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The day after Christmas, we had a traditional south pole event called the Race Around the World. Normally it would be a track that would just go around the geographic pole, this year however was a special year. The old station, or the dome, is in the process of being deconstructed, it will be completely demolished by the end of the season, so the race this year went around the dome, the new station, and the pole. It was about 2.4 miles total, for the runners track that is. There is also another track which goes around the outside of the runners track for the vehicles and floats and such. People will run, ski, ride bikes, walk, whatever they feel like doing. Many people will make costumes to wear, and we had one guy who carried two fifty gallons fuel barrels which he had strapped to his back! It was pretty fun. I was going to ski the whole thing, but that didn’t work out quite as I had planned. I was going along fine until just before I got to the dome, unfortunately what I didn’t know was that there was a steep hill right before the dome. That would have been all well and good if it had been straight, however it was not. For someone who had been cross country skiing for less than a week, going downhill and having to take a sharp turn was not a happy scenario. Anyways, after tumbling my way down the hill, I decided that I would be better off to finish on foot, not that trudging in ski boots was great either but it was certainly better. Anyway the whole thing was fun, albeit eventful. Some of the floats that made appearances were a gigantic chariot that was built by one of the science groups here, they also built a dragon that had smoke coming out of its mouth and a hot tub, with people in it, on wheels. I don’t think they got much science related work done that week. :-) It was a great event though and I got a free t-shirt out of it too!
For new year’s we are celebrating today because it works out better to have the holiday on Saturday so that we get a two day weekend. And amazingly enough I get to take it with everyone else, which is nice for a change. Yesterday on the actual first day of the year, we had the pole moving ceremony, since the ice is moving under us, slowly sliding towards the sea, the place where the geographic pole is shifts too. Every new year’s day we have a ceremony to relocate the pole to the actual geographic location, which it stays at for about a day before it is off again, oh well. The pole winds up moving about thirty feet every year. I watched the ceremony from inside because I was working, but that was okay with me because in the last couple of days it has started to get colder again, the wind has started blowing and it will just get colder from here on out.
Something fun that we did last night in the kitchen during dinner was to make ice cream. Now I know that does not sound like anything spectacular, I mean making ice cream is pretty normal, right? Well how many people have make ice cream in a big five gallon mixer and used liquid nitrogen to freeze it??? That’s right, liquid nitrogen. You see, our ice cream maker, a soft serve machine named frosty boy, met his end this year. He decided that life was not worth living and croaked earlier in the season. So, my boss decided that for new year’s we should definitely have some ice cream. He took some of the mix from frosty boy, which we still have plenty of, recruited one of the science guys with his big tank of liquid nitrogen and tada! We have ice cream! It was great, so much fun. We didn’t eat it last night, we decided to save it for tonight, to let it freeze all the way through, it will be great when we eat it tonight though. Yay for doing odd things at the south pole on new year’s day!
Tonight is out new year’s party, we will be having a bunch a bands that people have formed while down here play amongst other things. It should be great fun, I think that I need to go take a nap so I will be well rested for the evening.
One more side note, I am done working dinner, had the last one last night. Monday I go to breakfast, yay for starting work at three thirty in the morning! Ah, well, it will only be for about six weeks and then the season will be over. Wow, only six weeks left, time has flown right by and it has been such a great time. I have really enjoyed being down here, such an amazing experience.

That’s all for now, signing off. :-)