2PM is the new 10AM

Lovely to sleep in, but it was too nice a day to waste. Sam Suffi bobbed insistently from the next berth, and I had the perfect excuse to entice crew: Simon has had to make the ultimate choice and defer Module 4 and the team project for extended pre-training and preparations for his Mars Analog Expedition this summer. Unfortunately, his last minute packing meant the dock was empty at our planned departure.

I puttered about doing laundry and tidying, but couldn't quite force myself to go to campus. The water was a magnet though, and while I hung my laundry out in the spring air, I was hallooed by 2 classmates biking by who were easy to shanghai and not long after a third texted me to see if he could come too. Not an hour later, I took novice helmsman Isra (Mexico - photo to come) and classmates Marianne (Nova Scotia) and Alex (Québec) on a leisurely cruise up the Ill River.

On the way back, we stopped in at the restaurant by the stairs to the canal to meet Scott1 and Dave and place an order for barbecue fixings and Simon for dinner. Dave and Scott2 managed to drag Simon to the harbour by the time I'd steered Sam Suffi back to the berth, Marianne set up the table and Isra made fire. The impromptu feast fit nicely between a day on the water and an evening at the Irish Times Pub battling for supremacy at Quiz Night - hopefully a night that Simon will remember while he is in self-imposed isolation on Devon Island this summer.

Simon is gone, but the show, you know... must go on. Team project is about to engulf our weary class like a tidal wave. And Colin Firth and his wet-shirt awaits the next weekend.

I'm learning to "go with the flow" and keeping a more French schedule these days. I don't think I'll even bother setting a departure time next excursion ;-)

Over the rainbow

End of another week - another set of milestones gone. Personal assignment in on time (unlike +/- 30 other students ;-), presentations went well today - very cool to see what everyone else is working on.

At least 10 sprouts in my indoor garden - thyme and dill for dinner someday soon.

If the rain lets up, I'm going for a cruise Sunday. It's Simon's last chance, since he flies home Tuesday, leaving the Masters behind for now to concentrate on his trip to Mars this summer (analog base, that is). How cool is that?

swamped in discoveries

The torrential rains yesterday didn't manage to dampen a grand tour de Strasbourg with Liliana by bike (we hit all the highlights, from laundromat aka laverie to kebab shop to ISU computer lab). Today looks like June - we discovered magnolias in full bloom along with many flowering trees I haven't identified along the canal. The Sun is illuminating grass so green it looks radioactive.

This week is devoted to personal assignment, first, last and only. Starting off of on precarious footing with a late night farewell dinner and philosophical "save the world" stroll along the canals last night with Dave and Liliana, but parted ways to get a good night's sleep. Best-laid plan waylaid by discovery that my bike had been blown over by the Devil's Breath by the cathedral - worse, while fixing the derailed chain under the gaze of gargoyles, I discovered the back wheel was twisted grotesquely. Fortunately, there was still room at the Auclair-Kuveava-Haslam-MacThee Inn, so I made a bed out of a futon cover, but it was yet too early to bed down at 02h30 as the next crisis needed averting ... Finally fell asleep after receiving text message at 5AM from hospital assuring us that roomie was going to survive.

This morning, I trundled into ISU to start the new term at 11h00 for 10h00 module-4 orientation, only to discover a critical impromptu TP meeting about to start. So much for PA-first-foremost-and-only. Never despair, I remain optimistic as always.

Eureka! I just found out via T.A. we may get an extension till Monday :-) And now I know how to upload video of multi-axis shaker with test subject (Moscow train with giraffe-bot)! Wait for it....

This is a declaraion of intent to fully produce updated blog next weekend.
Really. I mean it.

New French words so far - "copraculture", "bacterio salmonell" (well - Latin, maybe), "douleur", "médecin traitant" (attending physician). Great French concept - the "house call". And this morning over decadent gourmet breakfast complete with praline-coated cocoa beans at la chocolatier Christian overlooking la Place de la Cathédrale, "acidité des fruits, goût poussant de cacao vénézuélien et cannelle" - a menu describing one of 8 flavours of hot chocolate.
Merci et bienvenue de nouveau à Strasbourg.

Star City

- placeholder - Energia trip

Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Star City

We bussed out to Star City this morning, through the old Russian villages with varied colourful clapboard designed houses.

Star City is a real working cosmonaut training centre, complete with real live cosmonauts. I couldn't believe it when Alexander Lazutkin, the cosmonaut on board the Mir space station during a depressurization collision walked by!

Microsoft Office designer Charles Simonyi was in the neutral buoyancy tank training for his April 10th blast-off for the ISS.



This afternoon, Liliana, Richard and I managed to find the monastery, but the museum was closed for the day. It's a UNESCO world heritage site that has mostly been restored - strange to see a building so old that looks so new.



more to come...15 minutes almost up.

день два в москов

It's surprising how much harder it is to achieve even the basics in another country when you can't even read a word letter by letter.

Yesterday was a challenge - I'd arranged a meeting with a Canadian astronaut (and as it turned out a few NASA reps, including the first shuttle test pilot Bob Crippen), but without an address or a Russian name, we got lost. After a series of text messages (to be appended here) with increasing hilarity, Chris Hadfield walked out to meet us at an identifiable square. By that point, we only had a few minutes to meet him, but we had an excellent lunch (and purportedly the best chocolate-banana milkshake in Moscow!) at the Starlight Grill diner. A very American start to our trip.

Today, we bussed out to Energia, where we heard the history of the Space Race from the company historian, with some first-hand accounts from our very own Nikolai Tolyarenko, formerly of Energia and now our MSS Director. Pictures to follow tomorrow.

More tales of adventure today - walked 12 hours - ended up at the end of the line on a turn-around unexpectedly, spent hours in a grocery store learning Russian a word at a time.

Had a blast with my SSP05 classmate, Liliana. More to come, I promise.

Gotta run - internet cafe about to run ou...

здравствулте! от moscow

Zdrahst'voitye from Moscow!

We made it - not sure how we can be this jet-lagged travelling 2 hours east, but we're a bedraggled-looking lot after exams.
more later...

Dateline ISU...

I'm writing from the battleground on campus here in Strasbourg, France, where recent events have left students running down the streets in celebration. They waged a long battle - 4 hours cramped in the trenches of auditorium seats, hands cramping around pens bleeding the last of their ink as the ideas drained from their brains.

It was a nearly silent battle, except for the anonymous cougher in row 4-left. Side battles nearly erupted the student noisily eating carrots to keep her strength up. And another student narrowly avoided ambush after he was caught rustling ... plastic bags full of snacks.

In the end, the troops filed past the podium, dropping heavy stacks of scribbled paper like lead bombs that failed to detonate.

It's over. The last exam ever. The final final. This ship has sailed.

And now, in the aftermath, new alliances are forming as students bound for Russia ally with the few that speak Russian.


That's all you'll hear for the next week from this reporter -

Next stop ... Red Square. After that, the Moon (and helium-3).

Renee Boileau
foreign correspondent

Obstacles & Milestones

Random signposts on the road to the Masters:

• rescuing giant French frogs at midnight from the road and rehabituating them to the ISU pond (3 out of 4 before the security car drove by) Why did the French frog cross the road? pour voir la grande grenouille-preuve barrière de chaîne-lien qu'est impossible à traverser ou pour sauter plus de.
  
• the last day of classes *ever* - in some of the most intriguing topics: ethics, outreach and journalism
• getting down to the last dregs of butane for my stove - and having a spare on hand (you'd think I actually planned ahead)
  
• picking up my Russia visa - the trip is real!



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• watching the sun go down and a swarm of black birds patterning the blue-grey sky from the computer lab, 1" into reviewing a 4" stack of course notes (using the new linear metric for knowledge)
  

your comrad -
ШЕРИЛНН РЕНЕЕ БОйЛО