Distinguished visitors

January is the primary month for distinguished visitors, also known as DV's. This week we have a delegation from New Zealand visiting Scott Base to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the base and the New Zealand Antarctic Program. The head of the US National Science Foundation is also here. It has been very exciting to see. Sir Edmund Hillary gave a speech at Scott Base yesterday for the event. Besides being the first person to successfully climb Mt Everest with Tenzing Norgay he went on to have a career as a mountaineer and explorer and made many trips to Antarctica during the early days of scientific exploration. He is also featured on the NZ $5 note. He is a very interesting speaker and seems very humble and genuinely nice.
We had a dinner (by invitation only) in the dining hall with nice china, glass glasses (as opposed to the blue plastic cups we normally use), cloth napkins and waiters. It was bizarre, but also really nice and very festive. Sir Ed was there, as well as the Prime Minister of New Zealand and the other DV's. Speeches were kept to a minimum. It was a casual dinner, but it was by far the most formal event I have attended here. We all wore our best clothing, which for most of us was our cleanest jeans and nicest fleece. The Prime Minister of New Zealand gave a little speech and thanked us all for attending. We had Mt Erebus volcano cakes with raspberries and also truffles for desert.