Today was the coldest day we had so far with -10C and -18C wind chill. The snow-storm yesterday continued on during the night and into the later morning and we have a lot of new snow on the ground. So pretty. The waiting games continues but since we are ANSMET we are experts in positivity and high spirits. We had a great Saturday evening yesterday at “Southern Exposure” playing shuffle board and table soccer, making new friends, chatting, and dancing. And so today we continue on our path and turned this Sunday into a Funday. The biggest and most exciting thing that happened today in McMurdo was the 10K Discovery Hut run. We had 2 ANSMET troopers in the game: Scott and James both braved the cold and icy winds and raced for ANSMET and themselves. Barbara and I volunteered at the water station to distribute warm water to all the runners during the race. All runners were in high spirits despite the cold and we had a blast wooing and cheering them all on, although we were totally biased towards our team members Scott and James 🙂 And they both did awesome. Scott finished the race with an impressive 11^th place (49 min) and James beat his own personal goal and came in 22^nd in 55 min. We are very proud of them both! By the time the last runner crossed the water distribution station though (1 hour 30min after the race had started) Barb and I had turned into icicles despite our ECW gear.

After the race we all warmed up while enjoying the legendary Sunday brunch. There was cheese (OMG real cheese!) and crackers, shrimps, gherkins, olives, grapes (OMG real fresh grapes!! -it is amazing how excited one can get over fresh fruit or lettuce here), homemade beignet, brownies, roast beef at a carving station, all sorts of cold cuts, and blueberry-banana smoothies (because we were not cold enough just yet), eggs made to order, and many other yummy things. SO GOOD!

Once we all had restored our energy and warmth we took off on foot to visit the Scott Base. Scott Base is the Antarctic station run by the New Zealanders (lovingly called Kiwi’s). Their station is only open to American’s on Sunday for 3 hours and on Thursday night for “American night” at their pub. We had a lovely hike up and over the hill to their base. The storm yesterday and last night has dusted everything in fresh snow and today’s nasty weather made for some wonderful and brain-tricking clouds and ice shadows. Nature is so beautiful, especially here in Antarctica.

Back in McMurdo station we attended the “Arts and Crafts Fair” run by our fellow Antarctic McMurdo residence showing off their talents. Everything was hand made from penguin and seal ornaments, to Shuttle-Bob t-shirts (Jani, we were thinking of you!), to drawings and wood carvings, to bags made of old Scott tents and cargo straps. It is really impressive how creative and talented some of the folks down here are. It was a wonderful experience and we happily supported the artists by getting some cool stuff like flags for skidoos.

Later Barb and I attended a Yoga-stretching class. The difference between Yoga in America and Yoga in Antarctica is that here in Antarctica you do Yoga under a wool blanket, so you don’t freeze. Fun, but I was still cold.

Hopefully this was our last Funday today. We are scheduled for and ready to deploy tomorrow. 6:45am is pick up time. Fingers crossed. It looks like bad weather is on its way again but there might be a small window in which we can fly out. Fingers crossed that the next blog will be from Shackleton Glacier Camp.

-Juliane from McMurdo Station, Dec 12^th, at 9:54pm

NOTE from rph:  Just to be clear, Juliane’s phrase  “…handmade from penguin and seal ornaments…” does not imply the ornaments were made from penguins and seals, nor did ANSMET members steal ornaments off the trees of these innocent creatures.  The Antarctic Treaty was not violated in any way during the generation of this post.