Last Day in Christchurch (I hope!)
Here is my plan for today from yesterday:
1) Try to sleep in until 7 am (11 am Pacific Daylight Time).
Not too far off. The 6:30 am earthquake woke me up.
2) Work on spill over items from my normal job that need to get done as soon as possible.
Made some progress
3) Ian will drop off his gear at 8:30.
Yep, and we sat with the rest of the team for a while.
4) Ride into town with Ian and get coffee and breakfast.
&Ian dropped me off before the bookstores opened, so I had a cappuccino and french toast with caramelized bananas and bacon. Yum!
5) Buy some used books to take with me.
I ended up with The Denniston Rose by Jenny Pattrick on recommendation from the woman who owns Liberty Books. She also told me where Smith’s Book Shop moved. The previous location is not in such good shape, thanks to the earthquake:
Luckily, Smith’s Book Shop had moved out of the building in April because it needed to be seismically retrofitted! It’s too bad they didn’t do it a year earlier. At Smith’s, I bought The Windeater by Keri Hulme and The Sum of Our Days by Isabel Allende. I now have an excellent selection of books!
6) Buy a good kettle to heat water with.
Ian and I failed at this. We found one that was too small. Ian was going to look again later, but didn't find a suitable one.
7) Maybe buy some good scotch.
&Yep. And tasted too much at the shop for a late morning. I bought some Old Pulteney, which is somewhat different from the others I have. We’ll see how it does in the field.
8) Maybe have lunch with Jenny, a friend of Ian’s who I met briefly last year. She did some nice geochemical modeling for a paper we wrote about another Antarctic lake - Lake Untersee. She’s a professor at University of Canterbury.
No lunch with Jenny...
9) Go to the USAP Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) at 1 pm to get my cold weather gear and hear the details of our expected flight.
Got my gear, and we’re scheduled to check in at 6:30 tomorrow morning.
10) Go to the grocery store and buy tea and spices.
Yep, with Steve and Tyler. We also got some snack food.
11) Get the rest of that pesky work done!
Getting there. One important letter done, thesis cover pages sent off. A couple of letters and a review to go.
12) Eat dinner - maybe my last restaurant visit for a couple of months!
Had beer and roast lamb, with the roast lamb a lot like we’ll get in McMurdo.
13) Get a good night sleep.
I’m off to do that now. We have to show up at the USAP CDC at 6:30 in the morning. It’s a short walk, so we can just pop over with our luggage and conveniently borrowed luggage carts from the airport.
Next update from McMurdo or the flight has been delayed! I'll wave at the web cam: http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmWebCam.cfm
1) Try to sleep in until 7 am (11 am Pacific Daylight Time).
Not too far off. The 6:30 am earthquake woke me up.
2) Work on spill over items from my normal job that need to get done as soon as possible.
Made some progress
3) Ian will drop off his gear at 8:30.
Yep, and we sat with the rest of the team for a while.
4) Ride into town with Ian and get coffee and breakfast.
&Ian dropped me off before the bookstores opened, so I had a cappuccino and french toast with caramelized bananas and bacon. Yum!
5) Buy some used books to take with me.
I ended up with The Denniston Rose by Jenny Pattrick on recommendation from the woman who owns Liberty Books. She also told me where Smith’s Book Shop moved. The previous location is not in such good shape, thanks to the earthquake:
Luckily, Smith’s Book Shop had moved out of the building in April because it needed to be seismically retrofitted! It’s too bad they didn’t do it a year earlier. At Smith’s, I bought The Windeater by Keri Hulme and The Sum of Our Days by Isabel Allende. I now have an excellent selection of books!
6) Buy a good kettle to heat water with.
Ian and I failed at this. We found one that was too small. Ian was going to look again later, but didn't find a suitable one.
7) Maybe buy some good scotch.
&Yep. And tasted too much at the shop for a late morning. I bought some Old Pulteney, which is somewhat different from the others I have. We’ll see how it does in the field.
8) Maybe have lunch with Jenny, a friend of Ian’s who I met briefly last year. She did some nice geochemical modeling for a paper we wrote about another Antarctic lake - Lake Untersee. She’s a professor at University of Canterbury.
No lunch with Jenny...
9) Go to the USAP Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) at 1 pm to get my cold weather gear and hear the details of our expected flight.
Got my gear, and we’re scheduled to check in at 6:30 tomorrow morning.
10) Go to the grocery store and buy tea and spices.
Yep, with Steve and Tyler. We also got some snack food.
11) Get the rest of that pesky work done!
Getting there. One important letter done, thesis cover pages sent off. A couple of letters and a review to go.
12) Eat dinner - maybe my last restaurant visit for a couple of months!
Had beer and roast lamb, with the roast lamb a lot like we’ll get in McMurdo.
13) Get a good night sleep.
I’m off to do that now. We have to show up at the USAP CDC at 6:30 in the morning. It’s a short walk, so we can just pop over with our luggage and conveniently borrowed luggage carts from the airport.
Next update from McMurdo or the flight has been delayed! I'll wave at the web cam: http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmWebCam.cfm
