So if you don't know yet, I will be wintering over in Antarctica. I was offered the job a few months ago as long as I could pass the physical and psychological evaluation. The psych eval was a strange experience. It consisted of sitting in a room with about a dozen other winter over hopefuls taking the most ridiculous true/false test I have ever seen. There were all sorts of questions about hearing voices or whether or not you like to watch animals suffer, would you rather be an auto mechanic or a floral arranger, and other strange questions which made people laugh out loud. A few days later I had a one on one interview with a psychologist who read a series of questions to me which took less than ten minutes. Needless to say, I passed the psych eval. What surprised me was the number of people who didn't. Everything seemed good to go for winter, until my supervisor informed me that the dorm remodel job I was going to do got cancelled. It turns out not all of the materials made it onto the cargo ship. Oops. Now about 16 people were out of a job for winter, my supervisor included. Lucky for me he hooked me up with another job painting the inside of the helicopter hanger, then when that is done I will go back to the current remodel job I'm working on. So... crisis averted. Since I'm wintering over, I was allowed to take one week of R&R in New Zealand. The problem was, there were so many people leaving for the season who had priority over those of us on R&R, I kept getting bumped from my flight, which made it impossible to book a hotel. This problem was compounded by the fact the C-17 (the big cargo jet) was not flying due to the runway conditions. After five days of getting bumped from my flight, I finally boarded an LC-130 Hercules for an 8 hr flight to New Zealand. The 130's are a 1960's era cargo plane outfitted with skis and are very cramped inside. After arriving in Christchurch I spent the night at a hotel with a few other carpenters. We immediately went out to dinner to get any sort of fresh produce we could since it had been before Christmas the last time we had any. Mmm... salad. The next day I took a bus down to Akaroa and stayed at a farm hostle, then went hiking for a few days around the banks peninsula. It was absolutely amazing. There are a lot of sheep in New Zealand. Most of the peninsula was pasture with a few patches of forest reserve. The shoreline was incredible. After the hike I went back to Christchurch to find out every hotel was booked. I managed to find a scary boarding house with paper thin walls, stains on the floor, and crumbling plaster. There was also a note on the outside of my window informing residents to knock on it if no one answered the doorbell. I left early the next morning after waking up to my neighbor coughing up a lung. I was able to find a room at a very nice backpacker hostle and spent the day getting supplies for winter, mostly Scotch. This morning I got on the C-17 for a 5 hr flight back to Antarctica and here I am, ready to spend the next six months in the Antarctic winter.
