Yesterday we started our journey at the Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wisconsin. It's a really small airport, which is nice because there are short lines for everything. Unfortunately, when they opened the door of our plane after it landed in Madison, there were some mechanical issues with the door of the plane, which were resolved with some super glue and two hours of paperwork.
Anyway, after that delay we had a smooth flight to Atlanta, and getting off of the plane there was quite an adventure. Let me start off by saying that I have never been south of Chicago (at least in the United States), so hearing so many people talking in southern accents made me feel like I was in a different country. On our way to the terminal for our flight to Santiago, we marveled as we passed a smoking room (such a thing is illegal in Wisconsin), some airport art, and rode on the plane train. When we were at the international terminal eating dinner, someone came up to Juan and asked him where he was from. The strange person turned out to be an Iranian-American who had previously lived in Spain, and somehow picked up on Juan's Spain pheromones. The two of them had a very interesting conversation about Spain.
We met Lynn at our gate, and soon departed for Santiago. That fight was relatively uneventful, if not long. I had a window seat, which was cool because since we were flying at night, I could see the stars, and they changed after we crossed the equator. Not instantaneously, obviously, but I was asleep and then I woke up and you get the point. When we landed, a man named Jimmy who runs the USAP office at the Santiago airport met us, ferried us through the reciprocity payment, immigration, and customs at lightning speed, and then took us to his office.
That office is awesome. It's filled with pictures and maps of Chile and Antarctica and has pictures and stickers everywhere (it gained two new stickers from IceCube today). There was also a giant stuffed penguin and couches and comfy chairs and the like, which were well received by us weary travelers, and Juan, who apparently got 6 hours of sleep on the plane, which is quite impressive.
Claire with there first exposure to Antarctica, attempting to ignore the penguin while doing homework.
We hung out and did some homework, including a math party, and then we went to check in for our flight to Punta Arenas. We had lunch at a place called Gatsby's, and then started heading for our gate. I would like to take this moment to appreciate Chilean airport security for being easy and having nice people. Luke was carrying a suspicious-looking electronic device for the cosmic ray detector for which he was pulled aside, but the security person saw the Antarctica patch on his jacket and just waved him through.
We had a log layover at Santiago's airport, so we decided to do homework while we waited for the plane. Anna, Luke and Lynn in the picture.
When we arrived at the gate, we met some of the Chilean teams, which was super exciting! We went around and gave introductions, and there was lots of cheek-kissing and talking in Spanish and English and it finally hit me that we were on our way to Antarctica and I was super excited to get to Punta Arenas.
Claire, Luke, and I fought about the best view out of the window on our descent. The landscape was beautiful—there were islands and water and green things (this was the first time we had seen green grass in months). After landing, we were greeted by the INACH staff and got on a bus with the other teams to go into the city. We saw llamas and horses and seagulls and some other birds that don't live in North America and talked to some high school students who don't live in North America, and in time we arrived at the hostel, ready for our next adventure. I'm airplained-out now and exhausted, so it's good news that we won't have to fly again until Wednesday, when we will be flying to Antarctica!
View of the Magellan Straight (Estrecho de Magallanes) from the airplane on route to Punta Arenas.
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