Christchurch - the adventure begins

My 30+ hours of travel from Ottawa - Chicago - LA - Sydney - Christchurch all went without a hitch. No issues with security and my checked bag made it. It was fun playing "spot the scientist" on the LA-Sydney and the Sydney to Christchurch flights (distinguishing features being hiking boots, khakis and glasses) and I managed to meet a few of the course members along the way. Everyone is super friendly and there are people here from all over the globe: Sri Lanka, Sweden, London, Italy, Germany, US and a few Canadians to round it out.

Yesterday afternoon a group of us wandered around Christchurch Cathedral Square and chatted over a pint of NZ beer. Lots of excitement brewing about the trip.

This morning had us up bright and early to go to the Antarctic Centre for our clothing fitting. Here's the wall display of all the gear we had to try on and pack into our orange duffel bags:



















Trying on all the gear and packing the bags for tomorrow's flight really made it all hit home and the excitement started to build. Then, once we checked out the passenger list for our flight the excitement nearly went through the roof when we saw who else would be part of our flight of 117 people heading to the ice. Being a total biology nerd I had to take a picture of the flight list for proof, see 4th name from the top!!!! (click on the picture to enlarge it for easier reading)


We headed back to the hotel for lunch before heading back downtown to explore a little more of Christchurch. The sun was splitting rocks on the hotel patio and of course my pale Canadian arms got a little sunburned. I also made friends with the hotel cat "Ken".
Then we headed down to the Canterbury Museum to check out the Antarctic exhibit. George Somero (the instructor/prof) for my working group came with us and he told us lots of amazing stories to go along with the exhibits. He's been going to the Antarctic on a regular basis since the 1960s so he has lots to share about how things have changed.

Tonight will be an early night as we are to check in for our flight at 6 am tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed we don't have to "boomerang" because of bad weather at McMurdo!

j