The E's have landed!

Hello to everyone from McMurdo Station, Antarctica!

We arrived here this past Friday October 9 at 2 PM. That would have been 8 PM Texas time on Thursday. We got up at 5AM Friday morning, after no calls telling us that the flight was delayed, and headed to the USAP center. We loaded the plane around 8AM and flew 5 hours to McM. It was a non-eventful flight, just the way I like them. I even got to go up into the cockpit and meet the crew flying us. What a view! Speaking of views I wish you could have been with me as we got off the plane and stepped foot onto the coldest, driest and windiest continent on earth. It was about the most strange and out of body experience I have ever had. There was only 1 word to describe it, well okay maybe 2... surreal and COLD!!! A nice lady named Cynthia that Eric and I hung out with today told me I should name my blog "sureally cold." That would have been a good name!

Next we all took a bus to McM about 18 miles away from Pegasus White Ice Runway where we landed. It is called White Ice because the runway sits on about a 110 foot thick glaciated ice shelf with 3-4 inches of compacted snow on top, also known as white ice. So once we arrived in McM we had more briefings, got our room assignments, bedding and headed to Hotel California. Yes that is the name of the place we're staying. Very appropriate I would say! The view out of the window is stunning. It's overlooking lots of mountains and the ocean which of course is iced over right now, but is beautiful nontheless. Come January we will be able to see the actual ocean.

The town itself is about a quarter mile by a quarter mile. Everything is fairly compact and easy enough to get to. The dining area, laundry and general store is located in a bulding called 155 where we head to at least 3 times a day. The food is actually pretty good. I've had lasagna, chiken and mushroom pasta, steak, fresh fruits and veggies and today there was a Sunday brunch! Can you beleive it??? I had a made to order omlette, Belgian waffle and fresh fruit. It was tasty!

So our work week is 6 days a week, 10 hours a day (with 1 hour off for lunch) and is fairly brutal. My first day of work was yesterday at the Carpenter shop. Technically my title is FEMC GA with the carp shop. That stands for Facilities Engineering Maintenance Construction general assistant. So here I am at 7:30 in the morning doing YOGA with a bunch of carpenters and suddenly realizing that this is really happening. The whole day is more orientation, getting our tools (Yes I have tools. Watch out!) and familiarizing ourselves with the shop. There were just 6 of us new kids on the block doing this orientation. The rest of the 60 or so others had already begun their work for the day, making outhouses for field camps and knowing exactly what they should be doing. So all in all it was a good day, a bit overwhelming but I'm doing well considering where I am and what I'm doing. But I am going to live in the present, one day at a time and enjoy what I have been blessed with.

We have lots of opportunities to learn about what is going on down here which is really great. Right now we're off to have a tour of a lab that will explain some of the scientific research that is going on here. Should be interesting. It is 12 degrees with a wind gust of 30 mph here. That makes it have a wind chill of -12. Yikes! I hope all is well and warm where you are.

Love,
Erika