27 August 2011 Around town...

The Bare Necessities of Life

A big part of the first few days at McMurdo Station is settling into the daily routine of life here. There are some basics that everyone traveling to McMurdo Station should know. Here were the questions I first had when we arrived:

• Where will I sleep?
• Where do I eat?
• Where do I work?
• Where do I go if I am sick?
• Who do we call in an emergency?
• What can we do for fun?
• Do I need money?
• What are the strange words I keep hearing?
• How do I call home? Can I use my computer?

I thought today, we'd look at the answers to some of these questions.

Sleeping

We sleep in dorms, usually two people to a room. However, during "main body", there can be more. Our room is set up for three people, but right now it's just two of us. The building is well heated, so for those of you who had a vision of us freezing every night, it's 68˚F in our room. We are provided with furniture, sheets and blankets, and a curtain.

You'll notice the blue curtain sealing the window. If you read yesterday's journal, I bet you can figure out why we would want to seal the window, especially during the austral (Antarctic) summer.

Within the dorm, there are laundry facilities. So we can clean our clothes. Interestingly, even laundry is structured at McMurdo Station. There is a day assigned to your room for laundry. Why do you think that would be?

There are bathrooms that we share on the hallway.

Eating

Here in Antarctica, we are constantly encouraged to eat. Why would it be so important to eat here? We'll talk more about that later. We have lots of options for eating. When you're in town, the Galley is where the food is prepared. There is a large staff, whose job it is to run the galley. It looks a lot like a school or college cafeteria.

The food offerings change daily. For example, last night's dinner was beef stirfry, chicken pad thai, or vegetable lo mein. Today it's meatballs, chicken cacciatore, and eggplant parmesean. There are usually cold dishes, breads, and maybe leftovers from previous meals always out.

My favorite part of the meal is dessert! The cookies are amazing. There is even a Frosty Boy machine! Eating ice cream in Antarctica - there's nothing else like it.

The best part is that the dishes are done for us by the dining staff. I am so grateful that I don't have to wash dishes. Thanks to everyone in the Galley!

Work

When we're here in town, we're working out of the Crary Science & Engineering Center. We even have our own little office. Called "Crary" for short, the building is amazing! Built on a downslope, it has three levels or phases. We'll do a complete tour of Crary in another journal, but I have to say that this is a great place to work.

Unique Challenges

Life at McMurdo also presents some unique challenges. For example,

Which coat is mine?

Do I have to wash my hands again?

Where do I throw this out?

What the heck did she just say?

McMurdo Station has a lot of abbreviations and terms. It takes a while to get to know them all. Here's a select few:

• Bag Drag - hauling your luggage to the terminal
• DA - Dining Assistant (person who works in the Galley)
• FEMC - the department of Facilities, Engineering, Maintenance, and Construction
• Freshies - fresh fruit or vegetables
• F-Stop - Field Safety Training Program - required training for anyone going out on the sea ice
• Helo - helicopter
• Midrats - Midnight rations, meal served at midnight for workers working night shift
• Ob Hill - Observation Hill, a raised hill beside McMurdo Station
• PAX - passenger flight (like on the C-17)
• PI - Principal Investigator, scientist in charge, like Dr. Marsh
• PM - Preventative Maintenance
• SAR - Search and Rescue
• The Ice - nickname for Antarctica
• Winter-over - person who stayed in McMurdo for the Antarctic winter

We'll spend some time on other aspects of life around McMurdo Station in later journals. If you have a question about what it is like to live here, drop us a line in the "Ask the Team" forum. We'd love to hear from you!