So long Antarctica!

Well time sure flies when you’re having fun. Cliché sure I know it! But it is true. I’ve been on the ice for 125 days now can you believe it? Tomorrow is my last day here and can I say how excited I am to leave and go to Italy?

Once again I have to somewhat start this blog off with an apology as to how long it has taken me to update you all once again. And quite honestly I don’t have a good excuse other than the truth. Until the last week or so nothing all too new and exciting has occurred.

There was however an event that made international news down here. The event I am speaking of was a Jello Wrestling party in one of the storage warehouses. Unfortunately the day after the event was held a handful of NSF bigwigs were taking a tour of the warehouses and came across the cleaned up venue. There was no Jello still around on the floors or any mess to speak of. What did tip them off was the fact that the mattresses used were strapped to pallets and still in the warehouse along with a food waste bin which was where all of the Jello had been thrown.

What really sucked about the whole situation was that a good friend ended up getting fired over it. In my opinion the only reason he was fired was because the NSF was already in hot water over the fact that numerous high ranking officials had recently been busted for surfing porn on their laptops and were fired for it. With $6 billion recently given to the NSF it would look bad if they allowed things of that nature to occur.

What was really funny about the whole fallout was the fact that the station manager went on to hold town meetings explaining his reasoning. Essentially what that caused were town bitch-fests at upper management. What really pissed a lot of people off down here was the fact that jello wrestling has occurred numerous times with no more than a slap on the wrist as punishment. No station supplies were used and nothing was damaged. So firing the employee for no good reason really pissed off a lot of people down here.

After that happened there was only about a week or so until the Vessel arrived. That was actually a lot of fun. I was moved to nightshift for the offload and we had to work twelve-hour days. The offload went very quickly and definitely helped to speed my time up. Tonight is my last full night of debauchery down here (i.e. drinking lots of beer and whiskey) and I intend to have a blast. It snowed a lot today but the forecast is clear for tomorrow which I’m hopeful it is so I can get out of here on time and spend a few days in Christchurch with Anthony before heading off to Europe!

Some people are able to live this lifestyle, for them it works. For me it’s been a very exciting experiment to say the least. I have definitely valued my time down here and wouldn’t trade these experiences for anything. On that note I know for a fact that I couldn’t do this year after year. One thing that I cherish that is not possible in this life style is that of having a family and seeing your family regularly.

I am so incredibly excited to be going to Italy in less than a week and seeing my family and the love of my life! It’s been great corresponding with all of you back home while I have been down here. I plan to at least blog once from Italy so feel free to send some more emails. I will try to respond to all of your emails as soon as I can. It has been awfully business as of late and I’m sure it will be the same in Italy.

Much Love,
D