Tuesday, December 20, 2011

ChristChurch to Auckland, Joulien to the Ice Shelf

Monday 12/19 I arrived in Christchurch, and relaxed and slept most of the day. But first I walked the familiar Papanui Blvd to the Northland mall where I once again bought an electrical adapter to charge my laptop. In New Zealand, the electrical plugs are 3-pronged and at angles to each other. These days electronics usually say on them that they can handle 110-240 Volts and 50-60Hz electricity, so the actual plug connector is the only issue. In the old days and with older equipment you have to also transform the voltage down from 240V to 120V and the 50Hz vs 60Hz difference was not so much of a problem. It's getting even easier to travel as the decades progress. Perhaps someday, national identity will be replaced by cultural and political identity. I guess we'll see if the EU holds together through these economic crises, as it's a model of that progression (with the formation of the European Union in 1994, people no longer needed to show passports to cross national boundaries and no longer needed to exchange currencies).

Back to Christchurch: Coming back to the world of humanity and civilization after 5 weeks, there are a number of things I particularly noticed. Cars and money for one. I was uncertain I could J-walk successfully across the highway, and verbally stumbled when ordering falafel for lunch. The hotel, called "the Elms" has these beautiful green things all around it called plants (I haven't seen any at all in 5 weeks). It's also across the highway from a pet store, where I watched kittens play and puppies yearn for a person's touch. The angelfish continued bobbing and floating as wide-eyed as I. Trees filled with chittering sparrows and the kittens were particularly relaxing to hear and see (The only animals I saw in the last 5 weeks were 3 skua birds and of course humans). I'm exaggerating a bit here, but I think it's very interesting to note the ways things differ. And while talking with a returnee geologist who had once spent 3 months camping in the trans-antarctic mountains, I learned he had felt nausea on first smelling cut grass at the airport on that return.

Another major thing I noticed was all the useless words plastered everywhere. In contrast to the Antarctic simplicity of buildings labeled "155", "210", etc, simply conveying the basic information of what was within, I was once again immersed in the world of competitive advertising and roadsigns providing directions and stating rules of the road. I can more than imagine a utopia where all drivers are skillful, responsible and knowledgeable enough to not need any roadsigns whatsoever, but with visitors from far off places like California such things are a clear necessity. As for the competitive advertising, it's interesting to note that in McMurdo, the competition has already taken place to get there and there are no real competing private businesses. With one cafeteria, 3 bars, assigned housing, free entertainment on the video screens of each dorm, there's no need for competitive advertising. I imagine it's a small step between living in a government city to living in a communist culture, but perhaps someone with more experience can comment.

McMurdo also has the world's best recycling program, since the International Antarctic Treaty restricts any waste or debris from being left on the continent. Everything is hand-sorted and shipped away, so great care is taken to reduce waste and throw out in appropriate bins. Even the human waste from toilets is collected and incinerated (far from McMurdo on the Pegasus airfield)...I happen to meet the incinerator designer on my flight back. When you throw something out in McMurdo you have to decide which of about 10 categories/bins it fits into. If it can still be used it goes in the "skua" bin, named after the local scavenger bird, where you can open a cupboard and find a new pair of boots, a music CD, scarf, toothpaste or who knows what.

Meanwhile Joulien was preparing to deploy the operational station to the ice shelf on Tuesday 12/20 (the next day). The helo will be landing at the 1km mark so he won't have to walk the distance while they wait to take him back. I'll be flying to Auckland in the North New Zealand on Tuesday 12/20, where I'll spend a couple days downtown before returning home.

Seeing the sun set for the first time in 5 weeks was quite nice, as it was later when I threw back the hotel curtains to see Jupiter staring at me through the glass with Orion over his shoulder in the first dark sky in a long time.

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