The next installment in my backlog of posts covers two days ago, when we finally deployed to the ice. After returning from Akaroa, we were a bit surprised to find that we were scheduled to fly out the next day. Previously there had been a group that was always trying (unsuccessfully) to fly out the day before us. But the groups were merged and we had a very crowded Airbus flight down to the ice.<\/p>\n
We got up at 4am to make it to the airport in time, and arrived in McMurdo in the early afternoon. Upon arrival we sat through a collection of orientation sessions that contained more information than I could process at the time. But we managed to get our rooms (not without complication, there were many mix-ups), get linens, get bags, and start—overwhelmedly—to settle in. Plus, many of us had our checked bags, except boomerang bag, never leave Christchurch. So, we got to live out of bags packed for an extra day in New Zealand, which turns out to not necessarily be suitable for Antarctica.<\/p>\n
Oh, and Antarctica is really cool!<\/p>\n\n\t\t