New Year's Antarctic Style

...It's crazy to think an email of that exact title started me on my path to McMurdo. About this time last year I was reading Grey's email about climbing Castle Rock (you can't go up Castle Rock anymore) and the Russian Ice Breaker off in the distance (there is one out there now but it's Swedish) and decided it all sounded pretty exciting and that this was the continent for me. Even crazier is that the same email that once sounded so adventurous now sounds incredibley familliar...all the preparation for vessel coming in, people constantly talking about their travel plans for when they get off the ice, trail openings, closures, and regulations. How's that for a year end perspective? But enough with the musings about how I ended up here...I started off my New Year's drinking mimosas with the neighbors. Champagne is even more special for celebrations around here because they only sell it 3 times a year. After a morning of lounging and mimosa drinking I headed down to the Chili cook-off/Icestock. They set up a stage to block off the area bewteen Southern Exposure, 155, and the Gerbil Gym and then put about 8 milvans on the inside for the Chili cook-off contestants, that way everyone can enjoy chili and watch the acts at the same time. It was great...freezing...but great. I tried about 5 different kinds of chili and I am not sure my stomach will forgive me but it was nice to go around and see everyone's decorated milvans and eat something a little different than the standard galley issue. The bands were spectacular, Bill and Sandwich (Condition Fun) performed songs about Piston Bullies, Deltas, and Ivan the Terrabus, as well as an awesome acoustic rendition of Hey Ya that made me forget I have heard the song a trillion times. A Girl, A Guy, Another Girl, Plus One More Guy performed amazing covers like I Want You to Want Me, Heartbreaker, Bad Reputation, and Underneath it All. The last band, Level 5ive, did some pretty original stuff like their song about the warning labels that look like a giant baby drowning...yeah, it's hard to explain, but we have to entertain ourselves somehow down here. In the morning the weather had been pretty good, it was one of the colder days here as far as summer goes, but there wasn't a lot of wind and it was pretty sunny out (which is why I ended up with a bit of a sunburn) but later in the day a little storm began to blow in. By the last act at Icestock it was really cold; you could see a lot more big reds in the crowd and people were huddling in the chili milvans to stay out of the wind but honestly it made it all the more fun because how often does one get to go to a music festival in Antarctica? Later that evening I went to the HoCal lounge for a pre midnight get together of drinking champagne, sweater vests, singing Auld Lang Syne (with ALL the verses) and gummy octopi before heading out to my chosen party of the evening. I had originally planned to go the coffee house because my VMF friends Holly and Kevin were going to be bartending but because of some stuff that wouldn't make any sense to those of you who don't work for Raytheon, they weren't allowed to anymore so I had to come up with some plans that day, but it actually turned out really well and I found just the right party. Right before midnight it actually started snowing, which for those of you who haven't been to this continent may sound like it is an everyday occurence...it isn't, it's pretty special. Usually it's too cold here to snow (all the snow blows in off the water) or too warm (hence ever since summer started I live in a dirt town) so it was kind of a perfect for the special occasion. At the beginning of the day I thought about the fact that this would be the first New Year's that I would ring in during daylight, and though that's a rare thing in life, it made me kind of sad, so when the storm clouds and low visibility (due to snow) made it less than bright and shiny outside it really made my evening to at least have the illusion that night was coming. Overall it was a spectacular day and an excellent way to ring in 2007.