The Wanderer

Just wandered around downtown Christchurch for a few hours; I need another book to occupy my time (more details below). The time I spent in Christchurch last year was a bit different than what I experienced today. Last year, I spent a few days in Christchurch in early January during the peak of the tourist season down here. The central square was jammed with street performers and food stands, and the fact that the city appeared to be geared towards tourism seemed all too appropriate. Today, in mid-October, the tourists are nowhere to be found, and the fact that every 4th or 5th store is a gift shop or a non-New Zealand-themed bar is a bit more depressing. That along with the ongoing construction and extensive damage remaining from the major earthquake that hit this area a few months ago made my experience wandering Christchurch this morning/afternoon a bit more depressing than my experiences last year.

Going back to my book sitch, I bought two books in Boston Logan Intl. Airport to occupy my time down in Antarctica - War, by Sebastian Junger, and World War Z, by Max Brooks. I had previously read the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks and found it wildly entertaining, so World War Z was one of those reads that I figured would be fun to take my mind off of the cold and to think about how the world that our small group in Antarctica left behind may be currently under attack by the walking dead. There's no way to know, except to call on our satellite phones... but aside from that, there's no way to know. I started reading War on the plane to Los Angeles, and I didn't stop reading it until I finished it. It was fantastic and I highly recommend it to anybody that is curious as to whether or not the war in Afghanistan is truly a war or not (spoiler alert: it is). Junger hit a home run with this book, and I'm looking forward to his documentary that comes out soon (named Restrepo) which assembles all of the video footage that he shot in Afghanistan to fact-check quotes for his book into a cohesive documentary on the war. So, having finished one of my two books for Antarctica, I had to buy another to hopefully last a bit longer. I went with Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything because I've heard good things about it, because it's about science, and because it's long.

Time to organize my stuff some more, maybe watch a bit of hilarious N-Zed television, and relax until 6pm (4 hour from now), when we are going to grab dinner as a group. Tomorrow is another day completely off, and then Sunday we collect our cold weather gear at the Antarctic Center, and then we leave for McMurdo on Monday. I'm definitely ready to get down to Antarctica and start working - even this one day off is starting to mess with my head and make me feel unproductive. I'm too amped up at all times to have "days to myself" and avoid doing work. I need a time-consuming hobby. Suggestions?


Mark