This morning, I have a strong sense of deja-vu. Probably because I'm sitting at a table in the Staff House at Blodgett Forest, drinking tea and watching the squirrels play. And getting ready for Day 2 of setup for the field campaign. This is where I spent most of graduate school. It's eerily similar: an unknown and relatively unfinished, very expensive instrument that I feel completely unqualified to run, on the top of a tower in the middle of ponderosa pine forest. But this time I feel a lot less confused, and whether or not I'm qualified to make the decisions, I'm more willing to make them. And I'm surrounded by an absolutely fabulous group of other people - grad students, post-docs and PIs from all over the country. Everyone is willing to help everyone else out (the way of atmospheric chemistry, I think), and I'm pretty excited about the next six weeks!
It is a beautiful moment of silence though - the first person up in my house (possibly the station, though I doubt that - foresters are early risers), and as the sun rises, the quality of the light in the trees has steadily shifted to more and more spots on the forest floor.So I am enjoying this brief respite before the insanity of a field campaigns starts up again. It seems perfect for me to maintain the patience required to deal with the station's internet. (slower than most places in the Ukraine. And that's saying a lot.)
We arrived in on Friday - greeted at the rental car place by the irony of two chemists out to study air pollution being asked if we wanted to upgrade our compact to an SUV. No we did not. Did we want the SUV for no extra charge, then? No. Well, actually, it's the only car you can get, so here are the keys to the SUV. Oh, the shame... When we arrived, we discovered that our SUV was actually one of the smaller ones that people were forced to get from the rental car agencies. At least now we're all car pooling and hauling equipment with them,so it's *slightly* more justified.
But on the drive up (as we sat in Friday afternoon Sacramento traffic), we briefly heard on the radio one of the most ridiculous songs I've ever heard - the Black Eyed Peas singing over and over "I got it from my momma - I got it from my momma". That kept us amused for most of the drive out to Blodgett. I was pretty excited when I heard it again yesterday afternoon in one of the field site to field station transits. Especially when I found out that the next line was something along the lines "so hot it's like a sauna". Absolutely ridiculous.
Yesterday, we took our safety training (learned how to use the radios to communicate with the logging company that owns the land our field site is on, heard about the dangers of hanta virus and lyme disease and all that good stuff - though I don't know if I buy the 'best way to remove a tick is to pull it straight out - I wouldn't want to leave any in - but hopefully I won't have to deal with that one!). We started moving our equipment out to the site, which was a challenge. Then we tried to set up our inlet. I learned that trying to arrange ~70 feet of copper tubing is perhaps more challenging that initially thought.
Yesterday's drama was centered around the top of the tower - and the fact that the floor slats slip and slide. (don't worry mom, we'll be careful. we even took a safety video about scaffolding and learned all sorts of useful tidbits like 'don't work on metal scaffolding during electrical storms' and 'if in doubt, ask a Competent Person'). And literally have the texture of a cheese grater. Needless to say, I didn't think about this when I was sitting down arranging our equipment, and slid over to grab a wrench. And tore a massive hole in the back of my (only pair) of shorts. Bring on the duct tape.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
field preparations
The last few weeks have been empty of blog updates, I know - and this is really due to the intensity of preparations for an upcoming field campaign - BEARPEX. Which begs a few questions: What is a field campaign? What kind of preparations am I doing that stop me from falling to the fabulous procrastination that is blogging? And who on earth came up with the name BEARPEX, with its associated images of muscular grizzly bears?
So a field campaign is when a bunch of scientists get together somewhere (the so-called 'field', though frequently a forest/city/mountain-top, etc... and yes, I've heard the joke about farmers working in the field...) to measure everything they can think of to answer a series of (at least to them) interesting questions. So the field campaign I'm headed to in a couple of weeks is BEARPEX, which stands for Biosphere Effects on Aerosols and Photochemistry EXperiment. The point of the project is to figure out how molecules that come out of forests affect local air quality and atmospheric chemistry. In particular, we're looking at a ponderosa pine plantation in the middle of the Sierra Nevada in Northern California (where I spent far too many years of my PhD thesis), trying to understand all the compounds that come in and out of the woods.
(brief sciencey interlude) The essence of the project can be thought of as: when you walk through a pine forest, you smell, well, pines - and that heavenly scent has to come from somewhere - namely, various organic compounds that pour out of pine needles. Since these compounds interact with various components of air pollution (which come up from Sacramento) to change air quality, the question is how many organic compounds come out of the forest, how do they interact with ozone, NOx and other pollutants, and do these compounds make aerosols (little particles that are key components of haze, cause breathing problems and are what make places like the Blue Mountains blue. The last question (aerosol fluxes in and out of the forest) is my key interest in this project.
But, back to the really pressing question: the field campaign name! Every atmospheric chemistry campaign has a name - there was the MIRAGE (Megacity Impacts on the Regional And Global Environment) campaign in Mexico City last year (eerily appropriate name due to the non-existence of our equipment for weeks and resulting mirage that there was a field campaign going on...), INTEX (Intercontinental Transport EXperiment looking at air pollution moving from Asia to N.America to Europe), etc... So when the call went out for an acronym for our experiment, I had this fabulous image of bears in the woods and (slightly sarcastically) suggested BEARPEX. Little did I know that the name would become our campaign name. Perhaps no one else suggested names. Either way, I'm hoping for some t-shirts with good images of bears baring their pecs. And needless to say, the jokes are already flying among the post-docs/graduate students: we've already suggested changing the acronym to BEARPEX: Bitter Experimentalists Always Repairing Pieces of Equipment eXperiment due to the dearth of working instruments three weeks before the campaign begins...
And it is that broken instrumentation, along with packing lists, logistics arrangements and insurance forms and legalities that has kept me working hard these last few weeks. But the end is in sight: (I hope) we have the final replacement part for our instrument so it can get fixed tomorrow, orders are in to companies for parts, and we finally have the CU legal affairs looking at all the relevant paperwork. So it'll be a stressful week, as we're planning on shipping on Friday and leaving for the site a week later!
But don't think that there is no fun to be had while preparing for a field campaign. Last night I played a competitive game of Trivial Pursuit with a group of friends. The catch (among all us late 20's/early 30's) was that our version of the game was published in 1997. So in order to answer many of the questions, one had to calibrate back to the pre-iPod/Bush&Chenney/9-11 era - before Tiger Woods became the answer to every golf-related question, Michael Jackson had a large number of unpleasant questions surrounding him and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur were built... It really makes one realize how much the world has changed in a decade - it's like looking back at the world atlas I had in grade school and seeing East and West Germany. But, aside from the socio/political realization of a decade of change that alternately amused and intrigued us, we learnt a great many trivial pieces of information: Sahara means 'wilderness' in Arabic, a tablespoon of sugar is the most common cure for chronic hiccuping, and on average 0 of 10 people keep gloves in their car's glove compartment. I objected to the last one because I know my mother keeps gloves in her car. But apparently that's not enough to sway national statistics. My partner, Chris, and I had a great start with several pie pieces (we decided to obnoxiously high five while proclaiming 'Pie-Five' whenever we got a pie question right, much to the annoyance of the other players). However, while we were the first team to the middle, I have to admit that we got the two Canadian hockey-related questions completely wrong, and the game went to the winning duo of Becca and Kelley who combined their PhD's in chemistry and political science with an astounding knowledge of golf and oldies/80's music history to pull through at the end.
But, I must stop procrastinating and get back to my work: bring on the inlet designs and packing lists...
So a field campaign is when a bunch of scientists get together somewhere (the so-called 'field', though frequently a forest/city/mountain-top, etc... and yes, I've heard the joke about farmers working in the field...) to measure everything they can think of to answer a series of (at least to them) interesting questions. So the field campaign I'm headed to in a couple of weeks is BEARPEX, which stands for Biosphere Effects on Aerosols and Photochemistry EXperiment. The point of the project is to figure out how molecules that come out of forests affect local air quality and atmospheric chemistry. In particular, we're looking at a ponderosa pine plantation in the middle of the Sierra Nevada in Northern California (where I spent far too many years of my PhD thesis), trying to understand all the compounds that come in and out of the woods.
(brief sciencey interlude) The essence of the project can be thought of as: when you walk through a pine forest, you smell, well, pines - and that heavenly scent has to come from somewhere - namely, various organic compounds that pour out of pine needles. Since these compounds interact with various components of air pollution (which come up from Sacramento) to change air quality, the question is how many organic compounds come out of the forest, how do they interact with ozone, NOx and other pollutants, and do these compounds make aerosols (little particles that are key components of haze, cause breathing problems and are what make places like the Blue Mountains blue. The last question (aerosol fluxes in and out of the forest) is my key interest in this project.
But, back to the really pressing question: the field campaign name! Every atmospheric chemistry campaign has a name - there was the MIRAGE (Megacity Impacts on the Regional And Global Environment) campaign in Mexico City last year (eerily appropriate name due to the non-existence of our equipment for weeks and resulting mirage that there was a field campaign going on...), INTEX (Intercontinental Transport EXperiment looking at air pollution moving from Asia to N.America to Europe), etc... So when the call went out for an acronym for our experiment, I had this fabulous image of bears in the woods and (slightly sarcastically) suggested BEARPEX. Little did I know that the name would become our campaign name. Perhaps no one else suggested names. Either way, I'm hoping for some t-shirts with good images of bears baring their pecs. And needless to say, the jokes are already flying among the post-docs/graduate students: we've already suggested changing the acronym to BEARPEX: Bitter Experimentalists Always Repairing Pieces of Equipment eXperiment due to the dearth of working instruments three weeks before the campaign begins...
And it is that broken instrumentation, along with packing lists, logistics arrangements and insurance forms and legalities that has kept me working hard these last few weeks. But the end is in sight: (I hope) we have the final replacement part for our instrument so it can get fixed tomorrow, orders are in to companies for parts, and we finally have the CU legal affairs looking at all the relevant paperwork. So it'll be a stressful week, as we're planning on shipping on Friday and leaving for the site a week later!
But don't think that there is no fun to be had while preparing for a field campaign. Last night I played a competitive game of Trivial Pursuit with a group of friends. The catch (among all us late 20's/early 30's) was that our version of the game was published in 1997. So in order to answer many of the questions, one had to calibrate back to the pre-iPod/Bush&Chenney/9-11 era - before Tiger Woods became the answer to every golf-related question, Michael Jackson had a large number of unpleasant questions surrounding him and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur were built... It really makes one realize how much the world has changed in a decade - it's like looking back at the world atlas I had in grade school and seeing East and West Germany. But, aside from the socio/political realization of a decade of change that alternately amused and intrigued us, we learnt a great many trivial pieces of information: Sahara means 'wilderness' in Arabic, a tablespoon of sugar is the most common cure for chronic hiccuping, and on average 0 of 10 people keep gloves in their car's glove compartment. I objected to the last one because I know my mother keeps gloves in her car. But apparently that's not enough to sway national statistics. My partner, Chris, and I had a great start with several pie pieces (we decided to obnoxiously high five while proclaiming 'Pie-Five' whenever we got a pie question right, much to the annoyance of the other players). However, while we were the first team to the middle, I have to admit that we got the two Canadian hockey-related questions completely wrong, and the game went to the winning duo of Becca and Kelley who combined their PhD's in chemistry and political science with an astounding knowledge of golf and oldies/80's music history to pull through at the end.
But, I must stop procrastinating and get back to my work: bring on the inlet designs and packing lists...
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
hail and rain and memories of a tin roof
The hail just started pouring down, and I can hear it hitting the leaves the of the tree outside my bedroom and bouncing off the ground. Large white chunks of ice the size of corn kernels have pelted our balcony, and I am once again amazed by mountain weather. Somehow the presence of slabs of concrete jutting out of the plains causes thunderstorms, which occasionally bring hail with them. I won't even pretend to understand it, though I'm sure there's an elegant piece of physics explaining it. In particular, I'm sure my father explained it to me in extreme detail when I was a child. Sadly I don't recall. But it is particularly odd that it is hot enough outside to wear shorts and a t-shirt, yet there are chunks of ice falling out of the sky.
But the hail has given way to rain, which still collides with the ground to create a loud noise, but seems gentler in comparison. And less painful to the passers-by on the street outside my apartment.
The sound of rain reminds me of the rainstorms we had during the wet season in Costa Rica. Every afternoon you had to prepare yourself for being completely drenched. It was too early in the afternoon to plan on getting back inside, so we learned to appreciate how alive and green the rain made the forest. Of course, I was never there when the La Selva river flooded the field station, so can't really complain. But I do recall one afternoon when I tried to give a lecture during a rainstorm. The classroom was an open buliding (ie no walls) with a tin roof. At first the drizzle was kind of charming. As I tried to use the blackboard to make my point (no overhead projector so my prepared slides were useless), the rain started to get stronger (became kind of amusing) and stronger (I started to shout my lecture) and stronger (I completely gave up). By the time I called an end to the lecture - and couldn't shout loud enough to let everyone in the building know I'd given up - it sounded like the entire percussion section of an orchestra had decided to bang on our ceiling. When you sit under a tin roof in a rainstorm, you really realize how much energy there is in a storm - almost more dramatic than wind damage.
But, in true mountain weather form, the storm has stopped - not quite enough to cool the air down, just enough rain to produce that heady humid smell of a passing storm...
But the hail has given way to rain, which still collides with the ground to create a loud noise, but seems gentler in comparison. And less painful to the passers-by on the street outside my apartment.
The sound of rain reminds me of the rainstorms we had during the wet season in Costa Rica. Every afternoon you had to prepare yourself for being completely drenched. It was too early in the afternoon to plan on getting back inside, so we learned to appreciate how alive and green the rain made the forest. Of course, I was never there when the La Selva river flooded the field station, so can't really complain. But I do recall one afternoon when I tried to give a lecture during a rainstorm. The classroom was an open buliding (ie no walls) with a tin roof. At first the drizzle was kind of charming. As I tried to use the blackboard to make my point (no overhead projector so my prepared slides were useless), the rain started to get stronger (became kind of amusing) and stronger (I started to shout my lecture) and stronger (I completely gave up). By the time I called an end to the lecture - and couldn't shout loud enough to let everyone in the building know I'd given up - it sounded like the entire percussion section of an orchestra had decided to bang on our ceiling. When you sit under a tin roof in a rainstorm, you really realize how much energy there is in a storm - almost more dramatic than wind damage.
But, in true mountain weather form, the storm has stopped - not quite enough to cool the air down, just enough rain to produce that heady humid smell of a passing storm...
Sunday, July 1, 2007
summer heat
So I managed to escape the 30+ (C) heat of East Coast U.S. and make it out just in time to catch the 30+C Colorado heat wave. The good news is that the humidity is only 23% (much drier), so it doesn't feel quite as oppressive.
I noticed that the Boulder approach to dealing with heat is quite... unique... There are two approaches: you can either tube down the Boulder Creek (or, for the less adventurous, just lie fully clothed in the creek and watch the world walk by on the B.Creek Path). This seems very sensible and refreshing to me. The second approach is slightly crazier. Apparently if you cycle on your bike fast enough, you get a nice refreshing breeze. So if you go for a bike ride for several hours in the heat of the day, you should cool off... Sensible, right?
I made the mistake of attempting cooling method #2 yesterday - mainly out of a need to run errands on opposite sides of town. Finally, late yesterday afternoon, once I had 'cooled down' with a 15 minute bike ride through North Boulder, I got to my soccer game. Now, it's apparently to 'hot' in Colorado to play outdoor soccer (that, and the thunderstorms), so soccer is an indoor sport. This would make sense if there were air conditioning in the indoor arena. Being indoor (6v6) soccer, the ball goes fast, and since it can ricochet off walls, there's no pause in the game for throw-ins. Subbing is done on the fly - just to add a little extra drama. But despite the heat, I had a great time. Our team is excellent and fun, and the whole game was very pleasant (in the sportsman-ship, clean game sort of way, not in the opressively hot way...). Intense, but pleasant. (For the record, we won. As in 10-3, had to play a man down for most of the game. Go team!). And then, I got back on my bike to go home. And realized that perhaps this bike-til-you-feel-the-breeze approach to Boulder heat isn't sooo crazy.
I noticed that the Boulder approach to dealing with heat is quite... unique... There are two approaches: you can either tube down the Boulder Creek (or, for the less adventurous, just lie fully clothed in the creek and watch the world walk by on the B.Creek Path). This seems very sensible and refreshing to me. The second approach is slightly crazier. Apparently if you cycle on your bike fast enough, you get a nice refreshing breeze. So if you go for a bike ride for several hours in the heat of the day, you should cool off... Sensible, right?
I made the mistake of attempting cooling method #2 yesterday - mainly out of a need to run errands on opposite sides of town. Finally, late yesterday afternoon, once I had 'cooled down' with a 15 minute bike ride through North Boulder, I got to my soccer game. Now, it's apparently to 'hot' in Colorado to play outdoor soccer (that, and the thunderstorms), so soccer is an indoor sport. This would make sense if there were air conditioning in the indoor arena. Being indoor (6v6) soccer, the ball goes fast, and since it can ricochet off walls, there's no pause in the game for throw-ins. Subbing is done on the fly - just to add a little extra drama. But despite the heat, I had a great time. Our team is excellent and fun, and the whole game was very pleasant (in the sportsman-ship, clean game sort of way, not in the opressively hot way...). Intense, but pleasant. (For the record, we won. As in 10-3, had to play a man down for most of the game. Go team!). And then, I got back on my bike to go home. And realized that perhaps this bike-til-you-feel-the-breeze approach to Boulder heat isn't sooo crazy.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
fireflies
I was just woken up by a strobe light flashing an eery green glow over my bed. But no nightclub music - just the rustic silence of a hot summer night in New England. As I gradually woke up, I realized that the culprit was a firefly - a curious beast I hadn't seen in, quite literally, decades.
I first came across fireflies when I was very young, at my Dida and Baba's summer cottage outside of Montreal. My most vivid memory of the time is wanting to catch them in jars. I don't know what I planned on doing with the fireflies once I had them in captivity, but there was something particularly fascinating about creatures that deal with the darkness of night by creating their own light. Far more ingenious than our flashlights with their batteries that tend to run out at awkward times. I'd like to pretend that I understood a great life lesson at the time, or gained insight into evolutionary adaptation, but I can only recall thinking that these bugs flashing their light over the shrubbery and through the woods were really very pretty...
The strongest image in my head from that trip to my grand-parents' summer place was how proudly Ukrainian all there neighbours were - the rocks lining a garden painted in alternating sky blue and yellow, the patriotic insistence on naming everything in their language. But now that I'm back in a very cultural-melting-pot oriented country, I'm beginning to realize how important preserving a sense of cultural identity is and why my grand-parents and their friends need to hold so strongly onto their language and food and traditions - not to the point of being disappointed that their grand-children don't speak the language, have Ukrainian names (funny story there about one of mine... apparently my parents thought my middle name was Ukrainian, but it's actually Polish, which really couldn't have been worse), and that their own children didn't marry Ukrainians.
I've spent the last few days with a very international group of people, which has been very entertaining (an Italian struggling with the American concept of meatball subs) but also enlightening (how baffled the Germans are by the terrible New England driving and the 'need' for gas-guzzling SUVs). The Europeans are appalled by how much meat and how much food Americans eat at lunch. The Americans are surprised that the Europeans don't want to work on weekends and would like to go home at 5. Not that it was limited to international mis-communication: I got shocked expressions from the East Coast boys when I pulled out my very West Coast carrots, pita bread and baba gannouj for lunch (a completely serious 'where's the meat? it's not a meal without meat!'). The Dutch student doesn't understand the Australian accent, and the Boston accents are even occasionally difficult for my West Coast ear... Everyone has a slightly different sense of humour (one German is very sarcastic and 'yells' at the graduate students whenever anything is broken (ie, most of the time), who still occasionally take him seriously - until he slides into a big grin and laughs at them. At least it makes long days in the lab very entertaining for me...
I first came across fireflies when I was very young, at my Dida and Baba's summer cottage outside of Montreal. My most vivid memory of the time is wanting to catch them in jars. I don't know what I planned on doing with the fireflies once I had them in captivity, but there was something particularly fascinating about creatures that deal with the darkness of night by creating their own light. Far more ingenious than our flashlights with their batteries that tend to run out at awkward times. I'd like to pretend that I understood a great life lesson at the time, or gained insight into evolutionary adaptation, but I can only recall thinking that these bugs flashing their light over the shrubbery and through the woods were really very pretty...
The strongest image in my head from that trip to my grand-parents' summer place was how proudly Ukrainian all there neighbours were - the rocks lining a garden painted in alternating sky blue and yellow, the patriotic insistence on naming everything in their language. But now that I'm back in a very cultural-melting-pot oriented country, I'm beginning to realize how important preserving a sense of cultural identity is and why my grand-parents and their friends need to hold so strongly onto their language and food and traditions - not to the point of being disappointed that their grand-children don't speak the language, have Ukrainian names (funny story there about one of mine... apparently my parents thought my middle name was Ukrainian, but it's actually Polish, which really couldn't have been worse), and that their own children didn't marry Ukrainians.
I've spent the last few days with a very international group of people, which has been very entertaining (an Italian struggling with the American concept of meatball subs) but also enlightening (how baffled the Germans are by the terrible New England driving and the 'need' for gas-guzzling SUVs). The Europeans are appalled by how much meat and how much food Americans eat at lunch. The Americans are surprised that the Europeans don't want to work on weekends and would like to go home at 5. Not that it was limited to international mis-communication: I got shocked expressions from the East Coast boys when I pulled out my very West Coast carrots, pita bread and baba gannouj for lunch (a completely serious 'where's the meat? it's not a meal without meat!'). The Dutch student doesn't understand the Australian accent, and the Boston accents are even occasionally difficult for my West Coast ear... Everyone has a slightly different sense of humour (one German is very sarcastic and 'yells' at the graduate students whenever anything is broken (ie, most of the time), who still occasionally take him seriously - until he slides into a big grin and laughs at them. At least it makes long days in the lab very entertaining for me...
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
flatirons, wildflowers & my own antique roadshow
Boulder is an interesting crossroads - for me, it's the end of graduate school (except for all those papers I need to write...) and the beginning of a post-doc. It's a modern town near a major city (Denver), but is also where the Wild West used to be - exemplified by people wearing crocs (those very popular but absolutely hideous plastic shoes) with their cowboy hats. Symbolically, Boulder lies literally at the end of the flat Mid-West prairies and at the base of the Rocky Mountains, with the foothills jutting out of 1st St. in spectacular slabs of rock called the Flatirons (as they look like upside down irons. sort of.).
But the most striking aspect of Boulder is the active lifestyle inherent in living here. The city is well-designed - bike paths throughout the entire town, a bus system the Bay Area should be jealous of (oh wait.. any bus system would fit that criteria...), and a walking mall down the center of town. More than that, athletes and outdoors enthusiasts are everywhere. I see cyclists on their snazzy road bikes every time I step out of my apartment, runners along the trails and, without exaggeration, every time I sit in a cafe or restaraunt, I hear conversations about the latest rides (road biking - and they frequently include phrases like 'only 50 miles'), most recent back-country ski adventures (yes, it's June and they're still skiing) and 'bagging 14ers' (that's hiking to the peaks of mountains of 14,000', a popular Boulderite pasttime). As I slowly get the lingo down, I have to admit to feeling rather out of shape... But I have made a solid effort to fit in, and am beginning to feel much more comfortable in my new home. While Boulderites may be slightly outdoors-obsessed, that's not a bad thing. Especially when I get to take advantage of others experience...
On my first weekend in Boulder, my friend Chris took me on a very steep climb up South Boulder Peak (gorgeous, fabulous and very, very 'up'), and while this past weekend one of my new labmates took me backpacking in Pike Peak National Wilderness (fancy name for part of the Rocky's just south of Boulder). I am struck by how close the wilderness is - 10 minutes in the case of the day hike, or an hour and a half for backpacking, and you are out in the middle of nowhere, hearing no cars and encountering very few people. The hike to the top of the flatirons (or S.Boulder Peak), gave a stunning view of the flat prairies and the city of Denver jutting out to the east, and the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky's to the West. And having travelled just a little further, the short backpacking trip gave us forested mountains with occasional meadows full of red and purple and blue wildflowers. With the occasional deer skeleton draping over a rock reminding one to be careful of the cougars. But that's another story...
But hiking aside, last week I finally accomplished the first step in becoming a true Boulderite - I got a commuter bike off of craigslist. For those of you who don't know, Craigslist.org is an online free listing service for various cities, and so far has been my magical Boulder source of apartment, bike and soccer team. After posting for a bike to ride around town, I got several responses. The bike I randomly chose to buy turned out to have definite character. It is a 1970's blue Peugeot with large handle bars that make me sit up straight while biking and with the old-style gear shifters down on the frame. I liked the funky old look to the bike when I bought it, but didn't realize quite the deal I got until the next day, when I went to register the bike at the university bike station (yes, there's a whole permanent bike station on campus, with staff that will give your bike a free tune-up - very enlightened and eco-friendly - very Boulder...). The bike guy staffing the station took one look at the bike and pretty much offered me twice what I had paid, pointing out that it still had all its original Peugeot stickers and was in incredible shape. He was kind of shocked that the gears actually work (though I haven't quite figured them out yet). Sadly, the very sweet, rather young kid shot his chances of acquiring the bike when he pointed out that the bike was positively 'ancient' because it was last registered in 1981 - before he was even born...
But although my bike is slightly too tall for me (prompting me to almost fall over whenever I get off of it, much to the amusement of passers by), it has too much character for me to give up. So yesterday I biked home from work, stopping at the very Boulderish Wild Oats market for some local organic fruit and veggies, and then biking up the idyllic Boulder Creek Path - where I had the pleasure of seeing a cross section of Boulder enjoying the very warm evening. It was twilight, and I could still see the outline of the Flatirons everytime I looked up. There were kids floating down the stream on inner tubes, several men fishing off a bridge, families out for walks, and even a set of river kayakers going down the rapids.
I think I'm going to fit in here just fine...
But the most striking aspect of Boulder is the active lifestyle inherent in living here. The city is well-designed - bike paths throughout the entire town, a bus system the Bay Area should be jealous of (oh wait.. any bus system would fit that criteria...), and a walking mall down the center of town. More than that, athletes and outdoors enthusiasts are everywhere. I see cyclists on their snazzy road bikes every time I step out of my apartment, runners along the trails and, without exaggeration, every time I sit in a cafe or restaraunt, I hear conversations about the latest rides (road biking - and they frequently include phrases like 'only 50 miles'), most recent back-country ski adventures (yes, it's June and they're still skiing) and 'bagging 14ers' (that's hiking to the peaks of mountains of 14,000', a popular Boulderite pasttime). As I slowly get the lingo down, I have to admit to feeling rather out of shape... But I have made a solid effort to fit in, and am beginning to feel much more comfortable in my new home. While Boulderites may be slightly outdoors-obsessed, that's not a bad thing. Especially when I get to take advantage of others experience...
On my first weekend in Boulder, my friend Chris took me on a very steep climb up South Boulder Peak (gorgeous, fabulous and very, very 'up'), and while this past weekend one of my new labmates took me backpacking in Pike Peak National Wilderness (fancy name for part of the Rocky's just south of Boulder). I am struck by how close the wilderness is - 10 minutes in the case of the day hike, or an hour and a half for backpacking, and you are out in the middle of nowhere, hearing no cars and encountering very few people. The hike to the top of the flatirons (or S.Boulder Peak), gave a stunning view of the flat prairies and the city of Denver jutting out to the east, and the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky's to the West. And having travelled just a little further, the short backpacking trip gave us forested mountains with occasional meadows full of red and purple and blue wildflowers. With the occasional deer skeleton draping over a rock reminding one to be careful of the cougars. But that's another story...
But hiking aside, last week I finally accomplished the first step in becoming a true Boulderite - I got a commuter bike off of craigslist. For those of you who don't know, Craigslist.org is an online free listing service for various cities, and so far has been my magical Boulder source of apartment, bike and soccer team. After posting for a bike to ride around town, I got several responses. The bike I randomly chose to buy turned out to have definite character. It is a 1970's blue Peugeot with large handle bars that make me sit up straight while biking and with the old-style gear shifters down on the frame. I liked the funky old look to the bike when I bought it, but didn't realize quite the deal I got until the next day, when I went to register the bike at the university bike station (yes, there's a whole permanent bike station on campus, with staff that will give your bike a free tune-up - very enlightened and eco-friendly - very Boulder...). The bike guy staffing the station took one look at the bike and pretty much offered me twice what I had paid, pointing out that it still had all its original Peugeot stickers and was in incredible shape. He was kind of shocked that the gears actually work (though I haven't quite figured them out yet). Sadly, the very sweet, rather young kid shot his chances of acquiring the bike when he pointed out that the bike was positively 'ancient' because it was last registered in 1981 - before he was even born...
But although my bike is slightly too tall for me (prompting me to almost fall over whenever I get off of it, much to the amusement of passers by), it has too much character for me to give up. So yesterday I biked home from work, stopping at the very Boulderish Wild Oats market for some local organic fruit and veggies, and then biking up the idyllic Boulder Creek Path - where I had the pleasure of seeing a cross section of Boulder enjoying the very warm evening. It was twilight, and I could still see the outline of the Flatirons everytime I looked up. There were kids floating down the stream on inner tubes, several men fishing off a bridge, families out for walks, and even a set of river kayakers going down the rapids.
I think I'm going to fit in here just fine...
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
culture lag
So after 4 airports and about 36 hours, I finally made it back to the US, and to my new home on Monday evening. Highlights from the trip back included figuring out how to unplug the children's fire engine ride in Helsinki airport (it was next to the bench I was sleeping on, and disturbing me with occasional sirens. there is probably some very traumatized Finnish child out there), sitting next to a very entertaining history buff on the long flight from Frankfurt to Denver with whom I had multiple debates about long-term effects of various wars and the source of ethnic tensions in E.Europe, and finally getting picked up at the bus stop in Boulder by a friend and being taken immediately to the last half of a kick-ball game to be a token girl.
Immigration was entertaining on every end, particularly in leaving the Ukraine. The passport officials wanted to know a.) why it was that I had been to Moldova - apparently tourism was not a believable response - and b.) why my middle name was Kasimira ('because my mother liked it' didn't go over well!?!). But they finally stamped my passport and let me out. Getting into the US was even more fun, but perhaps inappropriate for a public blog...
Between the time changes (9 hours between L'viv and Denver) and crazy flights, jet lag has finally set in, and I find myself bright-eyed at my computer at 5:30 in the morning. And it has finally hit me that what's really keeping my stress levels up is not the jet lag, but rather the culture lag. There are no 13th century buildings in Boulder and gold church domes do not dominate the sky-line. The headlines on the news describe how you could contract lethal bacterial diseases by walking into the hospital and how a bartender dealt with a violent drunk woman in Denver, not the ramifications of the latest bombing in Iraq or the political consequences of Yuschenko's pact with the Ukrainian prime minister. The concrete is used on the roads, not in architecture. The sidewalks are... even... !?! And driving in a car does not feel like sitting in a video arcade racing game. Not that that's a bad thing. But I think it will take me a few days to readjust to the Latin alphabet and the lack of chickens running around.
But as my adrenaline rush from the last month of travel slowly starts to fade, and I start to digest everything that happened in the Ukraine, I'll keep you posted on adventures in Boulder - and with my attempts to recreate the poppy-seed cakes and homemade varenyky I have become completely addicted to...
Immigration was entertaining on every end, particularly in leaving the Ukraine. The passport officials wanted to know a.) why it was that I had been to Moldova - apparently tourism was not a believable response - and b.) why my middle name was Kasimira ('because my mother liked it' didn't go over well!?!). But they finally stamped my passport and let me out. Getting into the US was even more fun, but perhaps inappropriate for a public blog...
Between the time changes (9 hours between L'viv and Denver) and crazy flights, jet lag has finally set in, and I find myself bright-eyed at my computer at 5:30 in the morning. And it has finally hit me that what's really keeping my stress levels up is not the jet lag, but rather the culture lag. There are no 13th century buildings in Boulder and gold church domes do not dominate the sky-line. The headlines on the news describe how you could contract lethal bacterial diseases by walking into the hospital and how a bartender dealt with a violent drunk woman in Denver, not the ramifications of the latest bombing in Iraq or the political consequences of Yuschenko's pact with the Ukrainian prime minister. The concrete is used on the roads, not in architecture. The sidewalks are... even... !?! And driving in a car does not feel like sitting in a video arcade racing game. Not that that's a bad thing. But I think it will take me a few days to readjust to the Latin alphabet and the lack of chickens running around.
But as my adrenaline rush from the last month of travel slowly starts to fade, and I start to digest everything that happened in the Ukraine, I'll keep you posted on adventures in Boulder - and with my attempts to recreate the poppy-seed cakes and homemade varenyky I have become completely addicted to...
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