{"id":2790,"date":"2012-03-16T09:25:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T21:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auip.wordpress.com\/?p=2163"},"modified":"2012-03-16T09:25:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T21:25:00","slug":"tudent-perspective-polar-plunge-completes-christmas-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/tudent-perspective-polar-plunge-completes-christmas-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Perspective: Polar plunge completes Christmas Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lisa Trapp, 2011 Antarctica<\/a> student blogger, writes:<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>December 25, 2011 continued<\/p>\n

Huddled beside the building to shield us from some wind, we all geared up for our Christmas Day wild activity. We pulled off our wet-skins, sweaters, pants and shoes all as fast as we could and revealed bathing suits of various styles.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The wind whipped at my bare skin and I gritted my teeth as several of my classmates and I linked arms and took a photo down by the water. The hot black sand at the water\u2019s edge made my feet burn, and I stepped quickly from foot to foot to avoid any real damage. I took a few steps back and had barely time to think about whether or not I wanted to go through with it before a shipmate went streaking by me. I buried the tips of my toes into the warm sand and took off for the water. Nothing stood between the polar plunge and me.<\/p>\n

At first the shock was so severe that if felt like nothing. I ran forward and dove head first into a small wave. As my head ducked under I could feel the warning bells going off and I thrust back up through the water and into the air. There was a lag as I stood there for a moment catching my breath and trying to find my voice. But the lag wasn\u2019t long and, before I knew it, I was racing back toward shore.<\/p>\n

I remember looking to the beach and wondering how it had become far away, but no sooner had I thought that then I was burning my feet running out of the water and wrapping a towel quickly around my body. A shiver passed through me but in some strange delayed reaction some hormone in my body kicked in and I didn\u2019t feel quite so cold. I wandered down to the surf once more and took several more group photos. Meanwhile, a group of penguins watched us quizzically.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The wind finally chilled me though, and I found myself tugging on all my clothes and belongings before hauling into a waiting Zodiac. I turned my face into the wind and gazed at the Akademic Ioffe, our ship.<\/p>\n

Before the day would finish, I would spend another several hours at a chinstrap penguin rookery, witness mother penguins caring for newborn chicks, spot a rare macaroni penguin<\/a> and watch a seal sunbath on the beach only feet from me. I also tried to cling to some semblance of how it felt to be in the most pristine place on Earth with a group of people that in only ten days had become some of my closest friends. But at the time, all I could think about was the awaiting ship\u2019s sauna, a hot shower and a hot cup of coffee in the lounge sitting with friends and being amazed that we had all taken on Antarctica<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lisa Trapp, 2011 Antarctica student blogger, writes: December 25, 2011 continued Huddled beside the building to shield us from some wind, we all geared up for our Christmas Day wild activity. We pulled off our wet-skins, sweaters, pants and shoes all as fast as we could and revealed bathing suits of various styles. The wind whipped at my bare skin…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,21,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2011-student-blogs","category-antarctica","category-student-perspective"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}