McMurdo Station

I made it, I'm here!

McMurdo Station

My flight to the ice went off without a hitch.  Which is surprising as it seems everyone else experienced multiple delays or other hiccups.  Lucky us!  The usual plane is a C-17 but it was broken (!) so we flew down on an LC-130.  It's a propeller plane so a bit slower than a jet but look, it's equipped with skis!  Not really needed to go to McMurdo station (where I am) though if you fly to the South Pole, skis are needed.

LC-130 propeller plane equipped with skis, on the tarmac in Christchurch

There were 6 passengers along with 2 pilots and 2 other Air Force guys (I don't know their official titles).  There was no airplane briefing, no instructions about keeping our seatbelts tightened or what to do in case of an emergency.  We were handed a brown paper bag with some food on the way into the plane and settled in.  As you can see the inside isn't nicely finished like a commercial airline and our seats were made of canvas and facing the sides of the plane.  Not as uncomfortable as they look though with so few of us on board, I spent a lot of time reclining across several seats- not too shabby.  It was NOISY so we wore earplugs throughout the ~8 hour trip.

Can you spot the urinal with privacy curtain...

When we arrived, we were advised to put on our ECW (extreme cold weather) gear to prepare for our exit.  We were whisked over to a waiting van and driven to McMurdo station a few miles away and dropped off in a large central building to get our room assignments and keys.  The doctor that is training me met me there and helped get my luggage up to my dorm room.  We were all given a laundry bag of clean linens and encouraged to get settled into our rooms.

I got lucky as the doctor on base and have my own room.  It's simple enough but has everything I need.  Most other rooms have between 2-5 people in each, I can imagine it gets tight, noisy and smelly...  I use a shared bathroom down the hall, pretty similar to what I had in college.  I'm looking into switching to a different dorm that has a shared bathroom between just 2 rooms.  Will see how that pans out though in the meantime, I'm doing just fine here.

My dorm room, simple & functional

The cafeteria serves meals 3 times a day.  It's an all-you-can-eat/buffet type set up.  For breakfast there's an egg/omelette station (limit 2 eggs/person) along with hot & cold cereal and some sort of hot breakfast selection.  For lunch/dinner there's always a veggie, starch and a couple protein options including a vegetarian choice.  There's pizza 3 days/week and we even have a baker who makes fresh bread and cookies every day.  The food is not too shabby most days and there's always plenty to eat.  

The cafeteria

If we're lucky we get some fresh fruits/veggies, but that's just if a plane has recently arrived.  We got some "freshies" a week ago so I've been indulging a bit with salads and fruit with every meal, a luxury here.  There's also a grab and go section for people that missed a meal time or just for a snack, it has packaged left overs and things like granola bars and apple sauce.  And popcorn 24 hours, my favorite!

"Freshies" arrived so I snagged an avocado for some delicious toast

I'm getting settled into the day to day here.  Can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since I arrived!  I'll write more about what my days look like in my next post.