December 16 and 17 I took part in the "happy camper" survival training. This is a required course if you plan to leave McMurdo station and travel anywhere in Antarctica. They teach you how to survive in case there is an emergency (a helicopter crash and such) and you have to create your own shelter from snow and other available materials to survive. They give you various scenarios and you have to improvise to find solutions. Since I am not much of an adventurer to begin with I learnt an awful lot (including how to set up tents correctly, which probably most people already know). I think my fellow campers must have concluded that I would not be the best asset in a crisis situation but I did show talent for one activity: sawing perfect snow blocks. While this was highly admired I think it only has aesthetic value. I had a great time and actually slept quite well that night in a large Scott tent seen in some of the images below.
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