On the Ticino
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This is our last week in Milan. We have been here over a month and since my brother Jesse left it has been somewhat uneventful. I am ready to get up to the hut. We did our first round of shopping today; for kitchen supplies. We leave Milan for Valle d’Aosta for the summer on Thursday.
The failed canoeing mission Jesse and I embarked on drove me to try to find someone who rented real canoes. We found a company who rents them right on the banks of the Ticino and arranges pick-ups, too. This weekend, we managed to convince Luci’s parents to come with us down the river. Luci’s father wasn’t hard to convince as he is trying to accustom himself to life in a boat after he retires in the next couple of years. Her mother took a little more convincing but all in all it was surprisingly easy to get them in a boat (I am not sure if we’ll be able to get them back in, though). The day went really well and they caught on really quickly. It really is a beautiful river; not too deep, shallow in places but with round, smooth stones in the bottom. But, at the end of the day (and 40km) Ida and Renato were ready to stop. Unfortunately, there was nowhere convenient to stop and meet our pick-up so we had to keep paddling for another hour. I think this kind of soured them on the romance of the idea; which, to an Italian, is the most important part of the thing.
Today is the summer solstice here in the northern hemisphere which means it is the first day of summer; though, for our friends still in Antarctica it is the deepest day of the winter season. From what we have been hearing, there has been the worst storm of the past 30 years at McMurdo. You can read all about it in the mid-winter edition of The Antarctic Sun. Luci and I are both in the green to go back to McMurdo. We passed our medical and dental screening and are now offically Physically Qualified (PQed). As soon as we both got PQed Luci got another job offer; the Greenhouse Manager. As she was reluctant to back out of the contract with Supply she refused the offer, despite the fact that she really wanted the job. She got a reply back saying that the departments had already been in communication and she was free to decide with no consequence. She she took the greenhouse job. So now we are in the “green” again. This year we are even deploying from Portland, ME rather than Boston which should make things easier for whoever has to take us to the airport. The first flight of Mainbody is scheduled to leave Christchurch for McMurdo on the 5th of October this year. We just got our return tickets to the US from Italy for the 21st of september so hopefully we’ll have more than 48hrs there like we did last year.
Tags: Italia
Luke