I've been back from the Antarctic for about two months now, but that feels a little odd. On the one hand it feels like I was there only yesterday, on the other hand it feels like a lifetime ago. And now it looks like I might start preparing for another trip, another season.
Antarctica, and life on board the ship, are always a part of me somehow. In my house there are all the physical reminders, my knitted penguin from Tristan da Cunha, my bottle-opener penguin from Port Lockroy, a Penguin postcard from Vernadsky Base. But it's a way of thinking almost that you don't seem able to leave behind. The views, the openness, the cold. There still is much out there you cannot control, and that you simply have to accept. The weather can still be so bad, that it isn't simply a matter of the wrong kind of clothes, you can be stuck on the ship, unable to land as you might have planned.
It just seems so strange to be in the middle of a big city, surrounded by a lot of stone, where you can't seen further than a few dozen metres most of the time, enjoying the sunshine, and with so many people all around. Sometimes I miss the emptiness, the views, the quiet, the close community on the ship, but here it is nice to have the freedom to go out, see different people, go for a really long walk, go to a museum or even to go shopping. You always have a choice. And I guess that makes life rich, but sometimes it is nice to have the simplicity of no choice.
I feel at home here, this is where I live, but at the same time I know that when I go back on board the ship within a day that will feel like home again. I know the ship, I know many of the people, I know the routines. After four seasons on board that is hardly surprising, but it remains strange to lead two, almost entirely separate, lives.
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