You know how you never take anything for granted until you can’t have it?
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I never realized how much I would miss fresh vegetables.
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I was under the impression that the food down here was going to be terrible (because this is what I was told *cough Lizzy cough*). I half believed that I was going to be eating out of a tin can. This is not at all the case.
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The food here is really good. There are always multiple options for food, including vegetarian and sometimes vegan options. There’s the hot line buffet, there a pasta line, a salad line and an egg line. Additionally, the waffle makers are always available as are the cereals. And don’t forget about the pizza! They make pizza 24/7 so even in between meal times you can still get hot food. And there’s a deli area where you can go make yourself a sandwich, complete with a panini press.
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Freshies are a huge deal here. Freshies = fresh vegetables. At first I wasn’t too phased by them because I had just flown down from New Zealand and had recently eaten vegetables. The first week I was here, a lady in my office asked us newbies to go light on our freshie intake so that people who had been here since winter had a chance to get some. I didn’t mind, but also having just arrived I couldn’t empathize.
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I now completely comprehend this feeling.
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We had been getting weekly shipments of freshies: lettuce, tomatoes, onions, avocados, etc. Now that the bigger planes (C-17s) have stopped flying, we rely on the smaller LC-130s for shipment of people, cargo and mail, thus not leaving enough room for freshies, and sometimes not even mail. It hasn’t even been that long since I last had freshies – I had some avocados earlier in the week. It’s just the fact that I know I’m not going to have freshies for at least another 3 or so weeks that makes me itch a little.
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I’m sure that I’ve gone periods of time in my life before where I haven’t had fresh vegetables. Not three whole weeks, but I’ve probably gone at least half of that. It’s mostly just the mental block behind the fact of knowing that I can’t have them. I can’t just walk down the street to the grocery store and pick up some carrots. [Sidenote: there’s a drawing someone made of what McMurdo would look like if the Antarctic Treaty ever ceased and it involves a Walmart, ugh.]
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The day that I arrive back to New Zealand and I CAN just walk down the street to a supermarket I am going to have a freshies feast, where I gorge myself on as many vegetables (not fruit of course) as humanly possible until I pass out and have freshie-filled dreams of living in Freshieland forever and ever.
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For now I’ll just have to miserably eat gourmet meals, freshly baked bread and soft serve ice cream while quietly sobbing until we get a new shipment of freshies sometime mid-January.
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