Before Christmas at the South pole
Temperature: - 29 C, - 20.2F Windchill: **- 39C, - 38.2 F **Wind: 6.6 knts. Weather: Mostly clear
Saturday morning was taking up with posting journals, answering questions posted on the web, and attending the weekly all-station science meeting with representatives of all science projects present. After lunch, I answered more student’s question fro the web and went to ARO at 3pm, just in time for tea-time and more "stollen”.
The evening was taking up doing laundry and answering more students’ cards to be mailed from the South Pole. The rest of the station geared up for Christmas and the anticipation and Christmas spirit was evident everywhere.
Dining Hall Christmas preparation
General Assistants Katie and Coreen are preparing the candle lights for the Christmas dinner tables.
**South Christmas Decorations
*These are the beautiful bottles that Coreen and Katie prepared for all tables for the Christmas Eve Dinner. They used recycled material!
Making Ice sculptures at South Pole
The cook Joanne McCartney is using her day break for ice sculpturing.*
Amy Sends Christmas greetings
On the way from ARO, we stopped to take advantage of the wonderful light and the sun directions to take pictures on the Xmas tree and Christmas sigh that some folks set up next to the Poles.*
Sunday morning the 23rd was busy with cleaning the room, working out in the gym for 20 minutes, answering more student web questions. Brunch was as usually wonderful. After that, Amy and I went to ARO. Daily checks and other routine sampling do not stop during the weekend or holidays.
**My room is ready for Christmas Eve **
After cleaning, my room is ready for Christmas Eve to open the rest of my packages. Thank you my family from Germany, and friends from California, UNIS and Marymount School for all the nice cards and presents! Southie and Northie are watching out.*
Cards form Students
This is Sawyer’s card on top of many others. Thank you third graders from the Juana Brines Elementary School, Palo Alto and in Santa Clara, California.*
My room after arrival at the Station.
This was my room at arrival at the South Pole Station, December 6. Amy had taken care of my 5 packages and all the mail. All this mail awaited me upon my arrival. How exciting. Thank you all again!*
Exercise is important!
After sitting in front of the computer a lot for the past days, it felt good exercising in the beautiful gym of the station before brunch*
In the afternoon we worked at ARO and I learned that Andy completed his repair of the wind meter.
The Tower near ARO.
During the week, Andy worked hard on fixing a wind meter. I missed it when both Amy and Andy mounted it on top of this tower. We rely on the measured wind direction to determine if samples can be taken from the Clean Air field.*
By 4pm we had to be back at the station for an All-Hands-Meeting in the dining hall. "All-Hands” is one of the many remaining ships expressions in Antarctica when the NAVY administered stations. I remember those expressions from my own sea-going time as a fishery researcher.
"All Hands” in the dining hall
The dining hall is filled with all the members of the station. All Hands meetings are held by monthly.*
Katie and James are opening the meeting
Katie, the winter-over station manager and James Brown, the main chef of the station are opening the meeting. In the background you can see the service counter, decorated for the Christmas season.*
Recycle review at the station.
Many department heads reported on their work. Mary is reviewing the paper recycling rules with the members of the station.*
At 7 pm all were invited to attend the science Christmas Party organized by the weather station.
We are starting the Christmas celebration!
Andy, Amy, Glenn and I are cheering to the start of the Holiday Season at the station. Glen is an "Aurora tech” and has been to Antarctica 13 times.*
Yuki from the Telescope
Yuki Takahashi is a graduate student from Berkeley, California. He works on the telescope in the "Dark Sector”.*
Fireplace at South Pole Station.
Amy found a tape of a fireplace that was shown during the party. It certainly added to the warming mood of the party! I brought chocolates.*
There was great Christmas sprit everywhere, in particular in the kitchen.
Getting into the spirit.
Tracy and Liz, dining hall assistants, have always a friendly smile to great everyone.*
At 8 pm I went to the Sunday night science lecture. The seismologists reported on their IPY work at the remote AGAP camp (Antarctic Ganburtsev Province) about 300 miles from the South Pole station. After that I needed to complete the weekly report for the NSF representative Vladimir. I continued catching up with writing until 1 am.
Merry Christmas!