20 October 2016 #208

After two weeks at McMurdo Station, I've got the essential lay of the land down but I'm constantly discovering nooks and crannies with interesting things to offer. A couple of these revelations came this week inside my own dormitory, a nondescript three story building unassumingly named "Dormitory #208." On the off chance that you were under the impression that we were sleeping out in the cold (or perhaps in one of the dive huts), let me reassure you that the dorm itself is well insulated, heated, electrified, reasonably sound-proofed, and even plumbed. Dorm 208 could hold its own against the nicest dormitories at any college I've ever visited and offers the basics of campus living, plus a few Antarctic extras.

Dormitory #208, our home away from home. 208 houses the McMurdo Station Library, which is obvious when you read the sign.

I share a double bedroom with Team Pycno Member and PhD Candidate Steve Lane. We've got a desk, two beds, two bureaus, two dressers, a small fridge, a touchtone phone, a sink, and a medicine cabinet in our room. There is also a door to a shower and toilet we share with our next door neighbors, Team Pycno leaders Dr. Art Woods and Dr. Bret Tobalske. We even have a window complete with black-out blinds and sweeping views of... Dorm #207. On the ground floor, there's a laundry (no coins necessary - they want us to do laundry here) and a waste sorting center. Dorm 208's ground floor also houses the well-equipped Station Library, a detail which only came to my attention during my initial laundry day and only after I'd passed the sign next to the building's front door a few dozen times.

While not exactly military precision on the bed-making, Steve Lane and I run a reasonably tight ship. Dorm 208 can house over 200 people, all of whom pitch in to help clean during "house mouse" duty. Dorm 208 laundry facilities. Pretty standard, really.

Cleaning responsibilities are shared by the dorm inhabitants, a monthly obligation known as "house mouse" duty. My house mouse job this week was to empty the third floor's garbage and recycling and to vacuum the hallway. It was during a search of 208's custodial closets for the fabled vacuum cleaner that I made two discoveries that will no doubt improve the quality of my remaining time at McMurdo. First, we have a lounge. It's on the second floor, is equipped with couches, puzzles and games, a microwave (for those pizza slices I've been saving in the fridge), a TV, and movies on DVD and VHS. Second, tucked into a corner on the ground floor, behind an unadorned blue door across from a restroom is a sauna. Evidently, this is a common feature of residential structures in colder climates where the moisture-free, frigid air does a number on skin. On first inspection, sauna operation procedures were not immediately obvious so I'll be sure to ask for help the first time I start it up. I'll keep you posted on how that progresses. But: to whatever wise and beneficent soul thought it prudent to include a sauna for the health and wellbeing of inhabitants of Dorm #208, McMurdo Station, Antarctica: Thank you!

The motto of the 2nd floor lounge is, We Have That On VHS. Sauna! So I got that going for me. Which is nice. From the back porch I can see the rest of Antarctica. Not too shabby.