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Message: <blockquote data-quote="cheryl" data-source="post: 866" data-attributes="member: 1"><a href="https://www.ocregister.com/2019/02/15/travel-antarctica-will-turn-your-perceptions-of-life-upside-down/" target="_blank">Travel: Antarctica will turn your perceptions of life upside down - The Orange County Register</a>The largely unpopulated continent isn't a destination, it's a profound experience.In icy, dicey bottom-of-the-world Antarctica, I melt when a fuzzy penguin chick hatches from a cracked egg underneath its feathered mother on a windswept pebbly beach. Over on another snowy isle, I listen to a smiling cat-faced Weddell seal magnificently sing, its melodic trills breaking the primal silence.And now, our suddenly-very-small-seeming 10-person raft is surrounded by eight diving, pirouetting, humongous humpbacks, including one that glides so head-on close our inflatable Zodiac quickly reverses out of the way.  Eons-old majestic glaciers tower in the distance as barnacled flukes flap in the air, blowholes spout, and another mega-ton marine behemoth thrillingly surfaces with a rippling splash at our rear.After the electrifying show swims on, our Zodiac thumps, bumps and crunches over glistening sea ice, a nature-chiseled crystalline swan drifting alongside. Then, serenaded by a colony of squawking cartoon-cute chinstrap penguins on nearby rocks, our Abercrombie & Kent naturalist guide uncorks a bottle of Henri Abelé Brut Champagne in our bobbing raft. As we hoist glass flutes to this fantastical frosty frontier, all I can see of the bundled-up fellow passenger across from me are her hazel eyes flooding with tears.</blockquote>

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