Stuck in ChristChurch

8-24

I was all ready and packed to fly out this morning.  I had a 10 o'clock pickup to the airport, but at 9, I got a call to stay where I was and that I would have another night at the hotel bc for some reason our flight had been delayed again.  I am on the 2nd winfly flight and the first one actually made it in yesterday while I was skiing.  Well actually I was on the 3rd winfly flight, but have been combined with the 2nd.

So today is just kind of a hang-out day.  There isn't too much to do in Christchurch especially since the city center is closed for demolition from the earthquake and it's winter so the beach isn't too appealing.  Probably just going to hang out in the afternoon and maybe watch some tv and do some computer work.

This morning I headed out towards the city center and the River Avon.  However, the city center itself is still completely closed off, so there's not tons to explore.  It's just really unbelievable how much damage the earthquake caused.  Right now I am accessing free wi fi at this new shopping area called the re: start mall, which is made entirely out of mill van containers (the kinds of containers you use to ship things on cargo ships and trains).

Unless I can do more skiing, I think I am kind of ready to get to the ice.  Well, only bc of one reason.  Everyday that goes by that I don't go, it gets 30 minutes of more light down there.  I really want to see Antarctica in the dark bc of the aurora australis and stars and such thing.  Other than that, though, I am quite happy and content to be hanging out in Christchuch.  Basically getting paid to be on vacation.  Just hanging around and relaxing with friends around.  And eating lots of good food on per diem.  Christchurch has an amazing amount of authentic carry out/dine in asian places from Malay to Thai to Indo to Indian to Egyptian, and I really enjoy eating those tasty foods as well as attempting to practice the few phrases from those countries I remember.  At my favorite thai takeout place the lady there is so cute and funny.  And everyday she asks if I am flying out tomorrow, and I say "yes" and she says, "well then I will see you tomorrow" and laughs her cute thai sing song laugh.  She tells me she sees 10 young american men a day and they all tell her they are leaving and then she always sees them again.

8-25

Got the call that we were cancelled again, so I headed over to Jeff's hotel to hang out with Jeff and Gavin.  We ended up going to some outdoor cafe place to get lunch and mulled winter wine and ended up staying for a while to drink beers and play bocci ball.  In the afternoon we walked around the botanical gardens and then I just grabbed some tasty thai takeaway food and watched movies in my room.

8-26

The flight was cancelled yet again.  Today I did more just hanging around the river Avon and outdoor mall with the wireless and watched some movies in my room

(S)kiwi...August Powder Day!

8-23

So bc we had a day off due to the cancelled flights, I decided to go hit up some skiing in NZ.  I have always wanted to ski in NZ and had actually hoped for this delayed flight opportunity.  So it was definitely a dream come true.

To save time bc internet is expensive here and time in a foreign country is always valuable, I am just going to paste in an email to my brother that I wrote about the skiing and it covers basically what I would have written anyways.

Hey Bro,

My flight was cancelled yesterday to Antarctica so I got to head up for some NZ skiing! I took a shuttle at the crack of dawn up to Mt. Hutt.  It was a lot of fun, and I think you would have really liked it.  It was a Colorado bluebird day, but they had gotten a lot of snow the previous week including about 7 inches overnight, so it was a powder day.  They had a huge base, at a bit over 2 meters bc this August they have had double the amount of rainfall in Christchurch than is the average.  So there was excellent coverage.  The snow was a bit sun crusted in the morning on the north facing slopes (but it is the equivalent of late February here and low elevation compared to what we are used to in the Rockies) so that it felt like april skiing in the back bowls of Vail, but the south facing slopes were sweetness with fresh tracks all day.  The mountain was pretty cool bc although there were only 4 lifts and 1 shuttle, it was set up nice so that there was tons of terrain access and it skied much bigger than you would think with that many lifts.  The other thing was that it was entirely above tree-line as the tree line in NZ with its southern latitude is quite low, so in effect, the whole ski area was like a giant bowl and everything could be skied.  The terrain was quite nice with lots of good steep stuff and some good cliffs (which I avoided bc I did not want to risk injury right before Antarctica).  They had lots of backcountry access gates and the alpine touring options were endless and some of the lines I could see that you could ski would be epic.  So much snow that all the peaks had good coverage and huge lines.  There were even some people out doing some heli-skiing.  The views from the top off in the distance were amazing and you could even see some of the huge glaciated peaks including Mt. Cook (NZ’s highest).  One of the other cool things is that the mountains are so steep that they drop straight down to sea level.  So from the mountain if you looked straight down the snow disappeared into bright green fields (of course filled with sheep) and you could even see the ocean in the distance.  It created a cool contrast: the green and the white and the blue sky.  But seriously, the mountains just looked really gnarly and full of coverage for some backcountry skiing that you would absolutely love.  Oh, and several of the kiwis were skiing in costumes although it wasn’t even a special day.

It was nice bc since it was a weekday and the mountain had a lot of terrain and steep terrain that people stayed of off, I got fresh tracks all day.  And they opened up these really cool backside chutes that hadn’t been opened in a while that I lapped quite a bit.  They ended up going lower than the base area, but you could grab a shuttle bus that went by every 15 minutes back up to the base.

I don’t think that the skiing can compare with Colorado skiing bc our snow is better and we have more varied terrain, but it was still pretty awesome.  I imagine though that there are a lot of days with nasty weather and with terrible visibility especially since there are no trees for wind protection or contrast.

And I did a total guy bros ski day.  I had to catch the shuttle at 630 in the morning as it was a 1 and a half hour drive to the ski resort (did you know that Christchurch has 18 ski areas within a 3 hour drive of the city, but this one was one of the biggest and with the best snow this year).  At that time in the morning there was no food available so all I had was a nature valley bar I found in my ski jacket.  Bc the ticket and rentals were expensive, I was using the money I get for per diem on that and not on the expensive food at the resort, so I skied non-stop without a break (partly bc of the powder day) for lunch since the food was expensive.  And btw, New Zealand doesn’t even give out free crackers and hot sauce.  Just small cups of water.  I of course skied until the last run and didn’t get back to Christchurch for dinner until after 7.  I wish I could have found a panda buffet but instead got a big thing of noodles at a malay/Singaporean restaurant and then got a 2^nd meal at a thai takeaway place and finished with dessert and attempted internet for a mcsesh at mcdonalds’.  (btw, mcdonalds’s in NZ has a Lamb Burger and for breakfast as this thing called the kiwi mcbreckie which is a mcmuffin with egg, bacon, sausage, rosti (like hashbrowns), ham, tomato, and cheese…puts the American caloric breakfast to shame!)

I’ll send some pictures of the skiing your way at somepoint.  Hope the 24 hour race goes well.  Are you enjoying the pro cycling challenge?

Love ya,

Bro

8-19 to 8-21

Happy Birthday Bro!

Flew from Denver to LAX where I met up with good friend Jeff, who had just asked Steph to marry him earlier that week.  So we went out for a beer to celebrate.

The 15 hour flight from LA to Melbourne was actually pretty nice.  It was on one of those new huge double decker planes with Quantas.  Good service, good food, free alcohol, and over 180 movies to choose from on the personal screen.

Met up with co-worker Gabe in Melbourne and we hung out until our flight to Christchuch.  New Zealand was pretty much socked in by clouds, but a few of the bigger peaks and their glaciers stuck up above the clouds and were gorgeous.  All the Ice people (due to American Airlines) had their bags lost, so hopefully we will get them tomorrow

Bc of bad weather in Antarctica, the flight today down there had boomeranged (flown all the way there but returned without landing bc of safety).  A boomerang flight kind of sucks bc it means you are on the plane for 9 hours.  9 hours on a commercial intl flight isn't too bad bc you have food and drinks and movies.  But on a military plane you don't have seats that recline, don't have much food, are wearing earplugs bc of the noise, don't have windows.  Also heard that on the first boomerang flight the toilets got filled up on the way there so coming back no one could pee unless you had brought a pee bottle with you!  So not very nice.  Bc of the boomerang, the people that were supposed to be in ANtarctica today are still in christchurch so I got moved to a different hotel.  It's very nice.  3 rooms!  Free wifi and hot tub.  And the lady at the front desk was so sweet.  She gave me a big bottle of "trim" milk, which made my day and bc I didn't have my bag, I asked her if she had toothpaste and toothbrush from the hotel.  The hotel didn't but she told me her partner had recently flown on Emirates and hadn't used the toothbrush and toothpaste so she gave me that.  She also gave me an adapter as Elisha still has mine.  I headed out on the town to get some fish and chips tonight as well.

8-22 Went through orientation and safety and all that.  Felt like a returning year at college.  A bit nervous but then seeing all your old friends again made you all excited and happy.  Hung out with Jeff after the orientation and worked on booking a ski trip.  Then went out to some famous Christchurch bar at night with Abe, Jeff, and Gavin

Hanging out in Colorado and getting ready for Antarctica

My 3 weeks or so in Colorado were very busy seeing family and getting ready for Antarctica and of course watching the Olympics.  I had to do all my medical and dental physical qualifications.  I had to spend a week down in Aurora doing lab safety and radio-isotope training for Lockheed for my new lab position.  I stayed down at the red lion and enjoyed eating fancy food courtesy of Lockheed.  Down in Denver I got to hang out with Sharona, my previous boss, and Steph the postmistress from Antarctica.  I also of course met my new boss Bev (who qualified for the 2008 Olympic trials in the backstroke) as well as fellow lab assistant Abe who is a PhD student at Vanderbilt studying Volcanoes in Iceland.  After my training, Elisha visited for a few days where we did some hikes in the Park and bikes in Boulder.

It was then off to Leadville and Buena Vista with my mom to watch my brother race in the Leadville 100 mtn bike race.  We enjoyed the hot springs of Cottonwood and had tons of fun rooting bro on.  Zach and I then spent a day biking in Leadville before heading over Independence pass to ski Kaitlyn Archambault, watch the Campaign, and do some biking in Aspen.  I then had a day in the valley with my mom doing some shopping and getting the rockie's taco bell specials, and then I had a couple days to pack, which leads me to today...8-19

8-19
A shuttle will pick me up at my house this afternoon.  I fly to LA, then to Melbourne, and then to Christchurch where I have orientation training and gear issue for a day before heading off on a flight to McMurdo station in Antarctica.

Trying to get home

7-24

I had an afternoon flight from Cusco to Lima, so I had one last tasty Peruvian almuerzo in Cusco.  I also did some last minute souvenir shopping.  I arrived into Lima around 3pm and had to wait until my midnight flight in the airport.  Around 11pm, they came on saying that the plane was delayed for mechanical and security reasons.  So we sat there and sat there and sat there.  Around 2am they brought out sandwiches and soft drinks.  Eventually around 4am, they cancelled the flight.  As this was a Lima to Houston flight, it was mostly Americans, and boy oh boy, after they cancelled the flight the uproar was crazy.  And then when United representatives asked for our passports so that they could cancel our departure stamp so we could enter back into Peru (the customs people didn't want a huge plane-full of people going back through so we were supposed to give our passports to United people) there was another huge outcry as people did not want to give up their passports...c'mon people, like United agents at a big int'l airport are going to run off with your passport.  Almost everyone was so pissed off.  It was actually kind of funny (and embarassing) for me.  Apparently these people had not had the same kind of tour through Peru and South America as me.  To me this wasn't too big a thing.  Just another small bump in travel.  So after we got our passports back we headed retrieved our luggage and then headed back to the check in places to get re-booked for tomorrow.  We then boarded a bus that would take us to the very fancy Sheraton.  I definitely wasn't complaining.  I was going to get a night at a fancy hotel with a bunch of fancy meals.  I was actually excited, just another part of the travel experience.
On the bus I met one of the coolest families ever.  Paul and Kristen and their two daughters Perrin and Eva.  They live in Denver, but they are all Ski Patrol at Winter Park, the two girls being Junior Ski Patrol.  Eva will be a junior at I think Denver East HS and Perrin a freshman at Lawrence College in Wisconsin.  They seriously were such an awesome family.  Both parents were so nice and fun and the girls were best friends and so sweet.  There relationship reminded me of my relationship with my Bro. 

By the time we checked into the hotel and sent off emails letting our loved ones know that they shouldn't pick us up at the airport, it was 7am and time for breakfast.  So my new family and I (they quickly adopted me into their family) had a great breakfast at the big and fancy breakfast buffet.  We then headed off to our suites to take a nap.

We reconvened for lunch which was another buffet with an amazing spread of food, including some ridiculously tasty salmon.  After lunch, we took showers, cleaned up and hit the town.  The family had actually had a quick tour of Lima the day before since we had the late flight, so they toured me around a bit on foot.  I was actually surprised at how interesting the city was.  Lima gets a pretty bad rap, but the architecture was cool and the city was definitely alive.  They showed me the main squares and then we went to the oldest bar and coffee shop in Lima where Paul bought us all espressos.  We then rushed back to the hotel to catch the bus back to the airport.

At the airport the family and i had a big meal at the food court courtesy of United.  Our flight was scheduled to leave at 12am, but it was delayed and we left around 2am, but I was still able to make my connecting flight to Denver.  The family was on a later flight, so I had to say a very sad goodbye to them in Houston, though we have kept in touch via email, and I figure I will see them again. 

I was so excited to see mom waiting for me at DIA.  One of the hardest parts about traveling is being away from my family, especially mom.  She took me out to a nice lunch at an italian place, bought me some cocktails and then we headed to Longmont for me to do my drug test for Antarctica.

Then I finally arrived up to Estes Park, which was as beautiful as ever.  I immediately saw how close the fire had come to our house, which was amazing.

Cavorting in Cusco

7-22

Met up in the plaza with the crew from Salkantay: Jenna, Kevin, Maria, and Sophia.  After the long trek, we decided to go out and get massages.  Massages, though not as cheap as in Asia, were still incredibly cheap.  1 hour was 4 bucks.  We then kind of hung around and walked around Cusco before heading to an Irish pub for happy hour drinks.  After happy hour, we headed out for a very nice meal, in which the Danish girls shared a Cuy (guinea pig) which was indeed better tasting than the Cuy than Felipe and I had shared.

After dinner we headed out to another Irish pub where we had lots of drinks including pisco sours.  Surprisingly none of the Europeans had heard of the Irish Car Bomb dropshots, so I bought a round for everyone.  After we had been at this pub for a while, we headed out to a cool club where we danced until nearly dawn.  It was awesome dancing and included us dancing on top of the bar for quite some time.

7-23

Most of the group was hungover, so we took it slow.  Kevin was maybe the most hungover and he had also lost his phone, wallet, and all his money.  He thought that maybe he was drugged, so he had to stay in Cusco and go to the police to deal with that so he could get help from his travel insurance.  So Maria, Sophia, Jenna, and I headed out and took a bus to Pisaq to visit the fortress and ruins of Pisaq high up on a mountain.  After exploring the ruins we took a bus back to Cusco and had a very tasty last meal together.