Nicole in front of the ECW gear that we receive at the CDC.

Yesterday was a whirlwind of a day – 30+ hours of traveling, getting to see everyone again for the first time since meeting at boot camp, having a wonderful dinner outside in the nice weather, and then enjoying some team bonding ending in a gelato merry-go-round. It was such a fun night and a great relaxing, unstructured day. An awesome start to ANSMET 2019.

Today was a bit different and quite jam packed already.We started with a team breakfast at the hotel and then took the shuttle to the CDC (the clothing distribution center) for some training with our group and others who will be traveling to the ice. We went through some logistics about flu shots and computers, and then watched some videos about life in Antarctica, the clothing we’ll wear and need, among other pertinent info – including lots of shots of cute penguins which, fingers crossed, we’ll see. Towards the end of the videos and the Q&A session that followed, Jim arrived making our group of six here in Christchurch complete! We then found out that there is a tiny chance we could deploy tonight(!) on an 11:00 flight, tomorrow morning, or Thursday morning.

Upon learning that, I got really anxious to get all my gear and was happy when we split up into rooms to get outfitted in all our ECW (extreme cold weather) gear. It was such an easy process as the team at the CDC had everything picked out and ready for us to try on. I am pretty tall, so I had some issues with pant sizes and glove sizes.Apparently I am medium mitten size, but an extra-large glove size due to some extra-large fingers. After lots of trying on different sizes of coats, boots, and mittens, all the girls packed our gear up and went to meet the boys who were finished as well.

Alex and Emilie in front of (I think!) a cork oak tree.

Cindy hanging loose in the Botanical Gardens.

Right now we are all resting up and packing our stuff into bags under the allowable 85 lb weight limit. I’m a little worried all the candy I brought will push me over the limit, so I may be lugging that with me in my carry-on bag. When we returned to the hotel we had a letter under our doors saying we are scheduled to deploy tomorrow morning, which means we have at least one more night in Christchurch.We’ll head to dinner and enjoy some more team bonding soon, and hopefully we’ll be out of here early tomorrow morning!

The girls in the rose garden taken with the creative eye of Alex.

–Posted by newbie Lauren who is crossing her fingers we get out tomorrow!