Arriving in Ushuaia at the start of a student expedition to Antarctica — the dinner table, the Beagle Channel, and the feeling of being 19,000 km from home.

A morning on the Ronge Island glacier with the Students on Ice glaciology group — digging snow pits, measuring density profiles, and standing inside a landscape too beautiful to photograph.

On 14 February 2011, I was one of 53 students selected from around the world to join the Students on Ice educational expedition to Antarctica.