ROOKIE - sunday 14 october

Weather: -10.c, -30 wind chill

Sunday morning sleep in, then off to a church service at 11am. The chapel here is called "chapel of the snows" and it sits super cute in a prime viewing spot out to the ice field.

At noon my shift started. We spent the day training, and ran an exercise drill out of 155 (the dorm i'm staying in). It was a great day and i learnt some new things. The terminology is VERY different here for all the firefighting equipment and even more confusing (this is for the kiwi firefighters) is that in america the male connection of the hose or "attack line" fights the fire whereas back home it's the female - meaning that the connections are all different at the hydrant etc... have to be one step ahead of the game for that one!
Here's a couple more;
(kiwi) dividing breeching (usa) gated Y
(kiwi) collective (usa) simease
(kiwi) hose (usa) attack line
(kiwi) tools (usa) irons
(kiwi) outlets (usa) discharge
(kiwi) truck (usa) engine
and then of course we work on the metric system! phew my brains getting a hammering! i feel like a rookie again! I heard a few laughs the first time i jumped out the truck to be a guide for a guy reversing, i did wonder why he wasn't looking at me out the side mirror. I thought "man this guy's good" then realised i was on the officers/passengers side of the truck! i forgot the driver is on the left here!

Actually i had driver training the other day out on the ice runway, there were 3 vehicles in action, two coming towards me, i noticed they had stopped as seemed to be laughing inside the vehicle. Then i realised i was driving down the left hand side of the road. "crazy kiwi"

DINNER AT SCOTT BASE - 13 saturday october

Weather: -13.c, wind chill -30.c

Two of my american firey mates Dave and Heath, and I ran over to Scott Base today. It was -23.c out today and i tell you what, it's only 3km from McMurdo to Scott but it felt like i was running a marathon! The cold air absolutely whips your lungs, but i loved it! I'll definietely get into that more, especially as the weather will be warming up soon.

I met up with a bunch of folk at Scott base that i'd met the other day. They invited us in for a cup of tea to warm up, what a blast sitting down enjoying a milo (i really miss milo!) in their fire lite lounge which over-looks the pressure ridges of the ice field.

We had a couple of speights in the bar, and were invited to stay for dinner. Yum Yum and more YUM, i'd been told that if you ever get an invite to dinner at Scott base, you NEVER EVER turn it down - and now i see why. Don't get me wrong, dinner at Mctown is awesome - but they are feeding 1100 mouths so the food can be a little bland, plus it has been in storage here for awhile. Whilst at Scott, only having 40ish people at the moment, it's all super fresh! fresh tomatoes, lettuce, avagardo (and i'm not even a great fan of avagardo at home but man did it taste good).

Fantastic!

That night we hit gallagers, which many of the kiwi's came over for. Four bands were playing - made up of d.a's, scientist, ganitors, firey's - all sorts of McTown residents. It was packed! it was like walking into a busy bar on courtney place back home. AWESOME!

TOUCHING A C-17 - friday 12 october

Well fortunately i've been given a kelly day today. Every two weeks you have a day off where the rest of your shift mates go to work, thus giving you 3 consecutive days off.

Except i got called back in because we were short staffed. No worries, i get every second day off anyway! I had a blast. I was stationed out at the ice runway and managed to get a video of a c-17 taking off right from the hold short line (right up on the runway) it felt like i could touch it! i was that close - hopefully i can get it up on this blog!

After dinner i was cleared off duty and a bunch of guys from A shift grabbed me and took me to gallagers, which is one of the pubs here. It was nice to catch up with A shift as working 24hrs on 24 off we don't get to hang out too often.

INDOOR SOCCER - thursday 11th oct

Weather: -18.c, wind chill -40.c

Another day off in paradise!

Today i caught up on a bunch of emailing and computer stuff. I took a walk around Mctown and did a famil of all the buildings - man there are millions of them!

Evening came around quickly, time-wise not light-wise! and i was off to the indoor gym to play soccer. It was a lot of fun, i was the only girl playing but that didn't matter - and hey i even scored a goal!