Condition One

In case anyone was starting to worry, I had my arms checked out.  From what I am told, a thoracic artery in my shoulder or something like that is causing my hand-numbing issue.  It is not carpal tunnel syndrome, but I am told it has similar symptoms.  I have been wearing wrist splints when not working to keep my wrists in the 'neutral position' and taking it easy and I think my wrists are starting to get better.  At least I no longer wake up in the middle of the night with my hands burning.

Saturday I finally saw a Condition One.  In Condition One you are not allowed out of any building.  This ended during breakfast, so we were all able to get to work on time.  At one point I had an appointment with the physical therapist to take a look at my hands, and when that was over it was Condition One again, so I was stranded in McMurdo General Hospital for an hour or so with several doctors and a trumpet-playing dentist.  

Upon arriving in the shop I discovered at some point during the previous evening someone had snuck in an entire stage for the bands playing later that evening.  Kind of surprising when it wasn't there when you left work the day before, and now there it is!  Saturday's tasking consisted of cleaning the place up to make it ready and safe for visitors.  All the large shop tools were powered off and covered.  One large table saw was covered in a small stage with railings for people to dance on at the party.  To hold drinks we(and by we I mean ME) had filled two large plastic troughs with clean white snow.   Later these were moved over to the shop via forklift and I assume someone carried them in by hand.  When I was cleaning up in the shop, I decided to think as if all the drunken party-goers were six-foot-tall toddlers who would get into everything and anything.  After work I wandered away for a while.  I did end up at the party, but can't really much of those next four hours other than wandering around talking to people.

Today several of my coworkers and I had Sea Ice training.  We showed up for an hour or so of classroom instruction which mainly just went over things we already learned in a previous class, but then we loaded up into a Hagglund, a two-compartment treaded vehicle, and rode for the next hour or so along bumpy ice roads.  I can't remember much of the trip, since the windows would ice over on the inside so we could not see out and then it was dull enough that people were napping for the first portion of the trip.  The compartments are heated, but cramped.  Especially when everyone is required to travel with their Extreme Cold Weather gear which takes up space.

The Sea Ice training course teaches you how to identify safe ice to travel over in the field.  Aircraft usually land on six feet of ice, I believe.  Most vehicle travel needs to be over at least 30 inches thick.  When you drive across the ice, you need to stop and check the ice depth along any large cracks you come across.  The first we saw was where the older, multi-year ice (ice that has been around for several years) met the first-year ice (ice that formed within the last year).  You could identify this because of a noticeable shelf in the miles and miles of ice.  It was only an inch or so drop, but when you dig down into the snow there is a difference in the depth of snow over each part of ice.  The ice itself varies in depth between the two fields.  For the experience we had drilled two holes, one on either side of the shelf.  We started with a hand-crank auger, which took quite a while because our instructor had thought it was the brand that was the counter-clockwise turning abomination, and whenever I tried to point this out to the girl who had the first turn on it, she kept on turning the drill the wrong way which did not get us very far.  Eventually we (and by we I mean SHE) figured it out and got it working, and we switched out as we drilled through the ice, one person leaning on the auger handle to push it down while someone else turned the crank.  After showing us how it was done by hand, out instructor pulled out a small powered motor as we started drilling through much faster.

As you drill the ice shavings come out like snow-cone ice.  We tasted this, which was sea ice, and it had a slight salty taste to it.  When you get down lower to the water, the ice shavings come up more damp up like a blended drink.  We tasted this too, and it was a lot more salty.  Now we just need the tequila and lime.  Eventually you break through to the sea water below and it burbles up through your hole. 

Normally you drill several holes along a line across a break in the ice.  Vehicles are allowed to travel over ice thinner than 30inches so long as the distance of the too-thin ice is 1/3 the length of your vehicle track/tire.  Or some nonsense like that.  

I finally saw some animals today! (live ones, not like the stuffed penguins in the Crary Labs) From where we were the seals looked like small little wriggly black things in the distance.  You are not allowed to interfere with the animals here, so we had to steer clear, though if you do see seals that is an indicator that there is thinner ice over there, since they chew their way through and just lie about all day.

I got plenty of photos in the several hours we were out there, some of which I will upload later on.

Party like its 11:29

So last Saturday there was a small party in the Ghallager's bar.  Open-Mic until 10 or 11, and then live DJs until dawn! (or at least until the DJs got bored, which apparently happened when the place emptied around 3am).  Its all BYOB, which makes things a little boring if you don't have a stockpile in your room or don't want to bring anything down.  Not to mention the bar itself isn't open until staff comes down with mainbody next week or so.  Anyways, it wasn't too bad.  My preferred style of dance appears to involve a lot of jumping about and moving around.  I dare anyone to say they got a better workout than me that night.

This upcoming Saturday is the Carpentry Shop party.  We'll have a few live bands and then one of my coworkers will DJ the rest of the night (he was one of the DJs at last week's party).  I guess drinks will be on the Carp Shop since we're being asked to pitch in $20 each.  It should be interesting, as nothing says "PARTY ON!" like a buncha drunk people in a shop full of dangerous power tools (we'll probably lockout-tagout everything, though).

I've been working on various projects in the shop when not clearing snow.  The other day I made 96 'dead-men'.  These are wooden snow anchors for tents made out of a 2x4x20 length of lumber with a 7' rope looped through it.  You bury the wood in the snow and tie your tent down to the rope.  The other day I was asked to make three keychains for our shop trucks.  These were to be small wooden fish to attack the keys too.  Someone else ended up making keychains out of chunks of wood, so apparently my fish project has been canceled.  I've been working on them anyways, since I already cut and sanded the fish, I might as well keep them for personal recreational use!

Otherwise not a lot else has been going on.  It would appear my body isn't used to this kind of physical labor yet.  Lately I've been waking up in the middle of the night with my hand(s) on fire with pins and needles, as if the circulation in my arm was cut off, my hand started to go to sleep and then suddenly caught fire.  This is accompanied by a pain that extends from my wrist up to my armpit.  Usually this is just in the right arm.  Someone else said they had this happen to them the other year when they were a janitor.  They were given a routine of stretches to do, which I have started in hopes to treat this.  After I have been up a while the burning is gone, but my right hand and arm are usually a little inflamed, my hand has a somewhat numb feeling to it and two or three fingertips usually are just outright numb.  I also can't close my fingers completely, I guess a side-effect of the inflammation.  Sometimes when I start to use my left side more to compensate my left hand and arm get a similar but less intense experience.  Hopefully my body will adjust soon and this will all go away.  Ah well.  Since it seems to just be from not being used to the work, it should go away at some point.

I also picked up some Super Glue for 'medicinal purposes'.  Antarctica is a dry place.  Combine that with the fact they want you to wash your hands religiously to prevent the spread of germs and you're looking at a lot of hands that are as rough ad sandpaper and fingertips that split.  I used the glue on some of these splits on my fingers.  Works much better than that liquid skin stuff.

Kiwi Town

So last night was American Night at Scott Base.  Scott Base is the New Zealand base just on the other side of the hill from McMurdo.  Their base is much smaller, and all of their buildings are the same mint-green color.  Apparently the designer was fond of Welsh farmlands or something, all that green pasture with white houses, so he inverted that scheme.  I also heard that was the favorite color of someone.  Anyways, the shuttle ride over took only a few minutes.  Normally Americans are not allowed on Scott Base unless they have an invite, except to use the store.  I guess American Night is one such 'invited' night, held every Thursday.  When I got there I hit their store first, bought a hat, a Scott base patch, and a couple plush animals for my nephews.  I decided to get my niece the penguin from the McMurdo store.  They have some nice things over there, but anything with possum fur was expensive.  

After that I hit the bar.  Its a decent-sized room with a pool table, a piano (with a stuffed Kiwi bird on it), and plenty of chairs.  Apparently since the Kiwis don't have tipping in their country, any money tossed into an upturned tambourine was turned into drink money.  If you ordered a drink while there was enough money in the till your drink was effectively paid for.  And thus I wound up having five drinks throughout the course of the evening without having to pay for any of them (though an auspicious combination of tambourine change, donated liquor and shot ski).  

Fortunately/unfortunately I did not get drunk, which was probably a good thing in hindsight given the experience with my roommate a week back.  I wound up tossing $5 US into the tambourine after I was done.  I stuck around for three hours before finally calling it a night, getting back on the shuttle and crawling into bed once I got back.

The interesting thing about the Kiwi base is that all their buildings are connected by short hallways, so they never really need to go outside.  It probably helps that their base is much, much smaller.  Also, their bathrooms were AMAZING.  Why can't we have nice things? (Oh yeah, NSF budget cuts due to rising fuel costs).

Today was another Condition 2.  It was COLD and WINDY and it did not help that I had to work on new office trailers, some of which were unheated while the rest of the time I was outside.  I wound up pulling on my nice, furry bomber hat which worked very nicely.  Somehow a task which should have taken the better part of the morning ended up taking all day, but it was five trailers, two people, and a lot of scratching our heads, but James and I were glad we got to work on something independently and without supervision.

Just to make things interesting, a crew in town was installing a new telephone pole a few feet from one of the trailers we were working on.  We had to made sure we cleared out by 10:30, as they were blasting through the permafrost underground.  We watched the event from the carpentry shop break room, but all we heard was a faint 'thud' with nothing to look at.  I guess the blankets made of truck tires takes the excitement out of it.

Not much else is happening, especially since I've been updating every couple of days now.  I hope you don't get spoiled and start expecting daily updates with new photos each time, though I do try and come up with something!

Jack Frost nipping at your ears

Today was interesting.  I got frostnip.  Apparently thats a stage prior to frostbite.  They keep telling everyone to watch everyone else outdoors for the signs, since it leads to frostbite.  Me and a couple coworkers were walking back from the shop down to the main building for dinner or what have you, and I realized I was still wearing my safety goggles.  I pulled them off and put them in my pockets, then touched my ears.  They felt like they still had something tucked behind them, like another pair of glasses or something.  I poked at my ears more and realized that they hurt, but also felt like they were made of plastic.  I asked my coworkers what color my ears were, and they said white.  Well, we were only right outside the main building, so I just went inside where it was warm, went to my room, pulled off my coat and then held my hands over my ears until they thawed a bit.  They were beet red for a while later, but are fine now.  I'll remember to wear a hat from now on, or at least when my ears start to hurt.  We used to walk to school in the snow and wind in Virginia, and they used to hurt like that, but I didn't think how my ears felt today was anywhere near as bad.  Anyways, frostnip you can easily recover from, you just need to get your body parts warm once they start turning white.  The ironic part is we just got done with a four hour lecture on outdoor survival and environment-related injuries.

Otherwise, things are going well.  I spent four hours today shoveling the 'Goat Path'.  Its a treacherous path up the side of a hill to the carpenter shop, a kind of shortcut carved into the snow.  Well, it used to have steps but over time they wore down from use and piled over with later snow, so they were a mess and I never felt safe on them until I started wearing StabilIcers everywhere.  Those are a rubber sole with metal cleats you strap to the bottom of a shoe, and they are awesome.  I used to walk slowly on the ice so I wouldn't hit a bad spot and slip, but after wearing the StabilIcers the first time, I subconsciously started walking MUCH faster without realizing it.  They're great, unless you accidently wear them into the main building.  The floor in there is like those garage floor kits you pour down, and the metal cleats make you slide across those like you were wearing ice skates.  Well, I had spent half the day repairing the path and making new steps where I could.  Everyone said that they liked it and that it was much better than what they had, which was probably borderline dangerous and nearly resembled an ice slide.

The seal research things we were assembling were mostly completed yesterday, which was good.  The seal researchers managed to grab a seal and bring it down.  Apparently they caught the sucker up north and were driving it down in something, so they were rushing to get the seal corral up and functional.  Kind of funny, I did not realize they would be catching seals elsewhere and bringing them in, I thought they were expected to pop up unknowingly into the dive shack where they get grabbed.

I was rather warm today.  I think the Cabela's thermal underwear I have might be a little too thick.  I'll switch back to the Under Armor thermals tomorrow.  I might need to wash them too.  I wore them for over a week and since we're urged not to shower every day things can get a bit pungent.  My Rei wool hiking socks are great, though.  I can wear just my insulated work books with them and not have cold toes unless my toes are pressing against the steel toe, like they do when I kneel in them.  All of my Outdoor Research gear I've had for the last several years has been working great, though.  The silly sherpa hat keeps the cold off my ears and the insulated cover for my water bottle has been keeping things from freezing.  The jacket is fine when you wear enough layers under, but on its own isn't enough to wear on its own on really cold/windy days.

We Can Dance if We Want to.

Well today was a fun day.  Nine hours of work outdoors.  Maybe it was only eight, since we had another safety meeting.  Wasn't all that bad, though.  I dress in enough layers most of the time to be very warm indoors, but comfortable when outside.  And it was COLD out there today.  We were assembling a little portable structure out on the sea ice for seal research.  Apparently there is a hole in the floor of the shack down into the ice.  When the seals come up for air, the scientists 'enlist their aid' in scientific research.  I've met the seal researchers already, they were in my hotel in Christchurch.  Nice bunch, though I think all the Grantees down here stick to themselves.  Or maybe I just don't know where they hang out.  

Anyways, we spent the day out in the open on the ice in the winds.  At one point we even had it start snowing on all of us.  Someone left their tool bag open, and now it is full of powder.  First we put down the floor of the shack, then the skeletal frame which was a row of arches, then over that went the blankets.  There are doors in either end and dormers in spots, and there is a heater in it so it should be warm tomorrow when we go back.

I had enough layers to keep warm.  The only time I had any issues were when I would kneel in the snow, and the cold would get into my the toes of my boots (I assume the steel toes didn't help any) and my toes would just be a little chilled.  Also, with my parka closed up around my face to block the wind I have the material right up against my mouth and nose.  There is a furry strip along the inside.  When you exhale into something like that down here, the moisture in your breath collects as frost.  It didn't freeze my face, but the sensation of having that frost occasionally rub my face was interesting.  Also, when the wind would really pick up, it would bite through my gloves, leaving my pinkies very cold.  I had a little hand warmer packet in each of my gloves, over the backs of my hands.  That helps some.

Living down here isn't bad.  I'm in the central building, so I can easily wander down to the computer room in my pajamas, or go to breakfast without having to put on an annoying amount of warm clothing only to take it off again a few minute later.  My room is small.  Once mainbody starts, there will be four people in there.  Right now I am in an inside room, so there are no windows.  It can be dark.  There are several tv channels to watch down here.  We get recent movies too.  I saw Ironman again the other day (that makes three times now), Speed Racer was on yesterday, and tonight I watched Stardust which is an awesome movie.  I'll need to get that on DVD.  

There are gyms.  I think three.  The cardio gym is also called the 'Gerbil Gym' since it has all the treadmills.  I've started running again after two weeks of nothing.  Taking some retaining.  Friday I could barely get in a mile, but yesterday I managed two without having to rest as much as I did when I was running at 7,500 feet in Cascade, CO.  Hopefully my muscles will wake back up and I can go even longer.  

There are other places to go, too.  I picked up a book of a collection of Hugo winners at the library.  That is a small little room apparently crammed into some spare space they found in the main building.  You have to go all the way around the outside to get to a room just on the other side of the kitchens.  I have not been to them yet, but there are also bars and a bowling alley.  Thursday I'll have to try and catch a ride to Scott Base for American Night.  Scott Base is the New Zealand base on the other side of the hill from us.  Americans are not allowed over there except to use the store or unless we have an invitation.  There are also several New Zealanders working in McMurdo through Raytheon.  We are allowed to use the store in Scott Base, so I might have to check out what they have.  I like anything with Kiwi birds on it.  I'll have to get my niece and nephews some plush kiwi toys next time I go through Christchurch.  

There is a store in McMurdo.  While they have a lot of things, I hear the clothing isn't the best, since its effectively just a gift shop.  Still, I like the orange hooded sweaters they have, so I might grab one.  They also have plush penguins and such which would make good gifts.  There is a post office so I can mail that sort of thing out too.

Enough for now, though, I forget everything I want to put down on here, and it is getting to be around 9:50pm and I am a bit tired from playing in the snow all day.

Supposedly the Aurora might be out tonight or tomorrow.  I'll try to catch it, since it might be one of the last times to see it for six months.  Maybe I can photograph it too!

I come from the land of the ice and snow.

Okay, so I've been in Antarctica for a week now.  I would have posted sooner, but I've been working 9 hour days and just vegetate most of the evenings.  We're 18 hours ahead here, so making phone calls back home requires very complex math (add 6 hours, subtract a day).  I'll get through to someone on a phone at some point.  Hopefully my calling cards aren't drained by then.

Here is a quick photo of the Windsor Bed and Breakfast hotel I stayed in.  It doesn't look like much, but apparently they have FORTY rooms.  On Monday, the day of our flight, we were to be on the shuttle to the Antarctic Center at the Christchurch airport by 4:15 or 4:30.  I actually got up before 3am because I was having some very strange dreams caused by a strong need to pee. So I just stayed up once I was up.  We piled into a couple of shuttles and were promptly...well, shuttled.

Here I am in the building of the Antarctic Center for the people actually flying down to Antarctica.  The Center itself is actually a tourist attraction, but I didn't see that section if we were even near it.  I am wearing all issued clothing here.  I should have gone with my original plan to dress in my street clothes with the required exterior Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear on over, but after watching several others pile on the long underwear and having one particularly bossy fellow traveller (who by the way has never been to Antarctica, but BRAGS about having been in Iraq) tell me to wear other stuff I ended up going along with the pack and piling on some of what was in the two bags.  I ended up being a little warm for the flight, but was fine once on the ground. 

Mid flight.  This is the passenger section in the front of the C-17 we flew down in.  The seats in the middle are on a large plate on a set of tracks in the floor like all the cargo.  When the plane got bumpy, the plates shift, so anyone there got a little more jostled.  I wound up sitting on the row along the left side, under a power outlet (which apparently I could have used, but never did).

In the photo above is a large wooden box stacked atop large rolls of a plastic material (fuel bladders, I heard).  My seat was lined up on the left of that last roll of plastic.  Despite having gotten up so early, I didn't get any sleep.  I talked with other passengers as well as you could in a cargo compartment that wasn't insulated for sound (I wound up wearing the earmuffs I brought with me the entire flight) and after a bit I watched a movie on my PSP with another coworker.  In the middle of the photo above are several people sitting on a short crate of science things playing Scrabble.

Here is one of my first views from the plane.  I don't know if that is part of Antarctica or not, as we were maybe halfway through the flight at that point.    We had plenty of views of snow and ice for quite a while.  Eventually we got told to buckle in for landing.  it is an interesting experience landing in a plane when you have no idea where the ground is.  I kept listening to the plane noises to give me some kind of hint as to when we would be getting close.  For an ice runway the landing at Pegasus was quite smooth.  Apparently Fleet Ops has been doing a kickass job at keeping the roads and such in good repair.

A photo taken through the filthy window of Ivan the Terra Bus.  There was a large greeting party outside the plane, which amused me.  One of the first things I immediately noticed about the Ross Sea was that we were on a massive flat area.  I think I heard that the ice runways are usually on SIX FEET of ICE.  Looking around it is just flat 'land' as far as you can see, with mountains containing the whole thing like a giant, flat valley.  It is all very surreal, but fun to just stare at.  McMurdo base is on the edge of the sea, so you can see all the way across in good weather.

A photo of McMurdo on a good day.   The place is like a small town.  There are several dormitories and plenty of shops.  I found out I was assigned to the Carpenter shop.  It has been an interesting place to work, and I like all but one of my coworkers (there are only a handful now, at least until Mainbody arrives in the summer).  Working in the Carpenter shop is good because we can access to tool and scrap lumber to work on craft projects in our spare time, and I've been told it is where you want to work if you want to get out because they do a lot of work setting up field camps.  I look forward to that, and taking the Happy Camper course which clear you to work outside of the main stations.  Happy Camper consists of 24 hours of roughing it in the wilderness.  You have to make shelters in the snow and then sleep in them.  You also have to pee in bottles, since the USAP does not like people 'leaving things behind', even if they've collected later.  Odd, since we're driving about in gas and diesel trucks and all sorts of stuff probably blows out of McMurdo in a strong wind.

I think I have adjusted fairly well to living down here.  One of the only problems I had was a bad headache on Thursday or Friday supposedly from not getting enough water.  I'm better now, though.  Also, the day we flew down I started having allergies on the plane, and by the end of the night my I was sneezing constantly and had all sorts of sinus pressure.  Great way to spend you first night in McMurdo.  But by the next morning I was fine.  I still have minor sinus problems, probably from all the dust in the stations and the sawdust in the carpenter shop, but it isn't bad.

A photo of McMurdo in Condition 2, taken from the carpenter shop.  It was actually bad enough at one point you couldn't see much beyond that first yellow container on the edge of the hill.  The whole carpenter shop would occasionally shake in the strong wind which blew up the fresh powder from the day before.  Normal days with no restrictions are Condition 3.  When the weather gets bad and you might not be allowed outside and might have trouble seeing is Condition 2.  Condition 1 is so bad they don't let you outside.  If Condition 1 hits, you stay indoors until it clears.  Supposedly they only had one of those so far this year.  

Work in the carpenter shop (Carp Shop as it gets called here) isn't bad.  I tend to do a lot of cleanup chores on my own since they are simple and I like keeping tool chests organized.  Some of the other guys in there like that too, since they now tools fit in the drawers AND they don't have to dig through a pile of things stored in the wrong drawers just to get what they need.  I was originally supposed to work with welders, but apparently Raytheon is going through budget cuts from the National Science Foundation so projects were canceled.  I guess since I was already cleared to work they decided to keep me and just put me where they needed me.  Since I'm down here for Winfly/Springfly we do a lot to open the research camps.  One of the projects we've been working on is for the camp that studies the seals.  We have been repairing older boxes for containing seals for observation.  Yesterday I also helped stack on a pallet a plywood 'corral' for holding the seals.  I also shovel snow!  A lot of the snow is built up from over the winter and such, so you can't just use a snow shovel on it, normal shovels work better.  I enjoy shoveling snow so it isn't too bad and it is fun to dig around in some of the larger snow drifts outside buildings.

All in all it hasn't been too bad down here.  The worst I've had so far was when I was woken up just before midnight to the sound of my roommate drunkenly urinated on my shoes and wardrobe.  That has been worked out but I still put in for a roommate change since that is just not something anyone needs to experience.  

The cold hasn't been too much of a problem, just wear enough layers and you're fine.  My only problems with it are when the wind picks up.  That windchill is annoying, and can make need to cover your ears and nose.  Indoors are warm, and the workshop can be a little too warm with all the layers I wear up there.  Since I need to go in and out all the time I cant do much more than just take off my jacket.  Quick trips outside I can go without my coat for too long, and can sometimes walk from the 155 building which houses some dorms, the store, the computer labs, the cafeteria and other central offices to the 191 carpenter shop without gloves or a hat on.  Otherwise I guess I'm enjoying myself so far, and I may be eating just a little too much in the cafeteria which has so had pretty decent food.  

I'll start uploading some photos, but maybe not too many at once due to bandwidth sharing and restrictions, and I'll start posting more on here whenever I have time!

With a run skip around we go yes

So, I'm in New Zealand!  But before that:

We spent two in a have days in training/orientation.  This mainly consisted of OSHA laws and learning about the company and what to do/not do.  It was a little slow most of the time and while I managed to stay wake through everything, I don't quite remember it of all (you can either have me awake or remembering).  Lunch was usually provided by the company (the same thing every day) and then evenings were spent dining at the hotel.  I really liked the Staybridge Suites in Park Meadows.  They provide dinner Tuesday though Thursday with free beer and wine!  Altogether not that bad.

After the last few hours of training on Thursday we went outside to load into the busses.  They had one large charter bus to shuttle everyone to the airport.  Unfortunately, when they figured in shuttling 50 passengers they had forgotten to account for fifty people's worth of luggage for a six month stay in Antarctica.  The luggage compartment was full (it was amusing watching people walk around to the other side, expecting the compartment there to be magically empty, and as they started to cram things in there it would push things out on the other end.  Eventually everyone realized they would need to send the bus back for more, so the people with luggage already on the bus left, and we waited.  The company was nice enough to go for pizza, though their "Back in 20 minutes with pizza!" turned into "Back in an hour with pizza!"  Then it turned out to be Pizza Hut, and not even thin crust.  I guess there wasn't a Blackjack in range.  Still, you can't beat free lunch.  Once the shuttle came back (much, MUCH later) we piled in and rode over to Denver International Airport.  I got through security screening surprisingly quickly, considering what I had packed.  Even though we arrived there over an hour after the first group we were still several hours early for our flight.  Probably a good thing were scheduled to head to the airport at noon for a 5pm flight, huh?

The trip to Los Angeles on American Airlines was uneventful.  Free drinks and pay-for snacks, and the pilot didn't even notify us when we flew over the Grand Canyon.  We landed in LA, caught a small airport shuttle over to the international terminal and after a wait we loaded into the Quantas plane.  It has been a while since I've been on a plane of that size for that length of a trip, and I must say the plane was very nice.  The seats were okay, I would have liked more legroom or the ability to recline, but upgrading to business class apparently would have cost $4,000.  SO I resigned to my seat, watching Ironman and the latest Indiana Jones movies on the on-demand setup built into the seats.  Everyone had their own personal TV screen with a remove in the armrest.  We could queue up movies, television shows, CD playlists or even simple video games (I gave up on mini golf rather quickly).  After we had been sitting on the in the terminal for a while, it occurred to me we were still in LA.  Then the plane took off.  Every so often I would check the channel that showed the flight's progress across the ocean, but most of the time I watched a movie or slept.

Then we arrived in New Zealand!  At first look it isn't too different.  Maybe all airports look alike.  The first thing I did was say 'Hello' to every employee I past, listening to all their accents.  It was a full day before anyone actually said G'day to me!  I exchanged currency and got my New Zealand dollars, little bills with windows in them that felt distinctively different from the US tender.  More waiting.  I hung out with someone else flying with me, and watched a lost little girl run back and forth along the terminal on her own.  I reported that to a couple of men in uniform who said there were with the fire department or something like that at the airport.  Walking from the International Terminal to the Domestic terminal at Auckland airport I noticed how chilly it was.  Later on when I was back outside, it seemed to be getting colder even though the sun was coming up.  I watched some television at the gate, it was confusing whenever they would use a term I didn't understand, but it was interesting otherwise.

We loaded onto the third flight of the day.  About as large an aircraft as the AA Denver-LA fight, but with another row of seats.  Luckily the two rows behind me were empty and me and one of the grantees jumped back to claim window seats.  I got a lot of photos of the land.  I never realized that New Zealand had so many mountains.  I'll also say this: Quantas is the BEST airline I have ever been on.  The seats all still have radios built into them (something it seems like flights in the United States phased out about a decade ago).  The flight crew was very courteous, and the free portion of the meal for the flight (which was SHORTER than the Denver-LA flight) consisted of coffee, tea, juice, or water and a croissant filled with cheese, ham, and tomato, and an apple.  You could pay for soda, which I did no need.  I have started enjoying having tea everywhere.  

We landed in Christchurch.  Again, an airport is an airport.  We loaded our luggage into our respective hotel shuttles and took off (metaphorically, we're done with planes again until tomorrow).  I wished I was sitting in the front passenger seat in the shuttle van, if just to experience life in the from of a car from the left side without driving.  The road system seems a little more fast-paced over here.  Or maybe its just a busy part of town.  The houses along the roads have are not too different from houses in the States, but they do still have unique touches I can't quite place.  My hotel is the Windsor Bed & Breakfast in Christchurch near the main square in town.  It is a very nice little hotel with a very friendly hostess.  When I call it a little hotel, I mean how it appears from the outside.  It had never occurred to me that the building was so huge!  Very nice little place, even if I don't have a private bathroom.  They have a dining room for breakfast every morning and a lounge where I am sitting now.  They also have a somewhat long dachshund who watched me eat the spuds and mushrooms bought from the square when I got back later that day.  I walked through town the other day.  I had a conversation with a very friendly man who just started talking to me while I was waiting for a light.  I managed to pick up a copy of Spore with has so far worked without flaw on my computer (luck, since I won't be back in the States for six months).  It is interesting how many Asians I saw on the streets.  There are also quite a few Asian businesses and Japanese restaurants are definitely more common than in the States, as there was almost one on every block.  I plan to go back to the OK Gift Shop later on and buy a little wooden Kiwi bird.  I assume it to be a Japanese store.  They sell gifts and noticeable stock of Japanese items, and there was a group of Japanese girls playing with gloves and giggling.  The store also carries wool socks made from possum, it seems.  They have a slogan proclaiming something along the lines of 'Buy socks, save a kiwi'.  Apparently possums are an invasive species that eats kiwis (I assume the bird). 

The whole city center of Christchurch has a feel that kind of think Japan would be like.  It is a lot of little stores, many times there will be TWO of the same store within just a few blocks of each other.  Some of them are just little counters in the wall of the city block.  I feel back for having given myself a haircut before I left the states, as I passed the shop for Bob the Barber.  Glancing in as I passed, he appeared to be a young man around my age with a young pregnant woman with him who I assumed to be his girlfriend or wife.  Maybe I'll go in and ask them to shorten me up more or trim my sideburns up a bit.

At some point I'll visit the Aquarium and Kiwi House, a small building with a gift shop in front.

Suspiciously Auspicious

So I drove the 60 or so miles to Denver (technically Littleton) to check into the hotel the company has set me up at during training.  I talked to the nice girl at the desk, and apparently they did not have me listed for a reservation.  I'll chalk that one up to me being a recent addition (I got my amended offer in the last TWO WEEKS) and that I only got my itinerary around Thursday last week.  She kept saying it was alright, that she could set me up in a room anyways.

This room surprises me.  It has a nice bedroom, a HUGE bathroom, a living room and a complete kitchen (though no oven, yes a dishwasher).  The Staybridge Suites in Park Meadows is very nice indeed.  There is even a small store in the lobby where I can buy food to make my own dinner, like spaghetti.

Lets hope that my training days go better.  I still don't know what I am doing tomorrow, or even when.  My only clue is that the shuttle for the company leaves at 7:00am, and that my itinerary for Wednesday lists that training begins that day at 7:30am.  It would have been nice if they were more thorough in putting together their 2-day orientation schedule (which really should be 3 or 4 days long to match my itineraries).

And they had better have made my plane reservations.

Ah, I just noticed that the bathtub in my shower has a fold-down wooden seat.