Journey To the End of the Earth (Well, Almost...)

Stories from Antarctica

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Once I was strolling...

I was once I was strolling one very mild summer's day, when I thought I'd lay myself down to rest in a big field of glacial morraine. I lay there in the sun and felt it caressing my face as I fell asleep and dreamed. I dreamed I saw a concert by stars of movies. This really blew my mind, the fact that me, an over-fed, flannel clad, krilling gnome, should be invited to hear these classic grooves. But there I was. MMmm. I was taken to a place, the yacht of a microsoft king. I stood in his studio, getting the feelin, in front of all kinds of tequila. There was reposados, silvers, anejos, gold ones. Out of the middle, came a waitress. And she whispered in my ear, something crazy. She said "Take a shot, and dig that band..."

And dig I did. I dug that band like a post hole. We shuttled out to the yacht in our zodiacs, driving by all 416 feet, two helicopters, to the back of the ship. We got off and entered an interior compartment that housed a 63 foot yacht and a replica submarine (This compartment floods, so you can drive the boat out of the yacht). This is where we were issued white slippers (I got new socks cuz my feet didn't fit in the slippers) before we headed up to the studio. The stairs wrapped up around a pair of functional, 7-story guitars. We walked down a wood-finished hallway past Chihuly molded glass guitars into the studio, were handed a glass of champagne, and told to wait for Mr Paul Allen. WIth pleasure! He came out, introduced the band and shot right into Stevie Ray Vaughn's "house is a rockin'" and I can tell you that yacht really was. If there is one thing Palmer station does better than anywhere else, it's have a good time. It helped that the band was incredible. The fourth song in was Led Zeppelin's "When the levee breaks" and the driving bass drum of the intro made the clouds part, showering the glacier and the surrounding mountains in a golden light. At this point the champagne and tequila were flowing (I found my new favorite, a Sauza anejo, I think the commemoritivo. So smooth). Then Mr. Dan Aykroyd came out, grabbed a harmonica and started into "Born in Chicago." And all this time I thought he was Canadian...

I woke up the next morning remembering what seemed like a dream about a tour of selected areas of the ship (I'm afraid this post will get deleted if I mention the things we saw, apparently crew's families dont even get that tour. But the glass bottomed lounge was worth mentioning), and sitting in one of the nicest rooms I have ever been in, a music studio no less, watching Dan Aykroyd and Paul Allen jam while drinking great tequila straight from a recent port of call in Mexico, and looking out the window to see glacier's and mountains in Antarctica. Some things, like God and the limit's of the universe, the beginnings of life and the bigfoot, are beyond comprehension and require an element of faith to believe. That night last week has joined their ranks in enigmaty.

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