We got off the ship this morning after breakfast.  We dropped our luggage at our hotel.  Since we couldn’t check into the hotel this early in the morning, we decided to head down town and find a place to get some coffee.  Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to catch up on emails and what was going on in the world outside of Antarctica.

It was quite remarkable that we could even walk after 9 days on a ship.  I remember in the past feeling rocking motion when on land for the first time in days.  But there was none of that.  We found a coffee shop with a big booth and set up to stick our faces in our computers for hours.  About two or three hours in the booth began to sway and rock.  It was moving so much that is was actually difficult to type as I had to hold on to the table not to fall over.  I found it interesting that while standing and walking, there was no swaying, but sitting was difficult.  I wondered if half the tourists in this town were currently holding on to a table or a wall somewhere as a lot of people in Ushuaia are here to go on an Antarctica cruise, or just getting back from one and holding on to their coffee for dear life.

The swaying continued most of the day but finally calmed down a bit by the time I went to bed.  I usually have to go to the bathroom once or five times in the middle of the night.  I got up at 0-dark-30 and as soon as I was on my feet, the entire room pitched at about a 40 degree angle, the wall in front of me sloping away.  I couldn’t stand where I was as I slid uncontrollably into the wall.  I slammed into the wall with quite a bit of force before the room started to pitch in the opposite direction.  I did manage to resist the second pitch, but had a bit of difficulty making it to the bathroom and then back to bed.  I’m so glad I didn’t need to get up again until morning.  By morning, the room had settled back into being flat and was no longer moving.