Amongst all these preparations, I also had to attend to various technical formalities, some more amusing than others. I had to move all of my things from London to Belgium. I ran a stress test in between 2 busy night shifts, thinking I would pass out on the treadmill but wanting so desperately to pass the 20 min mark! I spent hours looking for metal trunks, from warehouses to antiquaries to army surplus stores, and finally had to have some delivered from Germany. I ran the streets of London to find hobbies that could occupy the long polar night that awaited me. I hesitated between various “Learning Italian” methods. I bought and downloaded countless eBooks. At the request of IPEV, I sent my measurements to get my polar equipment, despite the fact that picturing myself in polar clothing whilst sweltering under temperatures of 30°C in the middle of August felt surreal! Yet I could not get it wrong; I wouldn’t be able to try the garments before departure, and would only receive them once in New Zealand, the last step before reaching Antarctica….
Preparing my trunks also turned out to be a mind puzzle. I had a quite generous weight allowance, but I had no idea what to expect of my life in Concordia, especially whilst staying in London in the middle of the summer… There was also the added problem that these trunks would travel around the world for weeks if not months, some of the voyage in a ship’s hold. How many tubes of toothpaste must I take? (Google unfortunately has extremely diverse answers to this existential question.) What would help the most during the likely hard times that lay ahead? What would I miss the most? How much Belgian chocolate, an absolute necessity, would I need to last for the year? Should I try to take a few bottles of Belgian beer, or was the risk too high that these might explode if the trunks stayed outdoors in freezing temperatures for too long? What would I feel like reading in a year’s time?
Whilst asking myself all these mind-boggling questions, I was also extremely busy with all the mission training but also cramming as many work shifts as I could at my hospital. The trunks ended up arriving at Brest the day of the deadline in early August, just as they had to be boarded onto the first ship… Funny thing is, by the time departure date arrived in November, and even more so by the time I finally received them end of December, I had completely forgotten most of their precious contents and the treasures they held…
75 Degrees South 