Sunset

This past week we celebrated the first of the three big holidays down here, Sunset. The other two are Mid-winter (mid-June) and Sunrise (mid- to late September). The sun hasn't actually set yet, but it is in the process of going down. If it weren't for the fact that there has been a week-long storm going on, we'd be seeing some pretty colors right about now.

This is what it looked like the day we celebrated Sunset

This is what it has looked like every day since

We kicked off the festivities with a surprise from JP, the station plumber. He brought a couple a large chunks of ice from the Barn Glacier on Ross Island. It is about 70,000 years old. He chopped it up for putting in drinks and then we toasted to a good winter season.

JP taking a chisel to the glacial ice

The ice had huge bubbles in it which made pretty much any drink start to fizz, which was pretty cool.
The next day's celebrations started off with lunch in the green house, with pretty much all the veggies provided by the green house. Fun fact: just about all the plants in the green house are edible.

Lunch time: Apples with pumpkin dip, deviled egg, tuna
canape thing, kale pesto. The kale pesto and the tuna were
my favorites.

L to R: Guy, Cynthia and Heather enjoy a green house lunch in
in the green house.

Then we had an informational scavenger hunt, hosted by Heather, the station science leader and an officer of NOAA Corp. It was a good way to learn a bit about Antarctic and station history and trivia.

Then, a fancy dinner. I volunteered to help out with serving appetizers. It wasn't all that much work. I just had to make sure that things didn't run out. Then is was off to the tables. The galley was decorated with lights and each table had a centerpiece made from plants from the green house.

For dinner we had a potato leek soup, duck, roasted tubers, and some kind of slaw. The galley staff did an amazing job.

Our amazing galley staff: Jace, Mel, and Spencer (L to R)

After that there were an assortment of desserts in the lounge area, made by one of the materials people, John, which were also amazing.
Once dessert was finished, folks broke off into smaller group. I ended up joining a group of people to play cards for the evening.
All in all, a very good day.

By the way, thank you for the birthday wishes. I had a pretty great day. I worked in the morning and took the afternoon off, spending part of it messing around in the bouldering cave I discovered earlier this week, and part of it in the music room playing piano and trying to learn some guitar.

Bouldering cave, located in summer camp

Then dinner, where I got cards and beer from some of the other Polies. After that a group of us watched a couple of zombie movies.