Sunday, November 23, 2008

No Flight for Me... or anyone else.

I had my bags all packed, everything sorted, and organized for how I would need it. Carefully setup my "boomerang bag" with an extra days worth of clothing, and toiletries. Set my alarm for 4:50 AM. That should be just enough time to get up, take a quick shower, grab my things, and head down to the lobby to catch the 5:15 shuttle to the airport. If we were to boomerang, which means after we take off, it's been determined we can't land in Antarctica, we turn around and head back, we would be given our boomerang bag. All other checked luggage is kept palletized for up to four days. I was plenty tired and fell asleep quickly around 10:00 PM last night, only to be rudely awakened by a man with an Asian accent at 4:30 AM. Glancing at the clock before answering the phone, I almost immediately came to the conclusion that this phone call could not be good news. Either the flight was delayed, or something was wrong with the time on my clock, and I overslept. I assumed my first thoughts were more likely than the latter, and I was correct. Barely awake enough for my brain to process the heavily accented English coming from the man on the other end of the phone, I acknowledged what he had to say, hung up and turned off my alarm. The flight has been delayed 24 hours due to bad weather in Antarctica. I was to report to the CDC at 9:00 AM for further instructions, so, now here I sit, trying to figure out how to spend my day. I have work to do, and should probably do that.

Basically, wash, rinse, repeat for tomorrow morning, hopefully with a different outcome that results me sitting on a plane, trying to pass time by reading and listening to some tunes.

On another front, I have to say the food here is much more satisfying than it was in Punta Arenas, Chile. Lots of Asian around, especially Thai and Indian, but that doesn't really surprise me. Last night I got to eat at a place called "The Stonegrill." It was pretty neat. You select the meat you want. Mine happened to be Kangaroo, because I live trying new things, and adding another meat to my growing list of things I've tried is fun. Anyhow, the bring out a wicked hot 6x6 inch square, and probably 1.5 inch thick stone on a plate that's been heated to some searing hot temperature, with the chunks of raw meat on it. You then get to slice and cook the meat to your liking on the stone. It was fun, and pretty tasty. Overall, though, I can't say Kangaroo is my favorite (Elk is), but its not bad. It's a red meat without a very strong flavor, but was certainly moist and tender, as long is its kept to the rarer side of done. The pieces I cooked longer seemed tougher. So now I quest to find something to do for another day. I have to go get some Single Malt for some friends down on the ice, so that will take up some time, but certainly not all day. I've got some work I need to do anyway. Anyhow, just wanted to give a quick update, since most of you were probably expecting me to have some kind of "ice story" today. Sorry to disappoint.

1 comment:

hippo chick said...

Hope you have better luck tomorrow. We flew out of Rochester to Las Vegas early this morning with no hitches.

Pam