From Jessica - Class of Catherine Pellaton, Ecole des Tattes.
Q: How will you be spending Christmas and the New Year?
A: We celebrated Christmas all together in the big mess tent in the base camp, and we will do so again for the New Year. Ralf had a cake, René some chocolates, I had brought some foie gras and Alain Hubert cooked the meal, meat and fish pancakes. We celebrated Christmas as everywhere else on the planet even though we were isolated in the Antarctic.

From the Barberêche Primary School.
Q: How are you feeling now that you are there, are you well?
A: The living conditions are not as easy as in Europe, but we adapt pretty quickly, and rapidly to the cold as well. So we are very pleased to be spending two months in this unique, fantastic environment.
Q: The lavatories are in an igloo … but how do you avoid freezing when you use them? A: In fact the igloo protects us from the outside cold and always maintains roughly the same temperature (about -5°C), so we don't freeze when we go to the lavatory. Having an igloo for the lavatory is a great luxury for an expedition such as ours.
Q: How do you manage to wash?
A: In fact we do not wash, except for our faces and hands, and for cleaning our teeth. Washing in the open air would be too unpleasant and would require too much hot water which is precious because it takes a long time to make it from snow. In any event, we don't really perspire in the Antarctic, so we hardly get dirty.
Q: Do you suffer from the cold ?
A: Yes and no. Since we arrived in Antarctica, most of the days have been fine. On days like that, when the sun shines, it is about -7°C., which is entirely bearable, if not pleasant, because the humidity is very low, and so we don't need to wear too many clothes. On the other hand, when the sky is overcast or the sun goes down, the cold arrives very quickly and we have to cover up because that is when we can suffer from the cold.
Q: Have you come across any living creatures since your arrival?
A: Yes, birds. We have seen lots of snow petrels in the mountains and nunataks, and we have also spotted some skuas.
Q: What have the highest and lowest temperatures been since you arrived?
A: The lowest temperature must have been about -25°C during the night, that is to say when the sun is lower than the horizon (but never set). During the day, the highest temperature has been about -4°C. We should add that, in the morning, the sun warms up the tent and the temperature inside it can climb as high as 30°C, which is not very nice when we have adapted to the low temperatures.
Q: What do you eat?
A: Mainly rice, pasta, fish, diced bacon, sausage, instant soups, cheese, dried fruit and chocolate. Each evening, the team members take turns to make the meal. Each is therefore faced with the challenge of making a meal that is different from the previous one, with the same food.
Q: Do you have enough to eat?
A: Yes, for the most part. Alain bought about 800kg of food for the expedition!
Q: What kind of instrument do you use for a telephone?
A: We telephone with an Inmarsat communication system that works with the help of satellites orbiting around the Atlantic and Indian oceans.
Q: Do you have a lot of spare clothing?
A: We do not have as much as when we are living in Europe, for in the Antarctic, because of the low temperatures and the low humidity, we perspire much less and therefore hardly soil our clothes.
Q: How do you wash your clothes? A: We don't wash them: when they are a little damp, after a long march, for example, we dry them by hanging them on a line in the tent.
Q: Do you miss your families?
A: Yes, and of course especially during the Christmas period, but we are extremely busy and only think of them from time to time.
Q: How strong have the most violent winds been since your arrival?
A: The strongest winds have been about 60 kph, which is not unusual for the Antarctic.
Q: Can the tent that you sleep in get blown away?
A: I hope not! We have done everything we can to make it withstand the great winds: the ropes are maintained by bamboo sticks that are buried deep in the snow and we have built a wall of snow around each one. But if ever we were to experience a major storm, we would nevertheless not have a very relaxing night.
Q: Have you had any serious problems or accidents since your arrival?
A: No, fortunately, there have been no problems.
Q: Is it possible for you to fish?
A: No, because we are a long way from the coast (200 km).
Q: Have you seen the Aurora Borealis?
A: Unfortunately not, because there is daylight all the time and you need the night to see them. It is the teams that spend the winter in the scientific stations that can generally admire the spectacle.
Q: For how many hours do you sleep?
A: Depending on the day, between 5 and 10 hours. It depends on what we are doing, and on the weather, but also on our ability to go to sleep in the daylight. For my part, (Editor's note: it is the French researcher Alain Bidart who is answering the youngsters' questions), I sleep with a blindfold over my eyes to keep out the sunlight.
Q: Do you have any free time, and if so, how do you spend it?
A: Now and again, and when the moments occur, we read or we write our diaries - which is traditional for polar explorers.
Q: What do you do to measure the thickness of the ice?
A: We're not doing this during this expedition, but if we wanted to do so, we would use an instrument that sends waves through the snow. These waves rebound from the ground beneath the ice. The time they take to come back enables us to calculate the thickness of the ice, because we know how fast they travel.
Q: How old is the ice? What do you have to do to know?
A: To date the upper layers of the ice, we count the layers of snow that have accumulated, with each one corresponding to a year. We are going to carry out an experiment while we're here so that we can show you.
Q: How will you be spending New Year's Eve? How will you tackle this new millennium?
A: We will be celebrating the New Year as we did Christmas, all together in the big mess tent in the base camp. Each person will bring festive food and we will prepare a festive meal. We are going to begin this new millennium like everywhere else on the planet, but in addition by trying to make people understand how important it is to respect the Antarctic.