Archive for the World Travels category
Antarctica
In the land of 20 hour daylightHey guys, I’ve finally arrived in Antarctica! The plane ride down here was one of the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been on, but it’s all worth it when I look out the windows at the Trans-Antarctic mountains. The weather here is surprisingly warm. In fact yesterday when I went to the storage depot to pick [...]
{More»}
Australia and NZ
Greetings from New ZealandAfter about 18 hours in the air, I’ve finally arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand. So far this is an amazing city. The people are friendly, and the food and beer are cheap.
I spent most of the morning at the CDC, which is Antarctic-speak for the clothing distribution center. We were issued all our ECW [...]
Europe
Cathedral climbing in UlmOn our way to Amsterdam we stopped for a few hours in the town of Ulm. We’d heard about its amazing Gothic cathedral that was open to people to climb to the top. The cathedral is the 2nd largest in Germany and there are 768 steps to get to the top. We were there for [...]
{More»}
Europe
Partying in PragueAfter seeing the castles in Fussen, we decided to move on to someplace a little bit off the beaten track. We’d heard a lot about how much fun Prague was, so we pointed the van northeast and started out. It took about 8 hours of driving to get there, and we were actually disappointed that [...]
{More»}
Europe
Castles in the cloudsBefore we headed to Prague, we decided to go south to Fussen to see the trio of Ludwig II’s castles. Fussen was a plesant little town, that very much catered to tourists. Being typical tourists, we felt right at home! We toured all three of the castles in the area, and spent the night in [...]
{More»}
Europe
Oktoberfest!Oktoberfest was fantastic! The beer, the wine, the singing, and of course the women were all in your face kind of amazing. We had planned on spending most of our time in Germany here, but changed our mind after we found out how hard it was to get accommodation, and also how early the beer tents closed because of [...]
{More»}
Europe
Dachau concentration campThis was the most sobering part of our entire trip. I had very mixed feelings about going to this place, but I felt that I owed it to myself, and both the victims and the survivors to experience the horrors of this place first hand.  Of course I’d read about the Nazi atrocities in school, [...]
{More»}
Europe
Arrival in GermanyAs a going away to the South Pole party, what could be better than Oktoberfest in Munich? Absolutely nothing I figured, so my housemates Mark, Raf and I all found ourselves on a plane headed for Frankfurt. Mark had met a girl named Christine on the internet who said that she could get us a [...]
{More»}
USA
Fire schoolBefore we head down to the South Pole, the winterover crew attends a week of fire training in Denver. This was a blast! It was a hugely physical class where we learned how to do just about everything that would need to be done in a real emergency. One of my favorite highlights was going [...]
{More»}
Latin America
Chinchorro reefMy third annual trip to the Yucatan peninsula was by far the most amazing.  Once again, I went with the Austin Scuba Club, but this time there were only three of us. Having fewer people made it so much easier to be spontaneous and flexible with our plans. Originally we were just going to hang [...]
{More»}