Off the Ice!

22.7 C (72 F)
Bright and sunny
wind chill: 0


WOW! It seems that I fell into the real world faster than I fell out. It's hard to digest that just a little over 24 hours ago I was still at the South Pole and the weather had dipped to -53 C (-63.4 F) (wind chill: -80 F). I was on the last flight of the season to leave the Pole and it was hard to leave friends behind knowing the 9 months of winter they have in store for themselves. All the winter-overs walked us to the plane to say goodbye and the pilots did a fly-by as we departed. I had an hour lay-over standing on the ice ski-way outside of McMurdo before 140 of us from both the Pole and McMurdo boarded the C-17. We arrived in Cheech at 11 pm but it was 1 am before we were through being processed by customs and returned all our ECW to the CDC.

I've slept in and have spent most of the day in utter confusion from the sensory overload of the real world. I'm convinced the C-17 is a time machine. You hope on and in a few hours you're in a completely different time and different world. I keep walking into people as I can't figure out how to look at everything at once. I was shy at ordering coffee and food at a cafe as everything seems so foreign. It's warm and beautiful! I can't imagine giving this up for an additional 9 months of ice and wind. I feel the confusion of everything beginning to lift as it all is starting to become familar again. I currently don't have any plans figured out, yet, but generally speaking I'm going to try and secure a car and drive around the south island of New Zealand. I depart Christchurch for America on April 4.

I ran out to the Pole and took several pictures in the minutes before I departed (I'm still suffering from frost bite on my ears). I'll try to post those when I can.