Tours and Crepes

Two days ago I got to take a tour of the entire station and surrounding areas with our facilities engineer, Weeks.  It was an excellent tour!  It was advertised as a ‘3 hour tour’ (I know – very Gilligan’s Island), but it actually went to almost four hours.  And on top of that we skipped the Dark Sector and other outlying science buildings.  The tour started out going through the station – mainly the rooms we don’t normally have access to, and special features of spaces we occupy all the time.  We were able to poke around fan rooms, electrical rooms, the emergency power plant (EPP), subfloor (the space under the floor where the pipes for our utilities run through), etc. 

After thoroughly roaming through the station, we proceeded down the Beer Can to the New Power Plant (NPP).  We saw where our water gets treated – the water we are currently drinking is melted ice from around year 100 or so.  It is extremely clean.  It is actually so pure that the water is caustic and needs to be treated – we add chemicals to regulate the pH so it doesn’t destroy our pipes and literally leach the minerals out of our bodies.  It is amazing.  We also saw the ridiculous amount of CO2 we have for the power plant fixed fire suppression system.  If all the CO2 was released at once, it would fill all the spaces at that level to 6 ft – this includes the power plant, ice tunnels, LO arch, and garage if it was open.  How would we ventilate all those spaces?  Good question!  Moving on, we saw all the generators – we have 4 in all.  Three are large generators that we normally run off of (one is running, on is standby, and one undergoes repairs at one time), and a smaller generator that is known as the ‘peaker’ or the ‘kicker’.  If we draw more power than our normal generator can handle, the little guy kicks in and provides the difference.  If we run over the capacity of those two generators, non-essential things get turned off.

From there we went into the LO, the Logistics Arch, where all of our food and materials not outside are stored.  We proceeded to the Fuel Arch, which holds 450,000 gallons of fuel.  The walls of the arch are covered in beautiful ice crystals.  The emergency exit from the back of the fuel arch is a spiral staircase which goes up to the surface.  This space is also encrusted in ice crystals.  It is just gorgeous – I need to go back there and get some good shots with my big camera…

We jumped in an LMC after going through the garage, and Weeks took us around the rest of the station – through Summer Camp, to RF where our satellite dishes are located, the fuel pits, the Otter pits (where the twin otters park), the berms, cryo, and the rodwells.  I could explain more about these places, but it would also take three hours!  I’ll explain a little more in later blogs…  It was a great tour!

Yesterday was a typical day.  I have been waiting for the wind to be from the right direction and the right speed for flask sampling for two days now.  First it was too light (under 5 meters per second), then it shifted out of our Clean Air Sector, and now its back in the right direction, but too light.  I just can’t win!  Hopefully this afternoon it will pick up a bit.  Or at least tomorrow. 

Last night was wonderful – Freija, Susan, and I did an hour of yoga.  From there I went straight to the sauna and then to the shower.  Wow.  I am going to be so spoiled when I leave here.  I may need to find an apartment when I get back to the States that has a sauna.  After that I ate dinner, watched a movie, and passed out at 9:00.  Just lovely.

This morning at breakfast there was a group making crepes.  They were testing out their recipe and technique today in anticipation of making them Sunday night for dinner and dessert.  The dessert crepes were AMAZING.  Wow.  Just as good as the crepes we always ate in Seward, AK.  Very, very goooood!  The savory crepes were more of a challenge.  I asked to help and they let me try my hand at crepe-making.  This is definitely a skill I am going to bring home with me next November…  Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the weekend!  Someone is taking it upon themselves to make brunch on Saturday and we have crepes on Sunday.  Is it the weekend yet???