It's been a few days since my last post, but I've made it safe and sound to the Breakfree Hotel.
We moved hotels on Nov 25 (Day 10 of our time here in New Zealand). We
were called down to the lobby one at a time to grab our baggage and wait
outside for the buses. The buses had a difficult time reversing into
the hotel parking lot. It was pretty funny to watch.
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| Part of Cohort 4 (plus all our bags) waiting for the big green bus to reverse into the lot. |
We all boarded the buses and took a pleasant 20 min ride through Christchurch. I actually got to see some of the city! (from the bus window.... but it's the most I've been able to see). I've provided a screenshot from google maps so you can see exactly how much I've seen of New Zealand.
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| Screenshot of google maps showing Madeline's travels for the past 2 weeks. Very impressive.... (The airport is marked with a pink star) |
We arrived at the Breakfree and I loaded my bags into the elevator and dragged them to my room. I was pleased to find out that I have a window! Unfortunately, it doesn't open, but the Commodore may have spoiled me with the giant balcony door.
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| Breakfree hotel room. With a window!! And some funky headboard art! |
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| I've got a super remote to control the air conditioning in my room. It's very confusing and signs in my room say to reference the "instruction manual" which does not appear to be anywhere in my room. |
Remember the 2kg of clementines and 1kg of apples I got from the grocery store a week ago? I ate about 1kg of the clementines (my favorite!) and was saving the rest + the apples to take to the ice. Sadly, 3 of the clementines molded in my bag overnight before the hotel transfer. Let's have a moment of silence for them.
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| Three fallen heroes. They will remembered fondly. |
We are less restricted at the Breakfree than at the Commodore -- we have all meals delivered by the hotel to our rooms, but we can wander the building and socially distance in the hotel conference rooms. We can also go to outdoor time whenever we want. However... the outdoor time area is a little sad:
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| The Breakfree outdoor area. It has... city ambiance? And... nice gravel? Yeah... it's pretty crappy. |
There's also a gym that we can sign up for a 30 min slot each day. I've been twice to use the treadmill, which was as close to running as I'm going to get. I cannot WAIT to get to Antarctica and be able to RUN OUTSIDE in the FRESH AIR!!!!!
I went to the gym to use the treadmill again yesterday, but it was unplugged. The person leaving the gym as I was entering told me it had overheated.... and it had been making loud, angry sounds the last time I had used it.... So I did not risk it. At least I got to run twice, so maybe that'll hold me over until we get to the ice.
I've been spending the rest of my time pretty much how I did at the Commodore. Working, minecraft with Matt, calling my family. I did some laundry in the sink today too. Very exciting stuff.
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| I enjoyed some sunshine and watched the construction site across the street. |
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| Laundry drying in the shower. I have just been re-wearing pants/shirts and washing socks and undies. At least I don't get that smelly sitting around a hotel room! |
For our flight down to McMurdo, we were originally told that we each get 85lbs. of checked baggage. Unfortunately, we got an email 2 days ago that this has been changed. We now get to take 50lbs. of baggage on our flight down, and the remaining 35lbs. will come down on a later flight, up to a week later (but, of course, it could be later than this if weather is bad).
The pilots have to do calculations to figure out how much fuel they need, and the weight of cargo on board (including our checked luggage) changes those calculations dramatically. This is apparently extremely common in the Antarctic travel world. So, I spent most of yesterday sorting my baggage into critical things I need with me immediately (some clothes, work equipment, toothbrush) and things that I can go a week or two without (extra clothes, most of my tea, spare toiletries).
I borrowed a luggage scale from the hotel front desk to weigh my bags. I... uh... do not think it was working correctly... as it told me I weigh 100kg. Pretty sure I haven't gained 30kg over the past few weeks.........
Luckily, someone else had a working luggage scale that I used to confirm my repacking was successful.
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| A broken hotel scale that was not very helpful in weighing my re-packed bags. |
And finally, let's end with some delicious food pictures (I'm a millennial, I can't help it. Actually, that's false, I'm technically Gen Z... why do the nurses taking COVID tests keep calling me a young baby??).
The hotel organized a Thanksgiving buffet dinner for us and it was fantastic!! I really appreciated it. Thank you, Breakfree!!
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| Delicious Thanksgiving dinner! |
I got the "hot breakfast" the first day here (eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, english muffin, mushrooms, tomato) and it was a lot. I've got the "cold breakfast" since. I was actually craving a normal breakfast after the weeks of fancy Commodore fare. No complaints to the Commodore, but just plain cereal was pretty nice. I supplemented the cereal with trail mix from my snack collection.
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| "Cold breakfast" option. Cereal was exactly what I was craving. |
I had Mount Pasta for lunch today, and fish n chips yesterday. They really love fish & chips here, if the 2 hotels I've been in are any indication.
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| Mount Pasta. A large amount of delicious pasta. No veggies though :( |
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| Fish n chips + salad. And a "sweet slice to finish". It was German Chocolate cake like? Overall, tasty. |
Alright, that's all from me for now. Tomorrow we are taking a trip to the Clothing Distribution Center to pick up our Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear. I'll have a whole post about what clothes you need to wear in Antarctica!
Only 2 days until our flight to the ice! I am SO EXCITED!!!!! These posts should get more Antarctica-focused and less Madeline-is-going-crazy-in-quarantine-focused soon 😀.
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