves every night but they really go out of their way to party hard on Saturday's. I stayed up until 4AM on Saturday night just hangning out with friends and enjoying the evening.

Yesterday Anthony, myself and a Kiwi named Neil made our way out to the airfields and my god was it amazing. To experience the extreme weather conditions that we did was awesome! I don't have any great photos of it because my battery in my camera died early but there are some you should check out! Don't worry however because I plan on making many more trips to the outer edges of the continent.

For the most part my blogs have done a lot of narrative of my time and activities here on the ice. I'm going to change that a little bit right now however.

I've read a lot of blogs where people talk about life altering experiences. I am definitely having mine right now! Being so separated from the life I was so use to living I'm able to step back a little bit and I'd like to give a little advice. You should try to always make some time for yourself each day to go and do something. Whether that be going to the movies or reading a book or just a walk. Something that lets your mind just clear. That's one thing that I really love about being down here. Every single day at one time or another I am alone with just my thoughts and the shear beauty of my surroundings. It's a time when I get to think of my friends and family and all of the wonderful things that you mean to my life. I get to just think about how lucky I am for my life to be the way it is. The peace of mind that it gives me is amazing, it makes me think that no matter what problems arise in my life I will be able to conquer them. I have lots of people that I can depend on and that love me. Anytime you are having a rough time just think about the good things. A lot of that I stole from an email I wrote to Noelle but I think it should hold true for everyone. I'm extremely thankful to have found her and to know that we are going to be able to take on this big bad world together.

I couldn't imagine going through the rest of my life without taking the time to appreciate the world that we all live in. Life down here is so simple and uncomplicated. I wish real life were like that but I know that it isn't. (Ok totally just had a Doogie Howser moment!). What I guess I'm trying to say is that make sure to enjoy the simple things in life because when you stop doing that, when you stop loving and you stop laughing you truly stop living... It's not human to be unhappy at times, it's not really normal. But you are cheating yourself if you're not happy most of the time. You're going to miss way too much if you are.

So I know I said in the last blog that this one was going to be shorter and I'm not sure that it really is. But maybe the next one will be a little shorter. In case it's hard to pull out the main point of this all what I'm trying to say is I'm having an amazing time down here. I couldn't be more in love than I am (with Noelle as well as everyone and everything in my life). This so far has been an amazing adventure and I can't wait for it to get even better!

Miss you all and love you all!
Danny!

It's Flippin Cold!

This will probably be the longest blog the whole time I'm here!

So I am officially in Antarctica. The Highest, Driest, Coldest, Windiest place on the planet. And to tell you the truth it's not all that bad. You may think that I am crazy but I'm really not. So far it has been absolutely amazing. I've been here for about 36 hours now and I'm having a blast.

But before I get really deep into life on Antarctica I'm going to finish out the rest of my time in Christchurch. Thursday morning we all got up early and had to be at the CDC. While we were there they told us that we weren't going to leave until Saturday and I thought to myself how great another day in New Zealand! After a quick little orientation everyone went into the dressing rooms and tried on all of the gear that was set aside for them. It somewhat reminded me of Christmas morning with all of the clothes that I got and had to try on. I ended up getting a lot of brand new stuff which was nice, and it is all really warm. So warm in fact that when I'm outside in sub zero temperatures I'm actually sweating!

After we tried everything on and decided what we were going to keep we left and went back to Christchurch. I kind of just enjoyed my time around the city and had a blast. I had a Greek kabob wrap for lunch which was absolutely delicious! At around 3 PM I met up with a couple of other people and we went to the art museum, the museum was a lot of fun there were some pretty cool exhibits. The only downside to the museum was the fact that I found out that we were no longer leaving on Saturday instead we had to leave the next day! :(

After the museum I went and bought some last minute items that I knew I had to have down here on the ice, CHOCOLATE! I went and bought some cadbury chocolate (don't worry it was cleared from having any of that tainted Chinese milk). Then I went back to the hotel and took a quick nap before meeting up with a big group of people and we went and had some Tai food. Which was really tasty!

After the Tai food the evening really kicked into high gear. We left there and went to Bailee's but we weren't really feeling it all too much so we quickly left and went to the bog. That bar was a lot of fun! They had a two man band, one played the fiddle and the other played guitar it was a really interesting mix but sounded pretty good. They played "What do you do with a drunken sailor" for like 20 minutes strait and all of us being drunk had a blast. After about an hour and a half we left to go to Micky Finn's bar. It's surprising how many Irish Pub's there are in New Zealand.

I will say that the band that was playing at Micky Finn's was probably the best cover band I've ever heard. They played what seemed to be a playlist taken strait off of my iPod. I love how much influence the U.S has on New Zealand. All of their television has some relation to it. My favorite part was watching the news and they were doing a special on San Francisco and said how they still have live sex shows in the city. Something I wasn't even aware of!

Anyways back to the trip, so after a long night of drinking we went back to the hotel and were supposed to be ready to go by 11:20 AM. That wasn't a problem, still a little screwed up with the time change I was wide awake at 8AM. Once I arrived at the CDC it was time to get changed into some ECW and get loaded on the flight. I kept thinking to myself that now this is really getting real! It took about 3 hours for everyone to change and watch some videos about the flight and get loaded onto the plane. We were supposed to take off around 3PM but the plane had some mechanical issues that had to be dealt with.

There was a really unnerving sound when I'm sitting in my seat with myiPod up loud and I hear one of the engines fall off of the plane and smash to the ground, I kept thinking "Oh dear god cancel our flight!" Well they didn't, they actually fixed the engine and we took off, I slept for nearly 3 hours of the 5 hour flight. And can I say that our military has done a great job of training our air force! My god it was probably the smoothest flight I've ever been on. Not the most comfortable considering it was on a huge military cargo plane and I was in a jumper seat! But it was cool.

So we finally landed in Antarctica and my god is it beautiful here. It's cold, but it's a breathtaking sight to see. I will figure out a way to upload a bunch of photos on a website and send the link so that everyone can see how great it is.

After landing we went strait to another orientation (I swear if I wasn't oriented by now there would definitely be something wrong!). By the time the orientation was over with it was time to grab our luggage and bedding and go to sleep, because at 8AM it was time to take a dirt tour around the base. And immediately after that I went to my first day of work!

The dirt tour was kind of pointless because there was about 100 people and it was tough to hear what the tour guide was saying. I then went to meet with my boss, I will be working in the supply warehouse for the VMF department which is the heavy machine shop. It seems like it will be a fast moving job and should be a lot of fun. I'll get to drive all over base picking up and bringing back supplies! My immediate supervisor is really cool and she let me off early considering I had just flown in the night before.

The food down here is actually really good. It's just about brunch time so I'm going to wrap this us pretty soon. After I got off of work I went and showered and got ready for dinner. I had a burrito in Antarctica! Not as good as the ones in SD but that pretty much goes for everywhere. After dinner I took a little nap and then went out for a night of dancing with Anthony and a bunch of other people that I've met down here. The bars are really funny down here, it's great because nobody is really a good dancer at all yet everyone still dances. There doesn't seem to be that shyness that you experience as bars back home. The music isn't the greatest but I am in Antarctica!

It is really dry down here though and my eyes have been feeling the pain! I hit a wall at about 11:30 and went to sleep and I slept strait through until about 9 AM. I went down to the galley and grabbed some hot chocolate and here I have been writing this blog. So far this has been an amazing experience.

Much love to everyone I miss you all!

~Danny

Live From New Zealand!

Hello from Christchurch everyone! Can I just start this blog by saying that I love this country! It is absolutely beautiful here and everyone is very nice and they just seem happy. I'm extremely happy to say that I am getting at least one extra day here before I go down to the ice. The weather at McMurdo Station is has been very unpredictable and has caused many flights in to be canceled and a few have had to "boomerang" back to Christchurch. It has been a very good trip so far. I was able to spend two great days with Noelle in Denver before she went home and I flew to New Zealand.

Surprisingly enough the flight from LAX to Aukland wasn't too bad. I was on a Qantas aircraft and I must say that the experience exceeded my expectations. The crew on the aircraft was very nice and the food wasn't all that bad. We took off at 9:05 PM on Oct. 6 in Los Angeles and landed at 5:45 AM on Oct. 8. It was only a 12 hour flight but like Marty McFly I went Back to the Future! I was able to stay up on the flight just long enough to eat dinner at around 11:30, finished watching "Get Smart" took my sleeping pills and woke up at 4:30 in the morning. From there I took my first trip ever through customs and got my first stamp in my passport! For me it was a very quick and very painless experience. However, there was a kid in our group who was not so lucky. As he was claiming his baggage he was flagged by a drug dog and was taken back and searched for about half an hour. He didn't have anything on him and when the customs agents finally figured that out they told him to get the "fuck out" of their office. Poor kid's only 20 years old.

After landing in Aukland we took a short flight to Christchurch and got to the hotel at around 11:30 AM NZ time. I am staying at the Camelot Cathedral Hotel in Cathedral Square. It's a huge room, but by no means is it like staying at the marriot. I wasn't able to check into my room right away because the rooms still had people in them that should have been on the ice about 4 days ago. So I went to the library and tried to get on my email which yahoo has seemed to deleted temporarily. still working on getting it fixed. Then i walked around town with some of the great people I have met down here and experienced the beauty of the city. At around 1:30 I went to a bar called the Stock X Change. It's an interesting bar with some really good food. I had Two Bangers and Chunky Fries which were great. I also had a local beer called Tui which is a really great beer.

After lunch I finally got into my room around 2:45 PM and took a quick shower and came to the realization that I was one of the only ones who didn't check into their room and go to sleep for the rest of the day. I was able to find a handful of people at a bar called Dux de Lux which has their own line of beers. For the first time in my life I had a Ginger Beer called Ginger Tom. It sounds odd but it has a really good flavor. And from there the party really started!

Myself and 4 other guys went on a rampage through town. We went from Dux de Lux to Bailees to Sullivans and finished up the evening with from Burger King. What I do find really odd about New Zealand is the fact that the population consists of Whites, Natives and a large population of Asians. But like I said earlier everyone is extremely nice.

This morning I went to the CDC (not the center for disease control, not sure what it stands for but it's where you get your ECW (extreme cold weather) gear.

For now that's about all I think I'm going to write, I will write again to tell everyone about the flight to Antarctica and to hopefully upload some photos for everyone to see!

I miss everyone much love!