Travel to New Zealand

On surviving 30 hours of travel, making it to New Zealand (spoiler alert: minus my luggage), and a rough timeline of the next few months.

I left the Albuquerque airport in the afternoon on Oct 28! And made it one state over for a layover in Phoenix.

Goodbye, Rio Grande!! It's looking so green this year.

Next, onto Los Angeles. We flew over the city for sooo long before we finally landed. Holy cow, do I never want to live in a city that huge.

Somewhere between Phoenix and LAX. It looked very desolate and dusty. Like how I'd imagine Mars.

The LAX airport is terrifying. I got off the plane and walked out to get something to eat and was totally overwhelmed by huge, shiny billboards everywhere. I walked around looking like an idiot for a long while before I adjusted to the sensory overload. Also, what's up with super expensive stores in airports?? I cannot imagine going shopping just for funsies in an airport. Anyway. After a very overpriced ($14????!!) and disappointing tuna sandwich, I boarded my flight to Melbourne.

For a 15.5 hour flight, it actually wasn't so bad. I watched A Beautiful Mind, made friends with the two Australians next to me who were coming back from their first vacation in the US, and slept a whopping 7 hours. There was a medical emergency on the flight and yes, a flight attendant really did ask "Is there a doctor onboard" over the intercom. When we landed in Melbourne, they were rushed off the flight and I hope they were ok! I checked another continent off my list (I'm at 5/7.... coming for you soon, Africa and Asia), and boarded my flight to Christchurch.

Can you see the exhaustion emanating from my very soul?

The flight to Christchurch was only 3 hours but they served lunch!!!!!!! And a tea/chocolate service!! I've never been on a flight that short where we got more than a few crushed peanuts. Thanks, Qantas airlines!

Beautiful New Zealand flowers that I can actually SMELL unlike last season when I was stuck in a hotel the entire time!

And then I made it!!!!! Two other Antarctic folks were on the Melbourne and Christchurch flights with me, and we chatted while waiting for our checked bags. And then realized that the belt was empty, everyone else had left, and none of us had our bags. The very friendly airport lady checked around and informed us that our bags were still in Melbourne, and would hopefully make it in the next day. Good thing I packed a change of clothes in my carryon.

Note from current me: I'm writing this post at 6:30pm the next day, and still don't have my bags... I'm supposed to leave for Antarctica in the morning so let's hope they make it.........

I'm staying in the Commodore Hotel, which you may note is the same hotel I was stuck in MIQ last season. But this year I actually get to wander the beautiful gardens!

 I got some snacks and dinner at the grocery store, SHOWERED, and slept so well.

Hehe, "trundler".

What a cutie of a milk bottle!! A note from current me: how did you think you'd be able to drink an ENTIRE LITER of milk in less than 2 days??

Today, I attended some zoom trainings (Bystander Training, a general overview, and IT/Computer Training to prepare us for the extremely limited McMurdo internet). And got my ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) gear!

Me looking very warm in my Big Red.

I'll end with a rough timeline for the season. As I've learned in the past, these dates are EXTREMELY flexible due to weather delays, aircraft suddenly breaking, or other new and wild issues that come up.

Tomorrow, 1 Nov: My supposed ice flight! I am scheduled to fly to McMurdo tomorrow morning! Hopefully, my next post is one from Antarctica! We'll see if I actually make it! Or if I get my bags before then!

21 Nov: After a few weeks of prepping for TIME, helping out with PASSCAL specific tasks, and safety trainings, I'll head to WAIS Divide field camp.

1 Dec: To Thwaites Glacier. It will take multiple flights to get the entire 12-person team, camping supplies, and science gear out to the remote field camp. The camp on Thwaites will be all unheated, and there are no permanent structures out here! I'll be sleeping in a tent, eating in a tent, and using the bathroom... you guessed it... in a tent. We are hoping to have 2 months to do all of our field work, but I am guessing that weather delays will decrease this length of time quite a bit.

24 Jan: To WAIS. After 2 months at Thwaites, the TIME field team and all of our gear will fly back to WAIS Divide camp.

26 Jan: To McMurdo. I'll finally get to take a shower! Back to the land of real buildings and real toilets! I will have a few weeks here to help PASSCAL wrap up the season, charging all of our equipment and packing up the rest to ship back to the US.

10 Feb: To New Zealand. My flight out of Antarctica is scheduled for Feb 10! I'll hopefully be home by the 15th.