{"id":412,"date":"2016-11-14T09:59:33","date_gmt":"2016-11-14T09:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/?p=412"},"modified":"2016-11-17T10:47:04","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T10:47:04","slug":"in-and-around-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/?p=412","title":{"rendered":"In and around town"},"content":{"rendered":"

McMurdo Station is the largest settlement in Antarctica. \u00a0It is like a tourist town in that its population swells in summer, but the summertime visitors are scientists, not tourists. \u00a0As the research season gets into full swing the population can grow to over 1000, and right now it is 910. \u00a0Some scientists are just passing through town on their way to Deep Field Camps. \u00a0Some stay longer. \u00a0Our group will be here about 5 weeks.<\/p>\n

\"img_1204\"<\/a>
View of town from the sea ice.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In some ways it resembles any small town — it has a fire station<\/p>\n

\"img_1215\"<\/a>
An ambulance in the firehouse. Fire is a major concern due to the extreme dryness and strong winds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

, a medical clinic, a chapel,<\/p>\n

\"img_0990\"<\/a><\/p>\n

two bars, a coffeehouse,<\/p>\n

\"img_0989-1\"<\/a>
The Coffeehouse serves coffee in the morning and becomes a wine bar\/movie theater at night.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

a fitness center, a library, a power plant, a sewage plant, and so on. \u00a0There is even an ATM (cash machine), although there isn’t much to spend money on.<\/p>\n

The architecture is strictly practical — most buildings have metal siding and shed roofs, although some are “quonset hut” style. \u00a0The only building that is architecturally distinctive is the Crary Lab (mostly because it steps down a steep hill), and it’s not going to win any awards for exterior aesthetics. Most buildings are labelled with nothing but\u00a0a number, which is pretty confusing at first, but it doesn’t take long to become familiar with every building you are likely to ever go into.<\/p>\n

The busiest building in town is Building 155. \u00a0Perhaps because of its importance, it is painted bright blue, which makes it stand out from\u00a0the dull earth tones of all other buildings. \u00a0Building 155 is the home of most administrative offices and the galley, where everyone eats all of their meals. \u00a0The galley serves 4 meals per day — breakfast, lunch, dinner on a normal schedule, plus an additional meal called “midrats” (midnight rations) for people on the night shift. \u00a0In fact, at 7 am most people are eating breakfast, but people on the nightshift are eating dinner. \u00a0Similarly at dinnertime, the night shift people are eating breakfast. \u00a0One is not supposed to eat the breakfast food at dinnertime unless one is on midrats.<\/p>\n

By the way, the food is actually pretty decent\u00a0— I especially like the fresh baked bread. There is a good variety at lunch and dinner and it is possible to assemble a reasonably healthy meal and, at least for now (while there are still frequent flights to and from New Zealand), fresh fruit and vegetables are available.<\/p>\n

There is not a lot of snow in town as we head into summer. \u00a0Ross Island is a collection of volcanoes, and the ground in town is red-brown volcanic rock. \u00a0As long as it remains cold (say below 15 degrees F), the rock stays frozen in place. \u00a0When we have warm weather (as we have had lately), the snow melts and the ground becomes a muddy mess. \u00a0There is no asphalt or concrete pavement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McMurdo Station is the largest settlement in Antarctica. \u00a0It is like a tourist town in that its population swells in summer, but the summertime visitors are scientists, not tourists. \u00a0As the research season gets into full swing the population can grow to over 1000, and right now it is 910. \u00a0Some scientists are just passing through town on their way to Deep Field Camps. \u00a0Some stay longer. \u00a0Our group will be here about 5 weeks. In some ways it resembles any small town — it has a fire station , a medical clinic, a chapel, two bars, a coffeehouse, a fitness center, a library, a power plant, a sewage plant, and so on. \u00a0There is even an ATM (cash machine), although there isn’t much to spend money on. The architecture is strictly practical — most buildings have metal siding and shed roofs, although some are “quonset hut” style. \u00a0The only building that is architecturally distinctive is the Crary Lab (mostly because it steps down a steep hill), and it’s not going to win any awards for exterior aesthetics. Most buildings are labelled with nothing but\u00a0a number, which is pretty confusing at first, but it doesn’t take long to become familiar with every building you are likely to ever go into. The busiest building in town is Building 155. \u00a0Perhaps because of its importance, it is painted bright blue, which makes it stand out from\u00a0the dull earth tones of all other buildings. \u00a0Building 155 is the home of most administrative offices and the galley, where everyone eats all of their meals. \u00a0The galley serves 4 meals per day — breakfast, lunch, dinner on a normal schedule, plus an additional meal called “midrats” (midnight rations) for people on the night shift. \u00a0In fact, at 7 am most people are eating breakfast, but Continue reading In and around town<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":423,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions\/423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}