This is the first post of many on my journey to Antarctica!
I am a Polar Field Engineer for IRIS/PASSCAL, which means I travel to
polar regions to install/repair seismic stations. This will be my first
trip to the ice! I've been told that it's very different than in normal
years (thanks, COVID), as the first part of my journey will be
quarantine in Albany, NY and Christchurch, New Zealand.
I started this journey Nov 10 -- my co-worker and I flew from Albuquerque to Albany, NY. We spent about 2.5 days in quarantine in a hotel there. The view from my 9th floor room was pretty spectacular (a beautiful old church and some really cool buildings).
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| View from my window! Pretty cool. I spent some time drawing this view. |
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| Here's the view at night. |
We were quarantined in the hotel room for almost 3 days, only leaving for our hour of "outdoor time" each day. Outdoor time consisted of walking laps in small courtyard next to the hotel. The trees in Albany were in full fall colors.
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| A view from the "outdoor time" area (a courtyard next to the hotel we walked circles in). |
I spent my time drawing, doing some yoga and exercise (quietly, to not disturb my downstairs neighbors...), and working on reports for work (because, yes, I am still working and getting paid during this trip!!). I watched Captain America and the Winter Soldier and Spider-Man: Far From Home on the hotel TV (reviews: Captain America is boring and not my favorite, but the Spider-Man movie was so funny).
Plus, we had a COVID test one morning at 4:30am. My mountain-time body was NOT thrilled about that. But the people taking our swabs were so cheery, and at least I had nothing to do after so I could sleep in!
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| Hotel room in Albany. There was plenty of space to spread out! |
Since we were quarantining and not allowed to leave the hotel room, we got hotel room service for all our meals. Pretty standard hotel food, but my real complaint was the major lack of fresh fruit and veg.
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| Standard hotel breakfast. But where's the fruit????? |
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| Cheese ravioli for dinner. Plus a HUGE slice of chocolate cake. Also pictured: Vitamin D. I don't want to get sick! |
On Nov 13, our time in Albany was up. We ate our bagged hotel lunch and piled in a bus to the airport for our 24 hour charter flight to Christchurch. More on that to come!
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