First, as mentioned a couple of weekly snapshots ago, we had our final sunrise/sunset and are now officially in polar winter and won't be seeing the sun again for several months. On the penultimate day of sun, I got to go with a group back to Arrival Heights to watch the sun rising past the flanks of Mt. Erebus (which you can see on the right of this pic, the mountain in the background; it's actually 20 miles away!), creeping a bit across the sky, and then setting again an hour later. It was a cold (as I was determined to stand outside for the whole thing but it's pretty windy up at Arrival Heights) but fun way to mark the occasion.
Next, to give you another peek into the social scene here: there's a building called Hut 10 here that looks and feels like a normal suburban house in the States feels, and there's a public calendar for renting the space and hanging out there in a weird limbo where for a few hours you might feel like you're in Topeka rather than Antarctica. One night last week, one of the Stewards turned 30 and put a truly impressive amount of effort into turning Hut 10 into a club for a rave to celebrate her milestone. And it was a really sweet, nice community feel when so many people turned out to participate.
Final activity to share: on April 25, New Zealand's Scott Base, 4 miles down the road from us, celebrated ANZAC Day (the Aussie/Kiwi version of Memorial Day). Since there are only 12 people on Scott Base for the winter, they invited a delegation of McMurdoans over to help them observe the remembrance. I felt lucky to get to go along with about 25 others. There was a short outdoor ceremony of lowering the New Zealand flag for a poem reading and a moment of silence...
And then everyone was invited to enjoy coffee and tea and biscuits and scones afterward. REAL BUTTER, people. This was a momentous occasion for me in multiple ways. Looking at this picture now, it feels like a dream....
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