Time to go

Enough talk and warnings and primers. I've heard just about all I can absorb about the college, the city, AIDS, skinheads, and a little nasty STD called molloscum which a program participant once contracted (google it at your own risk of being grossed out. A whole phylum of soft bodied invertebrates is right there in the name!). It's time to jump in. I'm as prepared as I can be.

I've learned about my host family too: they are Tatiana, her husband Sergei and her 14 yr old son Sergei. They live on the 20th floor of a building on Vasilevsky Island, about 45 minutes from the College via public transport (which is a very misleading indication of distance. As the crow flies, its no more than 4km). The program director told me that they are really awesome, but I'm not going to built up expectations for myself. I am excited to meet them.

One of the things we've learned about during our orientation has been culture shock. There's this thing called the culture shock curve, which is horse-shoe shaped and communicates the following graphically: in the beginning, a visitor to a foreign culture is in the honeymoon stage, where everything in a foreign country is new and fascinating. Then comes hostility, after which the curve bends upward to humor and finally the "at home" stage. Most people go through all of them, or some of them––the time frame depends on the person. It occurred to me yesterday that one or more of the following is true for me: I've already been through all of them in the last week, all the times I've been mad at Russia, then laughed at what seemed scary or annoying; or, I go through them all on a daily basis, but usually out of order––first comes hostility, then at home, then humor, and maybe a little honeymoon. My point, I suppose, is that its a stupid system. We'll see.