Antarctica 2023-4 - Day 5 - 12/30/2023 - Drake Lake

I had some trouble falling asleep the night before, but eventually did get a few hours of decent sleep in. Fran slept pretty well. She did the 8am morning movement yoga class and then met me for a quick breakfast. I was feel better after a night of more sleep, and was beginning to get my sea legs. It also helped that the water grew calmer throughout the day as we reached the end of he Drake Passage and transitioned to the Weddell Sea in the evening.

In terms of scheduled programming… We watched a talk about whales at 9am. Beginning at 10:15am, they called us down to the mud room (by zodiac groups - we were in the Crabeater Seal group) to try on (and exchange if necessary) the muck boots and outer (Gill) jacket that we were being loaned for the expedition; mine fit fine, while Fran exchanged both her boots and jacket for different sizes than she had ordered. Next was an intro to photography briefing at 11am, followed by lunch. We went to a talk on the history of Antarctic expeditions at 1:30pm, a briefing for day paddle participants at 3:15pm, and a talk on penguins at 4pm. Fran spent some time in the sauna before we watched the daily recap remotely at 6pm.

My nausea essentially dissipated by the end of the afternoon. I wasn’t the only one feeling much better, as others passengers who had mentioned being sick were now in better spirits. It was also palpable in the mood at dinner, as people were more upbeat and there was more chatter in the dining room. I got a more of an appetite at lunch and dinner, though I still wasn’t quite finishing full meals even by dinner. Speaking of the food, it’s been unimpressive, though fine, so far. One of the expedition crew was talking it up before we left, so there was a bit of reason to raise expectations. But so far it hasn’t matched his hype. Which, again, is fine; especially given the remote location where we started and where we are going. I don’t think people are here for the food.

We, particularly Fran, also spent a decent chunk of time sightseeing outside on the deck and in the bridge of the ship as we cruised through the Erebus and Terror Gulf. We saw some icebergs (a couple with penguins on them) and some whales (humpbacks and fin), and others reported seeing seals. Fran saw an iceberg calving.

We found out that the plan for tomorrow is to have 2 zodiac excursions to the islands at the tip of the peninsula - one in the morning, and another in the afternoon. The afternoon excursion should include time on land.

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My favorite pictures from the trip can be found here.

Antarctica 2023-4 - Day 4 - 12/29/2023 - Into the Drake Passage

Once again my sleep last night could have been better, especially given that the late night and early start of schedule didn’t give much time to sleep. The ship cast off right as we were going to bed around 1am and spent the first few hours in the calm Beagle Channel. I got some sleep during this time, but I woke up a couple of times, and I definitely had some anxiety about how things would change once we hit the Drake Passage. It was around 6am when the big bobbing began, and I couldn’t sleep much after that. We later learned that the water conditions were apparently “mild”, with only 2.5-3 meter swells. Well, nothing about that felt mild to me, even though I have seen footage of much worse. My shaky sea legs somehow got through a shower without falling (the handles were a lifesaver), and we made it to breakfast about 20 minutes before it ended at 9am. Despite the Bonine tablets that we had started taking the night before for motion sickness, I was already feeling queasy, and had to force myself to eat at least a little; the heat in the dining room didn’t help my intense sweating, and I even briefly had the shakes a couple of times (including while in bed). I certainly wasn’t the only one struggling, as we came across a few people who were in the act of vomiting or had already done so. Meanwhile, Fran had essentially no problems at all.

The first mandatory activity was a safety drill at 9am, followed by a mandatory intro briefing at 10am. I could barely keep my eyes open from tiredness during the briefing, in addition to feeling unwell. Luckily, the next mandatory (for all) briefing wasn’t until 1:30pm, so I took some time to rest/nap in the room. Fran had a sea kayaking briefing at 11am, but I did not sign up for that activity. However, she cancelled her reservation after the briefing because she found out that the sea kayaking group went out on every excursion, so if she did that she couldn’t also do any excursions with me (without also putting out her assigned kayaking partner).

I once again forced down some food for lunch, and started to feel slightly better after. On the other hand, the pelvic discomfort started up around that time. I took the opportunity after lunch to check in with the expedition doctor/medic about my seasickness and over-active bladder - this was mostly information only, as there were no new actions to take about either condition.

The 1:30pm mandatory meeting concerned IAATO and biosecurity when visiting Antarctica - extra measures are taken to ensure that travelers are not bringing any foreign species to the continent (e.g., via seeds stuck in outerwear velcro). Afterward passengers were asked to bring in their outerwear for checking by expedition crew, and cleaning (e.g., vacuuming, sanitization) if necessary. I was a bit of a wreck for the rest of the afternoon, so I didn’t attend any more briefings (they were all optional) in person. The expedition/ship has a nice feature where they broadcast the feed from the main presentation area (the Nautilus Lounge) on a channel on the TVs in the room - I took advantage of this to watch a couple of the briefings remotely while resting in the room. On Fran’s urging, I also went outside briefly a couple of times to get fresh air. She spent a lot of time out there, enjoying the air and looking out for wildlife - she saw a whale.

The expedition leader holds a daily recap where he shares plans for the next day and brings on guests for lightning talks. This happened at 6:30pm today, and dinner followed at 7pm. Unlike the buffet breakfast and lunch, dinner was a la carte. I couldn’t eat much once again, and actually began to feel worse during the meal. We headed back to the rooms soon after dinner to settle in and try to catch up on sleep lost the night before.

Some early observations about the fellow passengers on the expedition (198 total according to what we overheard at check-in)… The age range/composition skewed a little younger than we expected. One surprise is that there is one family that brought young-ish children - about low teenage or pre-teen. Another surprise is that Australians are tied with Americans as the most represented nationality (I believe 35% each) - we didn’t realize that Intrepid is an Australian company. Ethnicity is mostly white as expected, though there are quite a few Asians and a couple of other Blacks. Lastly, it should come as no surprise that people visiting Antarctica are already well-travelled. Of the people we’ve conversed with (or observed) so far only a couple of days in: this is the 7th continent for quite a few of them; a few of them are on extended trips (including Tom and TJ on 18 months through Africa and Latin America); a bunch have done previous expeditions with Intrepid; there have been many mentions of outdoor/adventure hobbies/interests/activities.

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My favorite pictures from the trip can be found here.

Antarctica 2023-4 - Day 3 - 12/28/2023 - Glaciar Martial

We received word yesterday when checking in that the meeting time for embarkation would likely be moved back to 7pm tonight from the originally planned 3pm. We tried last night to find an activity to do for today, but we couldn’t find a reasonably timed tour (e.g., to the national park). One concern/limitation was that it was supposed to snow and rain today. Also, we would need to give our luggage to Intrepid by 9am and then check out by 10am - even with the embarkation delay.

After breakfast and checking out, we decided that we wanted to do the hike up the nearby Glaciar Martial. Fran ran into another couple from England, TJ and Tom, with similar ideas. We waited around for them and all set out around 11am. It was about a 15 minute walk up the road to the start of the trail, and then another hour or so to get up to the top. It was snowing and quite windy during parts of the hike. We left TJ and Tom behind about halfway up, and if I was alone I probably would have turned around as well. But I had Fran there to keep me motivated to “just make it to the next bend” and then decide from there. I was definitely close to my limit in terms of cold as well, and needed to keep moving to maintain the warmth. In any case, Fran and I made it to the end of the trail, which was simply marked by a succinct sign post. The end itself did not provide a particularly stunning view, but the general landscape along the way was quite admirable. Also, there turned out to be not much of a glacier at all; perhaps because it was summer.

We took another hour to get back down to the hotel, where it took me quite a while to warm my fingers up to functioning condition again. They had a nice fire pit set up in one of the rooms, which helped provide warmth and dry our gear (in particular my inner layers). I should mention that I didn’t really have any pelvic discomfort until about halfway down, and didn’t have too much trouble lasting the remaining half hour or so.

After resting in the hotel for a while, we decided to take an Uber into town around 5pm to check out the gear shops again and have a light meal at Cafe Martinez once again. The meeting time was 7pm for departure by bus from the hotel, and 7:30pm at the final meeting point by the pier for those declining the transfer. We found out when we arrived at the meeting point that the ship - Ocean Endeavor - (which we could see from the shore) hadn’t even docked yet from the previous expedition (it already had one failed docking attempt after bad weather), and boarding would be delayed. Eight of us (including Michelle, Liz (who turned out to be from STL as well), TJ, Tom, Steph, and Katrina) decided to go wait and grab drinks at a nearby restaurant/bar overlooking the port; a couple of other smaller groups from the tour later came to the same place to have food. Fran bought a few empanadas from a small shop across the street for us to have later - the original expedition plan included dinner on the ship that night, but it was becoming more likely that this wouldn’t happen.

The latest information we had was that the ship would attempt to dock again at 9pm, and that we should be back at the meeting point by 9:30pm. We were able to watch the ship pull in and dock successfully, at which point the group headed back to the meeting point (around 9:45pm). After some more waiting around (the ship still needed to be unloaded after all), we eventually boarded the buses and were driven onto the pier, where we could board from the gangway. We were on board sometime before midnight. After a quick safety briefing we met our luggage back in our rooms. We didn’t get to bed until around 1am.

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My favorite pictures from the trip can be found here.

Antarctica 2023-4 - Day 2 - 12/27/2023 - Ushuaia

I fell asleep quite quickly the night before, but didn't stay asleep for very long. A combination of factors (a hard bed, street noise because we had the window open because otherwise the room was burning up, the early sunrise, and some pelvic discomfort) led to me spending probably more time awake as asleep over the course of the night; but at least I was resting. Fran thankfully slept better than I did, but was still tired from missed sleep over the last day of traveling. We therefore took our time getting going, and checked out around 11am. We wouldn't be able to check in to the hotel for the first night of the tour (the Wyndham Garden Hotel del Glaciar) until 3pm.

We left our luggage at the hotel while we went out to explore Ushuaia, particularly the main street Avenida San Martín. One of our first stops was for a late breakfast at a cafe. As we were leaving, we saw the couple who were at the taxi stand at the airport the night before. Fran, being the thoughtful and amicable person that she is, asked if they were able to figure out whatever plans they were having trouble with last night, and this turned into an incredible conversation. It turned out that they (George and Jenna) were doctors on their honeymoon trip, and the transfer they missed was to volunteer as medics on an expedition, and they were trying to figure out what to do for the time being before beginning their own Antarctica tour in a week. At some point they mentioned a friend who was a doctor who would be on our tour, and then I remarked that I should probably see the medic on our tour about my overactive bladder issues. This then turned into a free medical consultation as they tried to diagnose the underlying cause of my prostatitis, and suggested that I restart a new longer course of antibiotics. We took their informal prescription to a nearby pharmacy and were able to buy the second choice antibiotics over the counter. It's still somewhat unbelievable to me how Fran's "making friends" led to an encounter where these two doctors took time out of dealing with their own issues to display such helpfulness. I should also mention that my bladder symptoms were much better today than they had been the previous couple of days - probably thanks to a night of rest after the portion of the journey I was most anxious about.

We next continued to the end of the avenue, to the Museo Marítimo y del Presidio de Ushuaia - an old prison that had been converted into a museum about the prison, the maritime history of the area, and the history of native peoples in the area. It was worthwhile to see, but probably not worth spending a ton of time there - the collection is seemingly random at times, and there's too much to stay interested in for an extended period of time.

It began to rain lightly while we were in the museum, turning the nice crisp day into a wet and cold one. We eventually made our way back to a cafe for a hot chocolate while we waited for a couple of outdoor gear stores to open from siesta. After checking out the stores, but not buying anything, we we headed back to the Isla Bonita Suites to ask for a taxi over to the Wyndham Garden, which was about 10 minutes up the mountain out of town. We checked in with the tour group and the hotel, and later headed back down to meet some folks at the welcome mixer. We had (a disappointing) dinner at the hotel restaurant with a new friend Diane before heading up to the room.

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My favorite pictures from the trip can be found here.

Antarctica 2023-4 - Days 0-1 - 12/25-6/2023 - To Ushuaia

This trip had been in the making for a long time; but the timing turned out not to be so great from a personal health perspective. Fran and I decided in February 2023 to pull the trigger on the Antarctica trip that we had been considering for a few years. We booked a 14 day tour through Intrepid Travel, mostly because they had offered a discount to Googlers last year (though sadly not this year). The bad timing part is that I somehow came down with prostatitis (an inflamed prostate) in early September, and, despite a few attempted treatment methods, have since had an overactive bladder and frequent pelvic discomfort. Needless to say, this is less than an ideal situation for the trip we are calling our honeymoon; never mind the tens of thousands of dollars we spent on it. You can imagine that I've been stressed out about this for a while, and stress is a contributor to prostatatis and can make symptoms worse. And unfortunately, the previously somewhat manageable symptoms began to flare up much worse 2 days before the trip.

We left on Christmas day, taking an 11ish hour overnight flight from JFK to Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires. I'll spare the details, but mention that the pelvic discomfort made this the most uncomfortable flight experience that I've had (though keeping in perspective that there are many people in much worse situations). Thankfully I had Fran there for support and reassurance; and it helped to have the two outer seats on the Boeing 767, giving us unobstructed access to the aisle. We both managed to get a few hours of (admittedly low quality) sleep during the night.

We arrived at EZE a little after 10am, and then had a 5pm flight from the other Buenos Aires airport, Aeroparque, to Ushuaia. The line to get through immigration was initially overflowing the queuing area, but things sped up as they distributed the foreigners to the VIP and Argentinian lines once those had receded. As we exited customs we found a stand for Tienda León, a company that we knew offered a shuttle bus between the airports. We also found out there that they offered a taxi transfer, so we opted for that instead - it was about twice as much as 2 tickets for the bus, but would get us there much faster (an immediate 45 minute ride vs waiting 45 minutes until noon and then a 1.5 hour ride).

We got to Aeroparque (which is just north of downtown) around noon, 5 hours before the flight. We couldn't check in until 2pm, so we found a cafe to grab a quick bite and then wandered around the airport grounds for a bit, looking for an outdoor seat to enjoy the nice weather (it was sunny and around 70° Fahrenheit). I was still dealing with discomfort and frequent urination, but managing. Matters were not helped by the discovery that the wheels of my (admittedly old) giant suitcase had both cracked in half; but they were thankfully still usable. We checked in and dropped off the luggage just past 2pm. We both noticed that our suitcases were tagged with "Sky Priority" by the agent, but didn't think much of it at the time. We next exited the airport grounds and walked across the road to check out the Christopher Columbus monument by the water, then returned to go through security.

Upon lining up to board the 4 hour flight, we found out that we were to board in the Sky Priority line. At that point we realized that our seats in the first row of the plane were probably not ordinary seats - they turned out to be in first class, something Fran didn't know when she selected them (and they were not expensive tickets either). That surprise certainly made the flight less uncomfortable, given my state at the time.

After landing in Ushuaia we made our way to the taxi stand. There were a man and woman from an earlier flight in front of us who were trying to figure out how to make it to somewhere far, as they had missed their transfer from the airport. We didn't think too much of it at the time (besides that it was an unfortunate situation), but they would end up having an impact on our trip by the next day. We took a taxi into town to our hotel for the night - Isla Bonita Suites. We were both quite tired by now, and didn't stay up much later.

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My favorite pictures from the trip can be found here.

Eurotrip 2023 - Days 7-8 - 7/28-9/2023 - To Milan, part deux; heading home

Our Como Airbnb had an absurdly early check-out time of 10a, but that was fine with us since we wanted to head back to Milan with enough time to make our 3p ticket time at the Duomo. We walked over to the Como–Brunate funicular (Funicolare Como-Brunate), with a plan to take the tram up to the top (Brunate) and then maybe walk back down to Como. Some signage at the bottom station hinted at a 25 minute walk up (vs the 5 minute tram ride), so Fran decided to walk instead. I took her bag and got in line for the tram, eventually getting on the one that departed at 10:45. The plan was for me to get to the top and wait for her, as we thought she wouldn't be more than 20 minutes behind at most.

About halfway up I began to have thoughts that it would take me much more than 25 minutes to get up there. And then I received a phone call from a Belgian number, which I ignored until a voicemail was left for me. And then 3 texts came in from that number. It turned out that Fran had found out that the hike up is actually 2.5 hours (though in retrospect we're sure she could have done it in perhaps 1.5, given her hiking speed) and decided to abandon the plan, for fear that I would have panicked after waiting longer than the agreed time and begun hiking down, and would have had to contend with both our backpacks on the longer-than-expected hike, and might have missed her on the mountain as there were actually 2 different trails to the top. She had tried to call and text me using the phone of one of two women she had encountered who were also trying to find the trail up; she did not have international calling nor data activated on her phone. And then, unsure that I had received her messages, she had raced back to the bottom station to see if she could catch me if I hadn't yet gone up, but I was already gone. Then she found a worker at a nearby cafe who was able to get her phone on their Wifi and she was able to call me using WhatsApp.

We decided that I would get on the next available tram back down to the bottom; she didn't have any money on her, so she couldn't pay for a ticket for a tram to the top. I was already frazzled, and it didn't help that our call got disconnected. I had only bought a one-way ticket, so I needed to buy another ticket back down to the bottom. However, the station at the top did not have a ticket booth, and tickets had to be bought from affiliated shops nearby. I found a souvenir shop which sold tram tickets, but they only accepted cash for the tickets. So I rushed back to the tram station, which had an ATM, to withdraw cash before heading back to the shop to buy a ticket. It wasn't until I was back at the station with ticket in hand that it occurred to me that because there was nobody at the top station enforcing anything I could have either just stayed on the tram to ride it down or hopped over/under the turnstile to get back on. In any case, I made it back down and reunited with an equally-freaking-out Fran outside the bottom station. We learned a lesson for future trips - no more splitting apart unless she has a way to contact me and some money.

We debriefed each of our sides of the story as we started walking toward the train station. We decided to detour to get some breakfast/lunch treats at a bakery and then a fruit stand, and then headed to the station to catch the 12:26p train back to Milano Centrale. From there we headed back to the numa apartment to drop our backpacks off before walking over to the Duomo di Milano (Milan Cathedral). Fran had purchased us 3p tickets that included the church interior, building terrace, and museum. We decided to do the terrace first. The climb was not terribly strenuous, and was split up between two levels. What made me sweat the most was the scorching sunlight, especially on the top section. After admiring the views and taking some pictures we headed back down to enter the church. However, we were turned away because Fran (as a woman) was wearing shorts that didn't cover her knees; we were directed to their shop across the street where she could buy a plastic weave shawl for 3 Euro, which she did. After that we entered and had a look around. We had a particularly fun time trying to find the correct place to take a picture to recreate the view from a couple of paintings we had seen at the Gallerie d'Italia a couple of days prior. After the church interior we crossed the street to walk through the Duomo Museum. There we split a free video guide, which was pretty informative, and made the museum visit worthwhile. In all we were both impressed by the Duomo, and found each portion of the experience enjoyable. And I got a figurine to add to my collection.

On the terrace of the Duomo

Afterward we meandered back toward the apartment, stopping at a couple of shops to look for some more gifts. For dinner we decided to go to a pizza restaurant called Di Gennaro that was recommended by a clerk at Lacoste. It was about a 10 minute walk away, and was partially tucked away from the super-touristy plazas. We split a couple of pizzas, one quattro formaggi, and one with an interesting mix of capers, olives, and oregano. They were decent pizzas (at least compared to the trash from Bellagio), but not in the top 50 percentile of pizzas that I've had in my life; perhaps Neapolitan style is not my favorite. After dinner we walked back to Cathedral Square (aka Piazza del Duomo) to do a bit of people watching before going to another Venchi location for our daily dose of gelato. We ate that back at the square while killing some time before it got dark enough to turn on the street lamps. The lit lamps were necessary to finish our project of recreating another painting of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. After that it was back to the apartment for our last night on the trip.

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Fran and I were actually on separate flights back to JFK. When we initially planned the trip, she was going to spend a few extra days in the Como area after I left. However, she decided to change her plans, to leave the same day as me, after her sister Alexandria was having a rough recovery from brain surgery; thankfully Alexandria is doing better now. By that time my Emirates flight was sold out (in economy) so she couldn't get on the same plane. She ended up getting a ticket on an ITA Airways flight earlier in the day, 12:30p vs 4:10p. She also overpaid by a factor of 2 for the ticket, but that's a story for her to tell.

She left the apartment around 9:40a to catch the express train (XP1) to Malpensa airport (MXP) from the nearby Cadorna train station. Checkout was at 11, so I left at that time to check on a longshot that I could get into the Google office to hang out there (and get free snacks) before heading to the airport. As expected, the office was closed (at least to those without the separate building entry badge, like me), so I went to a nearby cafe to grab a bit of breakfast. The office is a short walk from the Garibaldi train staion, which also has an express train to Malpensa. I caught that train (XP2) at 1:05p and began the journey home.

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My favorite pictures from the full trip are here.

Eurotrip 2023 - Day 6 - 7/27/2023 - Lake Como

Somehow we were able to pull off all the plans that we hatched the night before, and with only a couple of minor moments of stress. We left our luggage and the bulk of our belongings at the numa apartment, and packed overnight bags for a day/night in the Lake Como area. First was a metro ride to catch the 8:43a express train to Como from Milano Centrale railway station. Then we walked from Como San Giovanni railway station to the Como docks to catch the 10:10a outbound ferry. We got off at Bellagio after riding for about 2.5 hours. In Bellagio we stopped for some lunch at a random hotel outdoor bar and then made our way to I Giardini di Villa Melzi, a nice lakeside botanical garden recommended once again by Chloe. After strolling through there we made a stop for gelato and headed down to the ferry dock. Fran made a detour to a silk shop while I (eventually) got us a spot in line for the 3:50p ferry back to Como. The ferry arrived late, and we weren't on our way until about 4:15p. The return journey was shorter (closer to 1.75 hours), as this particular route made fewer stops. Back in Como, we found our way to the Airbnb Fran had booked for the night, which happened to be on the same block as the restaurant (Figli Dei Fiori - Osteria) where we had made a 7p dinner reservation on the recommendation of my sister-in-law Rachel.

Selfie in Bellagio

Now to say a bit more about some of those things we did... The ferry rides were nice, but I was ready to get off the boat by the end. I can't help but compare them to the boat rides that we took in Norway last year. The scenery was similar in some ways (water passages with mountains on the sides), but with obvious differences in waterside architecture (no villas in Norway, ha) and weather (it was cooler in the morning, but mid-80s Fahrenheit in the afternoon here). But there were too many people for my liking on these Italian boats. And also too many people in Bellagio. And so many people trying to board the ferry back to Como that they had to cut off the line and leave some off the boat; thankfully we made it on, but we would have sweat it out less if I had done my job and gotten in line earlier as Fran had asked me to. Oh, and the pizza that I had for lunch in Bellagio was pretty trash; but I don't think it's representative of Italian pizza in general, so that's fine. On the good side, the dinner was pretty solid, with Fran once again enjoying it more than I did; though I have to give props to their "cheese plate". We once again ordered more food than we could eat.

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My favorite pictures from the full trip are here.