antarctica

For those of you who are relatively new to my blog, I thought I'd introduce you to Antarctica.

As Matt Costa says to preface his song, The Road, "We cling to our tried and true…we’re creatures of comfort and we find our patterns and stick to what we know best, but there's a big wide beautiful world out there; and for those who want it, it's out there."Antarctica is an enchanting part of that big wide beautiful world; picture massive glistening snowfields and seas of pure white, shadowed blue mountains reaching their full height (9-14k feet) from sea level before your eyes, ice flows and glaciers carrying a hint of turquoise as they ride out into the frozen sea, and cold that decorates your nose hair and eye lashes with little crystals of ice.

I'm reading a book now, Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica by Sara Wheeler, that describes the peculiarities of the dry valleys. No rain falls there, and time stands still in this area. There are windblown ice sculptures, frozen salty lakes that magnify sunlight and heat the water underneath up to 77F, and carcasses that don't deteriorate in the dry cold. Perhaps this is why people thought the lost city of Atlantis could be found in Antarctica; and where your body can exist forever.

Antarctica is also a land of misconceptions to the majority of North Americans who consider the southern-most continent, so I'll clear some of those up. The Antarctic Circle is in the south, the Arctic is in the north. Similarly, while it is winter in the north, I will be enjoying a 24 hour daylight summer at McMurdo Station. There are no polar bears or walrus in Antarctica. The temperatures will be over freezing occasionally (late-December, January). There is more to the cold continent than ice and snow; in fact the dust gets downright annoying). Antarctica is not a country, and, there are no native "Antarcticans" who live on the continent.

This is the land of superlatives, as well; the coldest, windiest, highest, and driest continent.

Nearly 4,000 people from the international community sprinkle themselves over The Ice during the summer endeavoring to prove and disprove scientific hypothesis. Only about 20,000 living people can claim they have been to this landmass stretching about 1.5 times as far as the U.S. The continent is governed by the International Antarctic Treaty and is designated for research. The next two years will be a celebration of the International Polar Year, or IPY. Various scientific projects will be commenced and continued this year focusing on the polar regions of the earth. For more information about Antarctica, check out the World Fact Book or the United States Antarctic Program site.

Well, back to packing. My finger is healing very well, but I still cannot use it. And, I have not gone through coffee withdrawal since leaving Starbucks!