Miscellaneous thoughts and observations...

[alexpgp]

If I get to do this gig again, I have to make sure to bring along the following:

• sun block;
• mosquito repellant;
• fanny pack big enough to contain one set of clean room garments.

* * *One of the interesting things the observant visitor to Russia will notice is that everyone shakes hands and exchanges an oral greeting (even if mumbled) with colleagues upon first meeting them during the day. This habit is shared by the French, but not generally by Americans. After a long stint in-country, I find myself having acquired the habit, and offer my hand to people I know once I get back home. While nobody has ever actually refused to shake hands, there have been awkward moments as, I imagine, folks try to figure out what I'm doing, and why.

Another interesting practice is the habit of wishing people some variant of "enjoy your meal," either in or on one's way to the dining hall. Russians say приятного аппетита, which is about the equivalent of the French bon appetit. Interestingly, there does not seem to be any equivalent pithy phrase in English, although my "enjoy your meal" probably does the trick. The expression is used either at the table, as a meal is begun, or as one departs the table while others are eating. Less frequently, I've heard it used (mostly by Russians) when the speaker knows you're on your way to eat, even if it's said to you in a hallway or on the bus.

* * *After overseeing the start of the battery charge cycle this morning, Serge C. offered me some coffee made in the French manner. He warned me that it would be strong and informed me, cordially, that the French term for "coffee, American style" is jus de chaussettes. Literally, the expression means "the juice from one's socks," or, more charitably (in AE), plain old "dishwater," according to a paperback Harrap's slang dictionary I found in the Astrium office. For the record, the coffee from the French pot is no stronger than that from the pot that's routinely made in the interpreter office.

The schedule for today has me here for just under another hour (I get off at 8 pm). Tomorrow, I am scheduled to be at the полтинник in the morning and then I'm to remain on call between 11 pm and 9 am Wednesday morning. I may make it my business to volunteer my presence in Hall 111 tomorrow in the evening, when the fully assembled launch vehicle will be transferred to the railcar in preparation for movement to the fueling station for the Breeze-M upper stage.

That operation will take two days: one day for loading fuel and another day for loading oxidizer. After that, the launch vehicle will be rolled out to the pad and erected, in preparation for about 4 days of checks. The main rocket (stages one through three) will be loaded with propellant a few hours before launch.

I found out today I'll be doing the broadcast voice for this launch, too, the same way I did for the AMC-9 campaign last year. I've got to investigate the possibility of doing a phone post of that work, but we'll get to that when we get to it.

* * *I've taken advantage of some "fire brigade" time after most of the crew has gone back to the hotel to download my LJ in XML format. FWIW, the whole hog, since I started keeping this journal in June 2000, eats 5.5 MB on my hard drive. If we assume half that volume is overhead, that still leaves over 2.5 MB of text, which at 6 characters per word (the traditional measure of a "word," from the days of typewriters and Morse code), works out to over 400,000 words, which is moderately surprising, at first glance.

* * *There'll be a table tennis tournament under way at the Proton Club by the time I get back from the полтинник; however, my chess partner made a point of stopping by earlier to see if we could arrange for a game tonight, which we did.

I think I shall meditate between now and quitting time (unless, naturally, duty calls).

Cheers...

Comments

Handshaking and then some

[tamaraland.livejournal.com]

Here, it's a weird dance. You don't necessarily shake hands with colleagues when you first see them, but bon jour is obligatory, after which, each time you see them you can retreat to ça va, or salut, but some greeting must be exchanged. In a meeting setting, you shake hands with everyone, although in most any other business setting, like a site meeting, etc., men shake hands when meeting, but women kiss everyone 3 times on the cheek. This weirded me out a bit at first, but I've gotten used to it, probably because the fact that only the women are involved in the kissing doesn't seem to have any kind of impact on the regard in which they're held professionally.

What does weird me out is that in the German side, a lot of women are dispensing with the 3 kisses on the cheek and going for just one on the lips, but only with other women. That one can really throw you if you don't see it coming!