New blog.

Read it.

http://kopperdoessenegal.wordpress.com

No hot water? No problem!

(sorry...more old posts to come at some point; I just got internet at home)

Showering in cold water, one of the many skills I acquired in Russia, was one I did not expect to put to use so soon. But, thanks to some cruel twist of fate, I came back from a run on a rather cold night (weather.com tells me it feels like 45ºF — too cold for shorts) only to discover that our hot water isn't working. I'm still unclear as to whether this is a result of the workmen installing solar panels on our roof, running the laundry on "warm", or just God punishing me...in any case, I am now hypothermic.

Reverse culture shock: Myth or reality?

Reality.

My trip back to America was as follows:
Depart St. Petersburg at 6:10 am. Arrive Frankfurt 7:35 am (or something like that).
Depart Frankfurt 10:30 am. Arrive JFK 12:50 pm.
Depart JFK 2:30 pm. Arrive Boston/Logan 4:30 pm.
Take Dartmouth Coach home.

I was miserable on the St. Petersburg to Frankfurt flight. Americans were all around me, more than I had seen at one time in months. I clung to the Russians, desperate for any bits of conversation I might overhear. In Frankfurt, I almost tried to get on a flight to Moscow but eventually lay down and watched Heroes, season 2. In Russian. Once I got to JFK, I was so overwhelmed by everything being in English that I had to sit in a corner and listen to Tchaikovsky so as to relax. I kept snapping my head to look at someone speaking English; it occurred to me that everyone was speaking English, but I was so accustomed to an English-speaker being an anomaly that I couldn't help it.

Since that miserable 24 hour commute (during which I slept a total of 2 hours out of 48), I have managed to readjust back to life in America, but some things still surprise me.

For example, my best friend and I went to the Farmer's Market, held on the Dartmouth Green, last Wednesday. I couldn't get over the absence of drunk people, the abundance of organic food, and that we were able to take our shoes off and sit on the grass without receiving any looks of dismay.

Yesterday, while walking home, I encountered construction on my street blocking my path. A friendly policeman said he would stop traffic for me so that I wouldn't have to (gasp!) cross the street and walk on the sidewalk. I responded, "that's ok, I live right up there," to which he nodded and resumed work (which, in this case, was watching the construction workers with a look of barely disguised glee). Such an ordinary exchange was, for me, extraordinary. To those who haven't spent considerable time abroad, it is difficult to explain just how easy things are in America. I can guess what would happen in Russia: there would be no cop supervising the construction workers and I would be almost run over by a car. Or someone would yell at me ("Devushka! DEVUSHKA! DEVUSHKA!!!") In any case, the mere simplicity of this exchange was astounding.

H-Town Lovin'

In my haste to get back to Cornell, I worked things out that I would only have two weeks in Hanover. These past two weeks have flown by, probably because I have done absolutely nothing of note except go to the DMV, and yesterday I found myself pondering the existence of this fascinating small town.

I've spent a good part of the past few years abhorring Hanover, mainly for its superficial beauty. But yesterday, several things happened that made me begin to appreciate my hometown.

1) I was standing in line at the post office and heard the following:
Appalachian Trail hiker #1: "This town is so weird. Everyone here is so attractive. How is this even possible?"
Appalachian Trail hiker #2: "You haven't showered in 4 months. They look attractive because they're clean."

Actually, the latter comment is not exactly true. The residents of Hanover have two very distinct looks: preppy and sporty casual. Preppy means J.Crew, Polo, or Vineyard Vines. Very conservative and neat. Sporty casual consists of running shorts, a tshirt, and flip flops (backpack optional; nalgene not). A ponytail (often with stretchy headband) is required for girls, meaning that this is the look of choice for anyone who has failed to shower recently. Sporty casual is one of my favorite looks, particularly during the summer, when I shower on average once every three days.

However, AT Hiker #1 was right on. Everyone in Hanover is attractive. By some miracle of genetics and success (and one that is almost as puzzling as that in Russia which makes all women 10's and all men 1's), only beautiful people are allowed to live in Hanover. This may be so as not to detract from the town's picturesque architecture and decor.**

2) I went running with my mom and dogs and ended up at a stream. On our way down to the stream, a car pulled up, the window rolled down, and a woman asked, "Do you know where _______ lives?" Yes, actually, I did. To the extent that I gave creepily detailed directions ("you know the hill after the Ray School? OK, well, it's at the top of that hill, probably right at the peak..."). I think this is what they mean by "small town."

3) I got to play in the stream with my dogs.

So after these events, I was a little chagrined at leaving this all behind. If only I knew then what I know now....

I had just started my drive to Ithaca and was on the highway in Vermont, when I felt a subtle change in the car. Nothing by any means drastic, and something that could have been due to a strong headwind. Except there wasn't a strong headwind, and my check oil light came on right as I felt that shift. I tried to accelerate, but there was no power behind the car; I could barely sustain 70 mph going up a small hill. I decided to call my stepdad.

As I was on the phone with him, I lost all power. Though I was steadily pushing down on the gas, the speed dropped from 70 to 60 to 50 to 40. I pulled over. Several hours later, my car was towed and is now patiently awaiting servicing. I have no idea what the problem is, except that I went through a ton of oil.

How far did I make it out of Hanover? 20 miles.

**Actually, nerdily enough, I do know of a plausible explanation for this phenomenon: attractive people tend to be more successful than unattractive ones, partially due to the fact that people respond better to attractive people.

Frank

Good news: still having adventures in America.

My best friend recently inherited a 1995 Chevy Caprice, whom we have christened "Frank." Frank is a classic, of a quality rarely seen these days, and is a firecracker under the pedal. Yesterday, we racked our brains for some way to improve Frank (assuming that was even possible), and came up with the perfect solution: car wash!

Two hours and several knuckles raw from hand washing Frank, he glows with a shine and is even better than new.

Frank

I'M HOME

But fear not: I have a backlog of posts that I've written but not yet managed to post, so expect updates over the next couple of days. Once these posts run out, I may keep writing, depending on whether I can come up with anything interesting to say. We'll see.

After sleeping for 2-3 hours out of 45, I was finally able to collapse in a real bed last night. The journey home had been a series of ups and downs; the ups peaked when, driving home, I was so out of it I'm fairly certain my brother thought I was drunk, then immediately crashed and almost fell asleep while eating dinner.

My question is, at what point in sleep deprivation do you start hallucinating?

One thing I’ll miss: the metro

While I haven’t become attached to public transportation per se, there is a special place in my heart reserved for the metro. St. Petersburg metro stations aren’t quite as intricate and beautiful as those in Moscow, but every stop has a certain character to it, be it the hideous walls of Площадь Мушества or the red tiles of Маяковская. Moreover, the metro is the ideal locale for people watching. I've had some truly horrible experiences on the crowded avtobusi (the first time I rode it, when I watched a small boy have a seizure, comes to mind), but not so for the metro, which provides unlimited opportunities for amusement. There is, for instance, the game I play when the metro is not too crowded and a cute boy happens to be sitting in the same car. I try to stick with him as long as is convenient for me and imagine that he is doing the same. I sneak glances at his reflection in the window and notice when he looks back. In the end, it's a game with very little disappointment and short bursts of excitement ("he's going to Chernishevskaya too!"). In retrospect, this game sounds pretty creepy.

Cute boys aside, the metro never fails to disappoint. For instance, yesterday I witnessed a drunk guy playing the banjo as he rode the escalator down…while everyone around him, including those who were clearly not with him, sang along. On that same escalator ride was a couple fighting: he held her wrists while she tried to hit him and push him away so she could run down the steps. This evening, a woman hopped on our car at Академическая and serenaded us with opera all the way to Озерки. I don't normally give money to beggars — there are simply too many of htem, but I couldn't let this woman go without my 50 rubles.

I think the next step is to get some kind of entertainment on the Tcats.

No, seriously, it's not a problem

I recently sent out an email to several of my enginerd friends begging for help with a project I have at work. I got several hilarious responses; most notably, "I'm sure someone in computer science would jump at the opportunity to do some extra programming for fun (not sarcasm). " What was also funny about this email was that another sender apologized for the "delayed" response: he replied 3 days after my original email. I often go for 3 days without any internet access and in fact only really check my email regularly because I procrastinate at work. I'm starting to have a sneaking suspicion that there is some kind of hole in the time-space continuum between Russia and western Europe (just as invisible as but no less real than the Iron Curtain). More on this to come as I continue to gather evidence.

Macho, macho man...

aka Bryan "Bion" Billings....

A few weeks ago, my former program director, Bryan ran a marathon. He signed up the day before and was participant #281, which means there were about 278 more runners than I had expected, given that in all my time here I've only seen two people jogging distances greater than 100 m. Anyway, Bryan recruited several of us to help him out by providing Gatorade and juice at strategic points around the course, so I had the opportunity to take some pretty fantastic pictures.Getting excited for the big start!



Participants of all ages


And just in case runners were unable to discern for themselves what the long tables full of food were...

The best part was that we got weird looks for standing on the sidelines with bottles of Gatorade and juice, yet it was somehow normal for marathon runners to stop and eat black bread with salt. Wouldn't be my first choice for nourishment during a marathon, but what do I know.

“We only have one night in St. Petersburg, so we decided to go to a Britney Spears concert.”

Note: pictures to come.

Meeting other native English speakers almost makes up for the inadequacy I feel when I meet other foreigners — while my Russian is nothing next to, say, that of the Polish girl I work with, at least I can get a full sentence out, which is more than I can say for most of the Americans I meet. Two cases in point:

The other day, I received a phone call from an unknown number. The conversation went something like this:
Him: “Allo? Sara? Allo?”
Me: “Da, da, eto Sara.”
Him: “Ah! Sara! Privet.”
Me: “Privet.”
Long silence.
Him: “Kevin.”
Me: “Kevin?”
Him: “Kevin.”
Long silence.

(at this point, I start getting excited — my friend Katie and I were recently drinking on the embankment of the Neva when a guy who supposedly neither drinks nor smokes (go figure why he wanted to talk to two devushki drinking at 5 pm on a Tuesday) tried to pick us up. I ended up giving him my number, mostly to get rid of him, and he’s been calling me every day since. Unfortunately, neither Katie nor I can remember his name, so we’ve named him Ruslan. Ruslan is kind of awkward and sometimes has trouble getting a full sentence out, so I figured maybe Kevin was actually his name — mystery solved!)

Me: “Ah! Privet!”
Him: “Privet.”
Long silence.

Him: “Uhh po-angliski?”
Me: “Uhh da…?”
Him: “Oh, ok, hi, is this Sarah the Canadian?”

What this kid, who can’t even say, “this is Kevin” (TWO words, one of which is his own name, in Russian: eto Kevin) is doing in Russia, God only knows.

Then on Sunday was one of the many highlights of the summer: the Britney Spears concert. I figure that, having been here 6 months and having gone to the ballet three times, the theatre, the symphony, a Duran Duran concert — I’m entitled to a guilty pleasure in the form of some good old fashioned American pop. This does not apply, however, to the Australian and South African guys I met at the concert.

How did I meet them? Katie and I were standing in the popcorn line (Britney’s theme is Circus so popcorn is obligatory) and heard someone say, “does anyone speak English?!?” These guys were looking around hopefully for someone willing to translate the beer menu. Turns out they were on a cruise and, rather than take advantage of being in Russia’s cultural capital, and one of the most culturally/artistically interesting cities in the world, they chose to go to a Britney concert. In retrospect, this may have been a cunning move on their parts: they were able to witness Russian women in a natural setting and saw a variety of outfits, ranging from prom dresses to a 7-year old and mother wearing matching leopard print outfits.

One quick note about the Circus theme: maybe her performers’ tricks are exciting in America, but this is Russia for crying out loud — the Russian circus is renowned for its dangerous acts including but not limited to no safety nets or cords, animal abuse, anti-Semitism, and so on. After a horrifying display in Moscow of chimps involved in a Jewish wedding, it’s tough to be impressed by Britney’s mediocre performers.

Mmm...kolbasa

I originally started working at Bellona translating texts from Russian to English and vice versa. This included the summaries for their quarterly journal, Environment and Rights. However, it was only in this most recent edition that my work was noted with “Translated by Sarah A. Kopper” directly under the following piece of text:

EKOLBASA: Myth or Reality?
Who here loves kolbasa? A sandwich with a thin slice of smoked kolbasa on the holiday table is beautiful and delicious. And although doctors never tire of repeating that kolbasa is not the healthiest of foods, the number of its fans is not decreasing….

I do my best to put things in a context English speakers can understand, but really — is there any way to make “a sandwich with a thin slice of smoked kolbasa on the holiday table is beautiful and delicious” sound sensible to an American? I can only hope that this is published on the website so that a google search of my name turns up the aforementioned summaries.

The best way to see St. Petersburg...

...is, without a doubt, from the back of a scooter, at sunset, sitting behind a guy who looks like he’s straight out of the Lizzie McGuire movie. Speeding along, I thought to myself, true, I’d rather not die young, but what a way to die.

Americans are weird.

Hmm, long time no post. Luckily, I have about seven posts to add, so get excited for some major blogging.

Part of this whole study abroad thing has made me realize that Russians aren’t the only ones who were weird. This was especially salient when I was trying to get Sasha, a guy I work with, to do the gallon challenge (incidentally, with a gallon of fresh, unpasteurized, super fatty milk he bought from a milk truck that stopped outside our work). Not only did Sasha not understand the point of the gallon challenge or why anyone would ever choose to do it, he didn’t even understand the point of a dare (“Wait, so neither of us gets anything if I do it? And neither of us gets anything if I don’t?”). I tried to explain that it’s about the Glory but he just didn’t believe that drinking a gallon of milk and vomiting was worth it.

A couple of days later, Katie was telling me who from her high school went to Cornell: “It’s, like, all Asians and JAPs,” and it occurred to me how redundant that sounded when (I’m making a gross and unfair generalization here) in acutality the two groups couldn’t be more different.

By the way, Felton, if you’re still reading this: after your very kind compliment regarding my blog, I seem to do my best to prove you wrong. I’m going to go out on a very shaky limb here and suggest that you are responsible for my increasing inability to write coherently.

My new archnemesis

Cockroaches, scuttle aside and make way for the mosquitoes.

Yes, it is true — the cockroaches I shared a kitchen with for 5 months have now been replaced by mosquitoes as my most hated living creatures. Why? Because I woke up yesterday morning with 28 bug bites spanning my legs and feet. (What kind of mosquito goes after feet that walk 6+ miles per day and haven't seen a shower in over 36 hours? St. Petersburg mosquitoes, that's what kind.)

As if these 28 reasons weren't enough, I give the mosquitoes full credit for my latest injury. I considered last night's shower to clean off my muddy legs a perfect opportunity to justify scrubbing the shit out of my bug bites but had forgotten my special banya scrubber in my bedroom. I dashed out of the shower, naked and dripping wet, and promptly wiped out, banging up my leg in the process. Were it not for these damn bites, I would have had little motivation to bother with the scrubber and my legs would be in fine shape. On the bright side, no one was home to witness my downfall.

Another event in contention for Low of the Day was when, on my walk home, I saw a man strolling around, holding a beer, and projectile vomiting. The lack of enforcement of open container laws is exhilirating at first but trust me: it gets old real quick.

Dear Grace and Elise,**

i actually kind of miss america. who would have thought?

this was brought on by my incredible sloppiness this morning. went to bed around 7 am, woke up at 9:30 and left for work. i bought coffee to go at mcdonald's and started drinking it on the subway. still wearing the clothes from last night but i had the foresight to bring my running clothes (which i theoretically could have slept in but instead chose to wander around sergei's apartment in my bathing suit bottom (more about that below) and cardigan). the shoes i'm wearing with my outfit aren't great for a lot of walking so i put on my running shoes while on the metro. as i'm sure you can guess, this is a big no-no, and i received several glares of disgust that someone would dare put on shoes while on the metro, sipping a coffee no less.

so then i get to the street my work is on and take off power walking, swinging my arms appropriately. i am now wearing a black dress and running shoes and am holding a cup of coffee. this is a look that i think is pretty chic in america, the connotation being that i have important meetings to look nice for, and so many of them that i need sensible shoes to run from one to the next. the coffee look ("so much to do i haven't even slept yet!") is also pretty mod.

not so in russia. i was intensely judged for the shoes, while the coffee cup brought on looks of curiosity and wonder ("we have that here?!?"). this made me miss america, where my grunginess would be mistaken for chic.

back to the bathing suit part. i haven't been home enough to do laundry and am out of clean underwear. so i'm wearing a bathing suit bottom in lieu. considering buying some underwear on my way to dinner tonight.

**I'm too lazy to actually write a post, so I'm just copying and pasting an email I sent my roommates. Apologies for the absence of the capitalization and eloquence that characterize my usual posts.

Nice, uh...sweater?

Today I saw an argyle tube top.

Here's the thing about Russian women: while some are very well dressed, and others very badly dressed, the majority of them have outfits that have potential. Except then they go wrong. Fatally wrong. Be it the leopard print dress with a zebra print belt, the blinged out jeans, or the fishnet stockings with an otherwise classy dress. Granted, these poor women don't have many options, Russian clothing being as overpriced, poorly made, and just, well, cheap-looking as it is. That said, some of these women could use a lesson in the beauty of simplicity.

Case in point: the owner of said argyle tube top was neatly dressed in a cute, flattering skirt, with a well-fitted button-down shirt. The two together would have been more than adequate. Instead, this girl looked at herself in the mirror, thought, "hmm, it's just missing that little something," and added the tube top.

Call me a purist, but if it's cold enough to wear wool around your torso, it's cold enough to wear sleeves.

Shoes...let's get some shoes!

After walking 12 miles to and from Peter and Paul Fortress and effectively ruining my final pair of non-sneakers walking shoes, I realized that it was, at long last, time to really invest in a pair of Sensible Shoes. I'd been putting this off for a while, because it seemed like a shame to spend so much on inevitably ugly shoes, but realized that failing to do so would significantly impede, well, everything (I walk a lot). If the pain in my feet hadn't convinced me, one look at my heel, which had turned into one big blister, would have done the trick.


So off I went. My roommate and I had found a mall that seemed to consist entirely of shoe stores, so this seemed like a good starting place. At the first store, I found some promising shoes but decided to use my free time to go to every single store in the mall in search of a better price. In the end, my enterprising capitalistic ways paid off: while it took almost two hours, I ultimately found the same shoes for 600 R less! Even better — when I looked the shoes up online, I discovered that I had saved $35!

R.I.P., MJ

I sincerely hope that “where were you when you learned of MJ’s death?” never joins “where were you when JFK was assassinated/we landed on the moon/on 9/11”** as the Questions of Our Time. However, should this not be the case, I have an answer ready: in a gypsy cab speeding down Bolshoi Prospect of Vasiliesvsky Island.

My internet ran out last night due to my excessive downloading. Given that I won’t have internet at home for the entire month of July, I didn’t add more money to my account, figuring that a couple of extra days wouldn’t make much difference. I was wrong.

Farrah Fawcett’s death hit headlines before midnight my time, so I read all about it before going to bed. But when I woke up this morning, my ethernet was turned off, so I had no access to the outside world. Such access finally came in the form of an Armenian cab driver:

“So…what do you think of Jackson’s death?”
“Who? Jackson? Who’s that?”
“Michael Jackson! You didn’t know? He died today of heart failure!”
“YOU’RE KIDDING.”

We proceeded to discuss at length whether all that MJ brought to the music world sufficiently outweighed all he took from human morality and concluded that it was.

RIP, MJ.




** Answers: not born, not born, in 8th grade gym class ("Roller Sports")

Reflections Part II - The Dorm

Yesterday morning, I was sitting in my bed reading the news when one of the cleaning women opened the door and looked around.
“When do you leave? And what is all this mess?!?”
I hadn’t realized that where I put my clothes (in this instance, on my former roommates’ now-vacated beds) was any of her concern, but that shows how much I know.
“Umm sorry….I’m leaving on Saturday and am in the middle of packing.”
“Well, clean this up. Two new girls are coming and I need somewhere to put their sheets.”

And thus ends my long relationship with the obshezhitiye (общежитие). Let me explain: when I first arrived here at the end of January, I discovered that I was not only living in the same building as I had when I was 9, but on a floor I had lived on previously. As I remarked to my brother, yes, it was weird living here again. Especially when I came home drunk. I somehow felt that the innocence of my childhood memories had been tainted by all the «grown up» things I did here now: drinking, cooking for myself, getting yelled at (rather than adored) by babushki….

But now those memories of my 9-year old self shouting to my brother to «HOLD ON» while, in our shared room (now Tess and Radhika's room), I tried deodorant for the first time; of watching spokoini nochi/спокойной ночи (good night) before bedtime in the room I shared with Elise and Grace; of painting my nails in that very room with a Dartmouth student I had especially looked up to — those memories now dim in comparison to my new memories.

I remember our first night in the dorm, when my roommates and I made big plans to set up our room and cook our first meal together after, of course, a quick nap. That nap turned into an 11-hour coma-like sleep. We soon discovered that pretending to nap was the best way to avoid people we didn't want to talk to, so for the first couple of weeks it seemed that all we did was sleep. We then so adjusted to living together that if one of us decided to take a nap, another person would get sleepy and follow suit, while the third tried to hold out as long as possible but finally gave into the temptation.

I had worried that living alone for a week would taint these memories as they had tainted my earlier ones. Instead, while those 4 months living with Grace and Elise feel more like a dream than reality — detailed, life-life, yet upon consideration not quite believable — it would be natural for me to come home after work to find them waiting, ready to tell me the latest Suite Drama.

All the same, I am ready to leave the общежитие: the Bard-Smolny chapter of my life has ended, while the American living in St. Petersburg one continues. I am ready to leave behind those memories, ready to put them in a distant corner of my mind and to focus on what's next.

So, Jay, to answer your question more fully: yes, it's weird being back in the dorm. But it's somehow fitting. This has been the site of significant periods in my life; it is where I have grown up, first as a child too young to remember, then as a 9-year old, and finally at 21.

2 more birthdays at work.

Man, I love this place. They also try to mix it up and do something different for each of the birthdays, no easy task given that there have been about seven in my time here. Today, the
special" present was signing a hot air balloon and sending it up into the sky. A little ironic coming from an environmental rights organization.