Daddys birthday

today my father had his 70 year birthday. we are still at sea and it is mostly foggy and cloudy weather. the temperature is around +12 degrees and this will be our last sea day before arriving the western part of the Falklands tomorrow.

my father got a birthday cake during the dinner and i did not have anything to do about it, as i was not even there, attending a meeting! all the servants was singing "happy birthday"

there are some birds around, but as i am not a biologist, they all look like sea-gulls to me;0)

more fog

Today we had more fog, but absolutely flat water and very little wind.

i have spent the day with having a lecture about dogs in Antarctica, being translated into german by Steffen.

then i heard steffen having a lecture about the geological history of earth and Olle having a lecture about ice and glaciers. finally i watched the third episode of the Falklands conflict in 1982, lasting 2 hrs.

after dinner in the crew mess we spent some time in the panorama lounge socializing...

good night

fog and rain

Today it has been raining a bit and foggy weather, but with very little wind and small waves.  thus i will not turn green;0)

I had a lecture about the dogs of Antarctica for the english, and this time it was quite good, people now call me the dog man and loved my clips, with sound, video and pictures!

for the last two days i have been showing a documentary about the Falklands conflict in 1982, very interesting and a good background before we enter Stanley on sunday! some people are more interested in the wildlife than the war, but not me.

we passed 42 degrees south and still have two more days before we enter the Falklands, we weven have the ex-governour of the Falklands, Donald Lamont with us. he has a lot of knowledge from his time there from 1999-2003 and is a jolly good chap, as the british would probably say it;0)

today my father and i went to the sauna and the hot-tub, it is such a hard day at the office...

Preparing lectures and restructuring them and attending meetings and listening to other lectures also takes time....

we have 218 passengers onboard;

3 Austria

7 Australia

1 Belgium

1 Brazil

1 Swiss

4 China

47 Germany

1 Denmark

6 France

46 GB

1 Luxembourg

2 Netherlands

28 Norway

6 Sweden

1 Thailand

18 Vietnam

45 USA

i put some photographs on "pictures"

sunny day at sea

On the 2nd we had only good weather and calm seas and almost no wind. The guests where enjoying the sun on the deck, working out and sitting in the hot-tubs...

I had a lecture about dogs in Antarctica for the scandinavians, which was ok, but i spent soem hrs adding material to it, since it was a bit short and not very catchy!

Sea-birds and seal and some kind of penguin species started to swim and fly around our ship.

first day at sea...

Early morning on the 1st of November I went down to the docks and the ship, MV Fram, while my father stayed at the hotel and later went on a guided tour around in the city.

it was a very warm day and the taxi drivers drive like crazy in this town, nothing for my mother!

It took some time to get the taxi driver to the right place, since he did not speak english and i not spanish. the security guard at the docks did not speak english either, but luckily i had my old crew card and could get in that way, through millions of containers...

the rest of the afternoon went with getting things ready for the guests, like jacket they would get, luggage, dressing ourselves up in our uniforms and having lunch.

the weather was very warm, around 25 degrees and absolutely now wind and no clouds.

my father and the others came onboard and we could head out to sea...

Roaming the streets of Buenos Aires

On the 31 st my dad and I went walk-about in the city. it is a quite beautifull city with a lot of modern houses, old houses and poor  quaters. people are friendly and open and we never felt un-welcome. We looked at the old harbour with lots of good restaurants with people sitting in their summer clothes eating steaks and drinking good Argentine redwine, enjoying the sun. i evene managed to get the colour of a medium rare steak!

we had a bottle of redwine and a wonderful tender beef for lunch, watched the worlds largest flee-market, the presidential palace of Eva Peron and in the evening we met up with the guide-team and had a great dinner at La Grava.

One of my friends, Björn told me his brother was in town and he surprised us at the restaurant, and we had a long talk over some wine, steaks and beer. it was just great to meet Per-Christian on the other side of the world...

A long day and a longer evening turned out well and we could sleep with good conciousness...

Buenos Aires

My father and i arrived in Buenos Aires on the evening of the 30th of October after an very long and cramped up flight. first we flew with Lufthansa from Oslo to Frankfurt which took 2 hrs and got a halfbaked sandwich for breakfast, but it was free;0)

After a long walk in this HUGE terminal we where told that there might not be enough places on the flight, due to overbooking! but things solved out to our best and we got onboard on the jumbojet, 737-400 with around 400 other passengers...

the seats were really small and absolutely no space and no tv-screen on your own. so basicly a really long and bad flight, were we only got food twice, which wasn´t much to write home about.

After 14 hrs flight and 2 hrs delay we landed in Buenos Aires, which only has 13 mill inhabitants!

we found a bus taking all the passengers to the hotel. the drive was 30 min and took us through 3 toll-roads and we passed rich and poor peoples houses.

the hotel was really great. after some fast unpacking we went down in the bar and had some food before going to bed. the temperature was still 18 degrees.