Unhijacked Thoughts on Antartica

Nargh, I accidently lost this post the other day, so I'm gonna have to try to recreate the wheel here...Most of this is old news, since we've actually left Argentina and are back in SF for two days before Asia...

Happy Belated Chinese New Year! So I am glad that Simon hijacked my blog and added more info on the trip. I was getting a bit tired during that blog, b/c for some reason, I was feeling a little seasick being off the boat. Wierd I know, but I felt like I was walking on matresses all day. Anyhoo, there were a few things that I wanted to emphasis, clarify and add to the Antarctica blog that weren't there before.

Ready for the Titantic

Okay, Simon talked about formal night briefly, but this definitely deserves some elaboration because you really have to know how terrible we looked. So once we learned of the formal nights, Janine and I scrambled around trying tofind clothes that weren't made out of some quick-dry high-tech fabric or denim. We ended up getting these black pants for about $20 US. You can't go wrong with black, right? The guys said they weren't interested in buying suits, so they said the would opt for dinner at the alternative dining room. Alix, Janine and I figured we'd just have a girls night.

But we learned a few hours before the first formal dinner, that the guys could borrow suits from the boat. And surely enough, our trusty cabin steward, Exor, delivered an "outfit" to our door 20 minutes before dinner started. (Yes, his name was really "Exor.") These are the outfits that Simon, Alan and Yossei were sporting in the previous Antarctica posting. If you look closely you will notice that Simon's hiking boot seems a little more exposed the others. You might think it's an issue with the camera angle, but sadly no. Simon's pants were about three sizes too small, and the hem of the pants barely skimmed the top of his boots. He looked like he was ready for the Marco Polo to take on water. We actually tried to take a picture of the hem of the pants, but no joke, the flash reflected off the shine of his black pants and the image was washed out. In addition, he had to use safety pins to close up his pants. Thankfully he had a double breasted jacket.

This outfit looked truly horrendous and I can't believe they would even loan them out on the ships. The scene could have been worse, Simon was initially going to wear his white trainers (that's "sneakers" for those of you who haven't been spending too much time with Brits) with the outfit, which I convinced him out of. But I laughed all the way to dinner. And when Janine noticed his pants, she was laughing to the point of tears. She had been suffering through some bad seasickness for most of the day, but she said that all the laughing cured her and was begging him not to take the pants off. So much for Dramamine.

I should say that I wasn't looking so great either. I wore these mint green shoes with black pants. The pants I had gotten were too long and I had to duct tape them up on the boat (which was a trick I learned as an intern in DC). It was quite the scene before dinner as Simon was pinning his pants and I was duct taping mine.

I should also mention Tom and Mary, the couple seated at our table as well. They were an older couple and incredibly sweet. They assured us on the first night that we wouldn't have a problem getting into the formal nights, and if we did, they told us to just call over to them, and say "Grandma, were here!" They were seasoned travellers themselves and it was clear that they were fairly well off, but they kept saying sincerely, that it has been a very good life and that they were so lucky to have good health, a wonderful family and successful careers. It's something that is really wonderful to hear someone say and you don't hear it enough. And when Mary saw me and Simon waiting for the dining room doors to be be opened, she said "My don't you two look nice! It would be an honor to dine with you." As I said, incredibly sweet.

I have to hand it to Simon who pulled it off the night with class. If it were me, I would have opted to eat alone at the buffet table for dinner. And if Simon had laughed at my outfit all the way to dinner, I would have thrown him overboard. Honestly, I have no idea if this comes across as being funny to you - might be something you just have to see - but I'm still laughing as I write about this for the second time. This has to be one of my favorite memories of the trip so far.

Things That Were Meant to Be

I am still amazed at how everything worked out the way it did for the trip and it really happened because of an odd set of coincidences.

First of all, we would have never even met Alan and Janine, if we weren't put on the same trekking group on the Inca Trail. And I don't think Alan and I would have been able to convince our significant others on our own. But our joint enthusiam, along with the fact that there would be another couple to hangout with on the boat, really helped convince Simon and Janine.

Second, and this is small, but really significant. The day we found the tickets we were slated to go hiking with Alan and Janine, but when we met up, Simon realized he forgot his camera. While he went back for it, Alan mentioned the deal he had heard about the night before. By the time Simon came back, the seed was planted and fertilizing in my mind. This sparked the day long search for tickets across Ushuaia. If Simon hadn't forgotten the camera, and we had gone on a hike as planned, we wouldn't have had the time to research these tickets.

(I have to say, Alan and I were on the same page all day. Our thought processes were remarkable similar. We both saw it as an opportunity of a lifetime and were really determined to see it through. We felt that we would be satisfied if someone at the end of the line just said, "I'm sorry, it's too late." But we never got that response. Instead we always got another phone number, another agency to try. And when we got the last number to call at 5 pm, I looked at Alan and said, "Okay, last number." And of course, that was the magic number.)

Third, if we hadn't missed the boat the first time we wouldn't have gone with Alix, who we met in Buenos Aires. I had been thinking about emailing here while I was in Ushuaia to see if she was around, but I got bogged down with a job application. Holger, one of the people who witnessed our high fiving the first time around, decided to try to go on the cruise the following week, but needed a cabinmate. Alix arrived in town the day he put up a sign in her hostal. As soon as Alan and Janine mentioned that Holger had found a cabinmate who was a British girl named Alix, I knew it was her.

It was amazing to meet up again with three people whom we really liked from our previous travels and spend a week with them on the boat. It certainly wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. You meet a lot of really great people along the way, but you rarely spend more than a day or two with them before you part ways. So it's nice when you can meet people again and that goodbye isn't forever.