New here in Town?

Well, I've gone and done it-started a blog for all you inquiring minds.
It's Saturday today, my first day off since we got here. I have laundry to get done, and a few minor matters to still clear up back in the US. Telecom is great-I can actually contact my bank etc. and it's only Friday there so offices are even open!
Life here at McMurdo Station AKA MacTown is being fun so far. I have a room mate, but we overlap for about 15 minutes a day so while we probably won't become fast friends we won't irritate each other either. It did take a few tries for me to remember her name. When she was in the shower I snuck a look at her Parka-they all have name tapes on them.
At the moment there are few of the Science Types (beakers) here-just the ones who have stayed all winter. The population is all of the service types getting everything up and running. About 400 folks, all of them with a story about why they came down. Gerald has been down here every season for 18 years-this year his three kids are down too. Apparently Mom enjoys the quiet for 5 months a year. Dawn, the youngest, is 23-we don't run a kindergarten after all.
There are several bars that open for a few hours in the evenings-I've been to the coffeehouse but not the others. There's bowling alley with TWO lanes-and you can earn spare cash being a pinsetter. If I can can score a blender off of the SKUA hut I might even make some recycled paper. I'd have to scam a bus tray from the galley-but I'm a baker so it won't look too weird.
SKUA is the spot where folks leave stuff they don't want anymore. Imagine a pretty well sorted back attic and you'll have the idea. There are boxes of clothes, books, food packets, decor, and general "stuff". It's fun to poke around.
The galley crew are all good so far, but there are many more coming down in October. With only 400 to cook for it's relatively calm, so I am doing some fancy stuff for desserts-and we do cookies once a week because round cookies for that many is too many to scoop everyday. Mostly the dough gets rolled into logs and sliced. The cooks like lots of cuisines and plenty of heat-the lime coconut curry soup last night was enough to clear the sinuses. Many of the population would be happy with pot roast and potatoes 5 nights a week, with chicken one night and hot dogs the other, but we force them to expand their culinary horizons! We also have a vegetarian/vegan option at Lunch and Dinner, and Jeff is good-he makes a necessary reliance (it's what we have here) on temphe (slabs of drier-style soybean curd) work out with a huge variation in flavorings.
When I got here it was a) the last flight for another month and b) a new box of freshies-or vegetables not from can or freezer. Some of the winter-over folks ate rather more fruit and veg that they should have all at once-the revenge of the killer tomato struck. I will try to figure out how to post the menus for the week.
Mostly the weather's been ok-but yesterday it got WINDY. Just like home in Chicago.... And it's still to early in the year for 24 hour sunshine! We get sun for about 8 hours a day, then a looong twilight, then some dark. It's odd, but there's been so much cloud cover and general area light that I haven't yet seen the stars. Fewer than 3,000 people on the whole continent, pretty dang dark and NO chance to see different constellations. *sigh*
Well, must get off to run errands. Some things, it seems, are inescapeable.
Becky
The Galley crew plays pool on Monday nights. I'm not quite the worst player there, but it's close! And all of the cues are these weird aluminum ones-they go "tink" when you break.