This question was the first that I wrote in this blog and I would like to finish my blog writings with the same question.
I think I came to Antarctica to cure myself of wanderlust. I thought that the trip would be miserable, a terrible mélange of freezing weather and motion sickness. I thought by going I could feel smug for the rest of my life that I had already endured the journey and wouldn’t have to ever go again. I wanted to see if Whitney and Warren fell apart without Blackberrys and working Kindles. I wanted a break from power outages and billboards. I was interested in penguins but figured that I would be bored of them after the first day. I wanted to do a lot of introspective writing and photography. I wanted to be in a place where work couldn’t reach me, no matter what crisis they felt they were facing. I wanted to meet a hot, single guy who would be fun and easily forgotten when I left. I wanted to finish War and Peace and catch up on This American Life podcasts.
None of these things happened.
I fell in love with the continent of Antarctica. A friend of mine and I always joke that we want to write a travel guide called “The We’re So Over It Travel Guide.” The main highlights of this book would include “How to Avoid Going to Roman Ruins” and “How to Justify Staying in a Four-star European Hotel and Streaming Reality TV Instead of Going to the Art Museum.” After 50+ countries and living on 4 continents, it can be easy to get jaded. Antarctica just blew my mind. The icebergs were little crystal palaces dotting the channel. The penguins were dirty, gross-smelling fur balls; I desperately wanted to hug one (and see how they would fare as footballs). The seals reminded me of my dog (they are actually an offshoot of the canine family) and had a lot of personality when they smiled, teeth and all. The crew members on the ship were all infused with excitement about the trip and their various specialties, even though they must have given their lectures hundreds of times. You could feel they loved the continent, the wilderness without noise or spoilage. They talked about hearing voices out there and I think I heard them a couple of times, most notably when we stopped in a zodiac to hear the crackling of ice melting. If you catch me with a glass of sparkling water up to my ear at a boring cocktail party, know that I am trying to hear the voices calling me back.
Instead of feeling cured of wanderlust, in many ways, I feel like I was reunited with my long-lost tribe of travelers. I met a woman who lived across the street from me in my last apartment in New York. The first night at dinner I sat next to a guy who worked on the same floor as me, on the same team, at the same time at my advertising agency in New York. That was just the Americans, with each new conversation I felt like I was meeting someone whose path I had crossed. Whether we got around the world on bicycles, camels, RVs, planes, or ships, we all did it. We ran out of money and took jobs that just got us enough to get to the next place. We learned foreign languages and fought culture clashes. We didn’t stop looking for whatever we were searching for.
I also feel like I was reconnected with myself. I didn’t walk onto Antarctica and start discussing the politics of the most recent Antarctic treaty, I followed a 20-year-old up the biggest hill we could find and sled down as fast as I could. Stupidly I went down the backwards and got snow all down my back. The coldness of it was startling and somehow wonderful as well. I had to leave my camera at home for a couple of landings because I felt so overwhelmed by the beauty and my desire to be in the middle of snow fights and sledding.
I started laughing again in huge, heaving, body-shaking laughs. I remembered that I have more than one laugh and would imitate other people’s laughter and smiles when my own weren’t enough. Every dinner ended with the sound of a vacuum cleaner because the allotted time never seemed long enough and I couldn’t help but be the last person at the table.
I didn’t relax by running 5 miles; I spent 45 minutes at a time in the sauna processing what I had experienced. At each landing I took time to close my eyes and just breathe in the experience. I didn’t do this alone and I loved lingering longer to stretch out each moment.
I didn’t think about work, advertisements, or world peace. I thought about how I could negotiate the fastest zodiac driver so we could have a party boat and fly around the icebergs.
In short, for the first time in a very long time, I was relaxed and fun. I was the precocious kid who changed her name because she didn’t want to waste time getting her schoolwork finished; the teenager who spent every Saturday night having sleepovers with all of her best friends in her parent’s living room; the college student playing card games late at night on the annual ski trip and having parties in dorm rooms; the grad student in Switzerland having a huge party in an Italian villa with food sneaked out of the school cafeteria; the 20something travel writer and photographer who traveled around with a backpack and didn’t care where she went so long as she had enough money to get home.
I have missed that girl these past few years.
I was very fortunate to have a lot of time with Whitney and Warren but I learned that Warren is just as independent as his wife and all of his children. I loved his excitement about the lectures and his oft-repeated quote “How could you eat at a time like this?” I realized how studious he can be, how open he is to learning. Not a lecture went by without him taking notes in his huge black notebook. I can’t wait to read all his notebooks some day.
I enjoyed hearing the other passengers describe their encounters with Warren and really saw how he can make anyone feel comfortable. He bravely sat at tables where he knew no one and wasn’t at all critical when Whitney and I left him all alone one night when we both felt too ill to stick around. I feel so fortunate to have such a phenomenal father. I dare say that while many people have had more time with their fathers than I have had with mine, I doubt that they could compare the number of quality moments we have shared. Never in my life have I doubted that I have a father who loves me unconditionally. I have not been the easiest child to support and he has managed to do so, even when my decisions have not been the ones he would have made. I love him for this.
It was also great to have Whitney mostly to myself. During so many parts of my life she has been my better half. No one can make me laugh the way that she can or connect with friends in the same way as I do. Being on this trip really reminded us of so many wonderful friends we have made together (shout-outs to the Senior Renegades, La Familia, and the Cairo crew). I often think of her as being the stronger of the two of us and am surprised when she is the one who gets sick and I am healthy (this happened both on this trip and on our trip with Jane on the Inca trail). I don’t know how to explain it other than to say that I imagine it’s close to how I might have felt as a 2 ½ year old when she came home from the hospital. I can imagine myself trying to get her to walk and whispering in her ear “Come on, I’ve waited so long for you to be here. Please grow as fast as you can so we can get going. The world is ours we just have to make our way out of here. I’ll figure something out.” She and I still have places to go. I don’t think either of us is yet cured of our wanderlust. I hope both our old and new friends will join us on our adventures.
Sitting in the Buenos Aires airport I am overwhelmed by what I have gone through; my apologies to the passengers around me who have had to watch me recycle the same tissue for the past hour.
I am grateful for all the friends and family members who made this trip possible and all our dear readers who followed through this journey. You gave me a reason to share this experience and I was the better for it. Buy your tickets now and let us know how it goes.
We are back in Buenos Aires with internet and are working on uploading the photos. These are a few shots pre-ship (Explorer). The first one is a map of Argentina and Antarctica. The second photo is EB eating a penguin, ok a chocolate covered meringue, and this was definitely the tastiest version. We later found out that penguin does NOT taste like chicken. It smells fishy and is really oily - turns out not good for penguin jerky, much to my chagrin. The bottom photo is Warren and Whitney at a charming cafe in Buenos Aires - so it might have been the one vegan restaurant in this entire country of steak obsessed carnivores, to which Warren was very good at going to a chick place. The bottom photo is from when Whitney turned EB into her personal Sherpa - making her carry all the carry ons before we were allowed to board the ship, which you can also see in the background.