Happy day-after Christmas to all of you in the States and elsewhere on your side of the International Date Line! I took a few days off from journal writing to celebrate the holidays with the rest of the wonderful and creative McMurdo community. (Are we called McMurdians? Or McMurdoites? What do you think?) In this journal, I am going to whirl you through the last few days of holiday cheer Antarctic-style. December 23rd- On Wednesday night, I went to the Chapel of the Snows, the world's southernmost building erected primarily for religious services, to see a performance of A Charlie Brown Christmas. I believe the play, put on by a dedicated group of amateur thespians, is almost as great as the Charles Schultz holiday cartoon classic. I loved their creative use of materials found around McMurdo to create a head for the person who played snoopy, the colorful plywood Christmas trees, and the use of the cartoon soundtrack. The 25-minute play had me laughing, clapping, and thoroughly enjoying myself just like the rest of the 60+ people in the very packed church. What is especially fun is to now Peanuts characters as they go about their jobs at McMurdo- as carpenters, janitors, and general assistants.
Even The Grinch spread holiday cheer around town.
**December 24th- ** For many people who work in McMurdo, Christmas Eve marked the beginning of a two-day vacation for them. Typically, people stick to a 6-day a week work schedule, so when holidays come around they are doubly appreciated for the additional respite they provide. There were holiday parties all over McMurdo- at the "Heavy Machine Shop" there were bands playing for hours, at Hut 10- one of the buildings that used to house the upper echelons of the military when they were in charge of McMurdo- there was a Christmas party for the firefighters, and others out caroling and enjoying the holiday. I saw people walking around with Santa hats, elf outfits, and wonderfully hideous Christmas sweaters. The halls and labs at the Crary Science building even joined in the festivities- tinsel, garlands, snowflakes, and stockings were hung up all over the building. Also, there was a Holiday Party for the staff and scientists who work at Crary. Unfortunately, I did not make it to the Crary party as I was busily working in the DOM Lab. Yo and Heidi represented the team at the party and gifted one fine staff member with a DOM logo patch, and bags of dried fruit. While both items were well received, I think the patch was the more coveted of the two.
The penguins and science artifacts all dolled up for the holidays.
Ornaments included many penguins and even some fancy science stuff.
December 25th- Ahhh, a day to sleep in and not worry about working in the lab- a gift to the DOM team from Christine and Yo. A morning of movies and coffee was followed by a couple hours of volunteering in the kitchen just as the DOM team had for Thanksgiving. Collin and Heidi helped Nick the Baker make scones and had great pan-buttering contests with other bakers. Yo, Mike, and I spend our time mesmerized by the process of cubing cheese. (Insert "cutting the cheese" jokes here, if you are so inclined.) It still awes me that the food the McMurdo kitchen produces for four full meals a day that feed over 1000 people each meal is almost entirely homemade- right down to the cubes of cheese. Remember the king crab legs we had for Thanksgiving dinner? Well, I think the Christmas meal surpassed the treats of Turkey Day. There was lobster tail with herbed butter sauce, perfectly cooked prime rib, amazingly delicious duck, grilled asparagus, mashed potatoes, and, oh my goodness, so many other mouth-watering delicacies. Desserts included aver 8 kinds of handmade truffles, a yummy mousse-fresh fruit- coconut macaroon parfait, pies, cakes, and I need to stop now, because just thinking about Christmas dinner makes me hungry all over again. The DOM team took a bit of a break after dinner to finish gathering presents together and let our tummies delight in the holiday meal. We met backup for a gift exchange and, wow, was I surprised by the thoughtfulness that went into the gifts. Collin even had stockings for each and every one of us and Christine had left gift bags for the whole team, too. There were, of course, the gag gifts, but to balance that out there were others that were well suited to the gift receiver. Thank you to Christine, Yo, Mike, Collin, and Heidi and all their little helpers for making the gift exchange one of laughter, stories, and giving it a great Christmas feel.
Yo's singing Christmas card from his daughters.
Heidi with the mask and music maker from Collin.
Is he Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or Santa?!
Mike showing off one of his Christmas gifts.
The December 25th festivities did not end with the opening of gifts- we still had one more stop to make before the evening was over. Up at the carpenter's workshop in McMurdo- a large warehouse space- a very clever, creative, and talented group of McMurdians hosted the McMurdo Alternative Art Gallery, or MAAG. There were live performances of fabulously discordant and memorable music, art installations created from found objects, beautiful woodwork, a huge see-saw built from scrap wood, poetry, paintings, interactive art pieces and so much more. One of my favorite entries in MAAG was the Camera Obscura room. Using techniques developed in the 19th-century explorers of the MAAG exhibit sat in a darkened room and observed images of people walking around on the ceiling- while the actual walkers wandered around outside oblivious to the "spies" in the Camera Obscura viewing room.
The entrance to the McMurdo Alternative Art Gallery.
Made of beautifully layered wood- this art is worn like a shirt!
The sounds and vibrations from these three performers remained in my head for many hours.
One of the MAAG pieces that I got the greatest kick out of was dedicated to my college alma matter- the University of Oregon. The Ducks are playing in (and, of course, winning) the Rose Bowl football game in just a few days. Go Ducks!
Go Ducks!
**December 26th and 27th- ** Back in the lab on the 26th, the DOM team ran tests of many kinds on the water sampled from the Cotton Glacier on the 23rd. Some of the water went through the RO system, some was filtered for chlorophyll-a and other tests, and Heidi took Cotton Glacier water containing bacteria that spent a few weeks proliferating in a liquid media and plated it on Petri dishes with an agar media to nourish and encourage the bacteria to colonize. Also, in the hopes of some of the DOM team getting back out to the Cotton Glacier for the final sampling trip of the season we cleaned and packed the instruments they need to make the trip a success. Now, we are just hoping the snow clears up and Collin, Mike, and Heidi can fly out to the Cotton Glacier tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for them!