leaving, on a jet plane.

and like john denver, I don't know when I'll be back again.

one year ago, I left mcmurdo station fairly certain that I would be returning in a few short months. and I did. this afternoon I'm sitting in the computer kiosk of building 155, fairly certain that I will not be returning in a few short months, if ever.

the C-17 is in the air. it's scheduled to touch down at 7:42 pm. takeoff is scheduled for 8:30 pm. we'll land in christchurch in the wee hours. which isn't so bad, because that means we get paid for an extra day.

delaney couldn't leave today because of work, so he'll fly on friday. we're planning to take a road trip up the east coast of the south island of new zealand and see if we can get to some hot springs and the artists' haven of nelson before I leave for australia next wednesday.

after new zealand and australia, I'll be in my classmate vicky's wedding in honolulu on march 10. from there, my mom and I will fly to japan to visit relatives in osaka and okinawa. delaney will join us there.

yesterday I gave a travel agency in christchurch the go-ahead to charge my debit card for an around-the-world ticket originating in tokyo. *GULP* it's happening! insh'allah, I'll be on the road for most of this year, ending up back in seattle around november.

the itinerary:

• tokyo, japan


• delhi, india (and overland to nepal to hike the annapurna circuit)


• barcelona, spain


• cinque terra, italy


• ** this is where delaney jets off to trek in chile and bolivia before he has to attend a friend's wedding in hawaii himself **


• camino de santiago, spain (an 800km pilgrimage from the french/spanish border to the atlantic ocean)


• croatia


• the netherlands


• united kingdom


• NYC


• dallas


• phoenix


• chicago


• honolulu


• back to tokyo


• and back to seattle.

the plan is not to return to mcmurdo for another season. but one can never say never.

it's been an amazing season. I learned more than I thought was humanly possible, and had more fun than should be legal. I met dozens of beautiful new friends and reconnected with old friends. and I fell in love with one of the old friends.

maybe I'll come back somewhere down the road, but for now, life and the real world are calling.

here are a couple of pictures from a new hiking trail that just opened this season, the ob hill loop. great seal views! yes, that's what all those little black dots are.

here are me and my roommate susie, sporting our fleece neck gaiters on our heads like all the cool kids are doing these days.

and here's a pic from the mcmurdo prom, 3 february. sometimes this place really is like high school.

left to right: amber, matt, delaney and me. matt and D look very happy together.

and finally, for my final blog entry from the ice, a glimpse into the inner sanctum of one of mcmurdo's most integral and sacred facilities: the waste water treatment plant.

the WWTP takes all the poopy, soapy, greasy water generated by the good people of mcmurdo and first runs it through something called the Muffin Monster. the Muffin Monster chews it up and makes sure that there aren't any big chunks of. . . stuff left in it. let's call the resulting liquid 'soup,' for lack of a better term. it really isn't soup, and it should not under any circumstances be eaten with a sandwich.

the soup that comes out of the Muffin Monster then goes into a basin filled with all kinds of

friendly, helpful bacteria. this is called the anoxic basin. here, the bacteria go to town on all the waste solids in the soup and break them down and process them until all the smelly stuff is gone. it's really quite amazing. I've stood on the catwalk above the anoxic basin and while the room itself is humid and warm, and smells of something, that something is most definitely not poop. it kind of smells like a greenhouse.

after that, the soup is filtered and the clean water goes back into mcmurdo sound, where orcas and seals swim happily swim around in it.

the waste solids that come out of that filtering

process, the waste solids that came out of people like you and me, are cranked between these heavy rollers, dried, and dropped into big cardboard boxes lined with heavy plastic. this dark-brown, crumbly, soil-smelling organic waste product is lovingly called 'cake.' and this room, the Cake Room, is where it lives until the boxes get taped up and sent back to the united states.

in two weeks, the WWTP produces three triwalls (large square boxes) of cake. that's a lot of poop. two weeks' worth of poop from a thousand people! and it fits in three triwalls.

if you go into the cake room toward the end of the two weeks, just before the boxes get taped up, you can see little green sprouts pushing out of the cake.

here I am, pretending to have a snack of sprouts. don't worry, I didn't actually touch the cake, much less taste it.

okay, on that note, I better go eat dinner and say goodbye to folks.

sorry this last entry was so rushed!

stay tuned for stories from my around-the-world travels.

chalet (formerly shuttle) cindy