Put a bird on it, Antarctica style

Here's the ridiculous vista picture of the day to start us off.

Those three tiny figures are some friends of mine who were out watching a pregnant seal. This is the closest thing I ever see to darkness; the sun really doesn't get any lower than this, and even this approximation of a sunset will soon disappear as the season progresses. This was taken around 11pm. I walked out of the bar after watching the world cup rugby finals and decided that I needed to take myself on a long, meandering think. There's something to be said for perpetual sunlight and being able to charge off on a hike at any hour of the day or night. I will say, though, that it's giving me some mighty strange sleeping habits. By which I mean I don't really sleep.

What I want to talk about today is the prevalence of all things penguin related. As far as I can tell, there are two reasons for this overabundance of penguins: 1. Penguins are really cute. 2. There aren't really any other animals down here, so they win by default. I keep thinking of the put a bird on it Portlandia sketch (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you're clearly on the internet-- google it and watch)... Penguins are the unofficial mascot of Antarctica, and as such their likeness shows up on every sticker, patch, memo, sign etc. on station. 

I decided to walk about with my camera for half an hour to take pictures of every penguin related thing I saw in the course of my natural wanderings. I actually gave up after about 10 minutes because there were just too many penguins to photograph and I lost interest. But this gives you a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about.

 This is one of my favorites. Adorable!

 Bookdrop. I do believe that all libraries should have bookdrops that look like this.

 Penguins flanking the doors to the chapel.

 View from the chapel window. I love the fact that someone actually made a stained glass window in the shape of antarctica with a penguin in it.

Penguin banners in the library. There's a lot of strange art down here, and I'm gathering material for a future post about Antarctic Art.

While Antarctica has a lot of penguins, do you know what it doesn't have? Polar bears. Those only live in the Arctic. People apparently don't necessarily know this, and so someone made a very helpful t-shirt that is far and away my favorite item available for purchase at the McMurdo Station Store:

I've spent the last few years on a crusade to not own unnecessary possessions, and I have a pretty firm rule about not acquiring any sort of commemorative memorabilia T-shirts, but I might have to make an exception for this one.