A definition of the term “Failure”

Nothing much to tell this week, I’m afraid. Nothing more than a whole lot of unsuccessful attempts.

I’ll start with our failure on Sunday. This weekend a major Film festival took place here in Moscow and we thought it might be fun to go and see one of those old famous films in a major Moscow cinema, not understanding anything of what was said, but afterwards feeling very proud of ourselves because of the new experience. Then, another great idea of our German friend: “Let’s walk there, it’s only 1 metro station, so it can’t be far”. Now, that’s not exactly the right attitude in a metropolis such as Moscow, but rather suicide. Anyway, no problem for myself and the red shoes (it’s still around 20 degrees here, so I’m actually running out of shoes and tops, as I only brought boots and warm sweaters) (Also, may I hereby ask a moment of silence in honour of the red shoes… they are currently ‘walking’ their last days). So, obviously, we arrived late and all tickets were sold out. Conclusion: Belgium 0 – Germany 1.

The next day, after class, we decided to have another one of those cultural afternoons, we were determined to pay the deceased Lev Tolstoj (God bless the fellow!) a visit. A bit of background information first: the second week we were here the boys also had one of those brilliant flashes of intuition. Conclusion: all museum are closed on Monday. The week after that I thought I’d try the well-known feminine intuition. I should have known better after all these years; the museum closes at 16.00. And still we were determined not to give in to Lev’s obduracy, so on Monday we went again. Indeed, you can already guess…MUSEUMS ARE CLOSED ON MONDAYS!!!!! I believe Lev’s angry with us for never having read one of his way too long novels. Or another theory would be that we’re just Moscow’s worst idiots… Anyway, conclusion: Belgium 1 – Germany 1.

Ready for another disappointment? Here we go… On Wednesday our Russian professor from Belgium (Greta for the mates) arrived in Moscow and paid us a short visit. And so I started talking about my thesis plans; good idea to ruin my day, that was. The answer: “Legal translation is not one of my many specialties, so I can’t possibly be your assessor and OH, by the way, the guidelines for the Master thesis have just changed (a pity no one else knows about this yet) and you are now obliged to do linguistic research based on Translation science”. Can it get more boring??? I had been thinking about my topic for so long and I it was really what I wanted to do. But no, forget about it Sarah, a shame though of all the time and effort you’ve put into it, and those books you just bought are now useful for Russian bonfires; just start all over again, will you my dear? Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on the theory behind the act of translating legal texts. HA, I’m sure I’ve just lost at least half of my blog readers…

But hold on, another fiasco is yet to come. On Wednesday I discovered that on Thursdays I’ll have class from 9.35 till 18.00 – in total 50 minutes break to eat and take my linen to the local laundry. I already started reading the Russian Constitution, because I’m sure somewhere it’ll say that such a things are inhumane and thus illegal and thus forbidden and thus not to be done to me!!! But that’s not even the fiasco I was talking about. So on Thursday I got up at 8 am (which is way too early for an exemplary student as myself, who studies until 3.00 in the morning) and made my way up to University. I was 15 minutes early because I wanted to check in which auditorium the class would be given. Unfortunately for me our dearest Alla (not the one that is big and everywhere, but the head of international affairs at Uni – actually also everywhere as she seems to follow our every move) seemed to have forgotten her glasses that day, as class only started at 11.25 (well, the one I needed to attend; don’t worry, I now have another class to go to at 9.35). No worries what so ever; considering my morning mood is of excellent quality, I didn’t even dare to be angry with the poor woman. So I thought this was a good time to find out where I can follow the other courses, for which I need equivalents. And yes yes, I think I’ve found everything, so that in the second semester I’ll only have to be at school 8 hours a week. So, all happy about my achievement I went to room 302 where, according to the nicely written timetables, class would be. Hmm..No one arrived, Hmm...it was an office in stead of an auditorium. Hmmmm… Eventually I then found out that the main University building has an A-department and a B-department and I thus was waiting in the wrong department. So yes, classes seem to get more and more interesting every day around here…Conclusion: We have a newcomer; Belgium 1 – Germany 1 – Russia 1.

More exciting news? Not really, sorry to have to disappoint you. In the evenings I usually study or watch a film (Pirates of the Caribbean in Russian, how wrong can it get? Even worse, Orlando dubbed? That’s clearly rape!). May I notice that this always happens after a delicious meal à la Cedric-Yves-Sarah (Oh how we make our mothers proud and how we make the others jealous of our mothers). Oh oh, a bit of excitement maybe; this week 2 more Belgian (we Belgians are so well represented out here) girls arrived and one of them has the honour of having the same surname as myself, VANDECRUYS, and also has a lot of family in Yellow-town (Geel for the Belgians). Isn’t the world small???

We do, however, have some rather exciting future plans. Firstly, on Sunday me and the German girls are going on an excursion to Vladimir. This trip will be arranged by the University and is thus a good opportunity to meet new people, practice my Russian and see more than alone Moscow. Pictures will follow! We are also going to see the ever so famous ballet “The Swan Lake” from Tchaikovsky at the even more famous Bolshoy Theater. Tickets will be rather expensive but while in Moscow this is something we must do. Another, rather/very vague plan is to jump on a train and go to Siberia, The Balkaj lake, for a week (Well, actually 13 days as 6 of those days will be spent on the train). Again, very expensive and we don’t really know if we will be allowed to skip 2 weeks at Uni, but again an opportunity I need to seize. Long live Sarah’s emancipation!

One last conclusion: “Failure” is a spreading disease…

A whole bunch of different nationalities…

May I introduce to you all: Myself, being an official Master student in Translating. Yes, I’ve passed my exams and thus started my final and last school year. Waw…it’s amazing how those 4 years flew by and how I’ll miss the freedom of being a student. But but but…another year is yet to come and I’ll surely enjoy it like no other!

Another introduction: Yannika – the Finnish girl.

We went to the laundrette together, had to pay €10 for only1 machine and came home with shrunk clothes. So that’s one jeans down… Time for some shopping???

On Saturday I thought I’d be brave for a change and went to the famous “Tretyakovsky Museum”, together with the Russian and German girl.

Arriving there, our hearts quickly and deeply sank into our boots. It was huuuuuge! 60 rooms – think enormous ballrooms – full of paintings, drawings, sculptures, icons, … Still, we were able to recollect our courage and dared to go in. And, surprisingly enough, I really enjoyed it. The building was overwhelming, lots of exquisite pieces of Art, a nice and relaxing atmosphere,… In the end we stayed there for more than 4 hours and I must admit it completely ruined me. So yes, I keep on discovering new passions of mine (e.g.: Russian culture and literature, law about which I’m planning on writing my thesis, Lost, yoghurt which I never ever liked, aromatic toilet paper J and many more). Mr. Tretjakov & co. will have been very proud of me!

On Tuesday evening me and the Russian girl went to see the main building of Moscow University and the parks surrounding it. And waw, I think that’s the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen – probably not but I easily forget those things because of my very very very short-term-memory.

I’m certainly going back during the day next week, when I have more time, more opportunities of taking nice pictures and am able to go further (2 girls alone, at night, in a dark and deserted park in Moscow is not the most genius idea ever, you see).

Talking about genius ideas; this brilliant and exemplary J student came up with one for her thesis. I went to the Moscow “House of Books” (as the literal translation would be), which is the biggest – read: ridiculously huge maze – bookshop in Moscow and possibly Russia. I thought I’d go there, walk around a while and draw some interesting inspiration. And so I did…The Russian Constitution! “Boring” I hear all your great minds think but no no, your brain is surely deceiving you. The idea is the following: I translate a book about the Russian Constitution when it was part of the Sovjet Union from Russian into Dutch, then I comment on this translation process and make a glossary of the technical words and then I write a piece about the comparison between the current Russian Constitution and the one during the Sovjet time and the current Constitution of the other former Sovjet States. Again no no no, that is everything except boring, as Russia is certainly not always following its own Constitution – bad bad Russia – and I thus get the chance of doing some research about it and writing it down without getting thrown in prison (or so I tend to hope). Man…how brilliant can one be?!

Last time I already complained about the ridiculously long and difficult text we had to translate from Dutch into Russian by last Friday. Good news: I did it, I was able to translate it all having worked many hours on it. Bad news: I was having a baby on the morning of the class and thus was an hour late. Maybe some explanation (calm down mum): I’ve been having some crazy dreams since I’ve been here. Really weird as I rarely have and/or remember them. One of those dreams is me being pregnant and all the other times I woke up after a miscarriage but this time I was about to have the baby and my mum was getting ready to bring me to the hospital. All of the sudden I woke up, considering it was half nine and I needed to be in class at eight. Oooops-a-daisy! So yes, I had to give up my future baby for the translation that had cost me a lot of time and effort – and thus now also my descendant. Scary??? Yep, I agree…

And then the night fell… Many nationalities in 1 small room in Moscow, could that ever have an happy ending? Well, actually it certainly had but the next morning I surely had to deal with the rather painful consequences – if one knows what one means.


There’s not much to say about it, we just had a good laugh and got to know each other better. And, on such a nights I seem to talk the Russian language rather fluently ;-) Win-win situation, losing I did the next day…

So that notorious next day we decided to get a breath of fresh air at the Moscow Botanic garden. 2 problems: no sign of fresh air as it was really warm and sunny (What’s that all about? Over 20 degrees, end of September in Russia? Where’s the snow?) and no sign of the garden, which was rather essential for our initial plan. HA…us Belgians and us having no experience with large cities. So we just walked a while in another park of which I obviously forgot the name. But here it is, a nice green park in the middle of Moscow:

There you go, you made it to the finish! You are now entitled to a week’s rest. Till then!

A not-so-very-enjoyable day

So I already hate today and today isn't even yesterday up till now. What's that all about??? At noon we had a meeting with the woman who is supposed to teach us how to translate from Dutch into Russian. That is "to teach" and not "to terrify” us poor Belgians. First she gave us two full pages of text. If there wouldn’t have been a photo with the Dutch flag on it, I wouldn’t have known that the text was written in Dutch. The words that are in there are just horrible, we don’t even understand them in our own language, so how are we supposed to translate them into Russian? But no excuses, it needs to be done by next week, all of it. Now we’re talking about challenges! So yes, already a bit scary… And then that nice lady gave us another paper and told us to translate it immediately, on the spot. Again, how come I can’t understand my own mother tongue? All we could do was try, so we did, and…failed of course. It was just terrible! I felt extremely stupid and terrified of what is yet to come. Right, when that nightmare was over, another nice lady informed us on the pleasant fact that we’ll have more than 30 hours of class a week. Are these Russian people bl**dy crazy??? So on top of all the homework we get, 7 hours of class each day? Could someone please come and save me, because I’m afraid I won’t survive… Right, arriving at the student’s residence, my roommate told me that another teacher was waiting for us, as we actually had another class whilst we had that test. So I started running again… Apparently the boys nor Petra got this message and thus the teacher was in a rather bad mood. In the time we left the one Dutch lady, she called that other teacher asking her whether or not we had arrived in class. What does this means? They are following us, every step we take… After class I decided to go to the internet café (where I am now, at this very moment, obviously) and what a nice surprise: another email from my stalker. What is it about exes and the exes of exes??? So this is the girl who just broke up with my ex (from 3 years ago). She has been writing on every possible website she found of me. And now I’ve received an email in which she informs me on the pleasant fact that she was already messing around wit him whilst we were still together. Now that makes my day…

Above all that, it’s my mother’s birthday today and I feel really bad for not being able to be there and celebrate it with her. But I’m thinking of her, obviously, and hereby I’ll wish her a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY again! Mum, enjoy this day and think of me, thinking of you!

More news apart from these disasters? Not much, to be honest. I’ve only been studying (yes yes, I am becoming an even more pathetic geek), going to class, playing UNO and getting addicted to Lost. Yves brought the first and third season and, as I’ve never been able to follow it on TV, I decided to give it a try. result: I’m now wasting approximately 4 hours a day on watching it. The problem is thus that I now need the second season. Apparently the Russians are too selfish, as they dub all their films and programmes and don’t bother to provide any subtitles. Watching it in Russians would be just a little too ambitious, even for this supergeek. Any suggestions are thus very welcome!

I did try to do something useful this week. I wanted to go to the Tolstoj Museum on Tuesday but by the time I’ve arrived there, it was already closed. So that was the end of my cultural effort.

Another thing we’ve been doing ever since we arrived is cooking. Mothers, you can all be very proud of your children as even the boys are perfect housemen. They are really full of surprises, every day they come up with new ideas. Please give them a little applause, would you?! They’ll make some girls really happy one day. Right, I think I’ve flattered their ego's enough by now…

Another important fact: I finally went to the toilette yesterday!!! For those who don’t want to hear about this, please skip this part. It took me 2 weeks, but, after taking some disgusting medicine, my stomach allowed me to spend some time on the loo. Hurray! I was getting sick and tired of it, in the end I was eating loads of plums every day and getting more and more upset about it. My stomach was as hard as a stone and above that Yves kept on reminding me that he’s able to stink at least twice a day. No sh*t, I’m jealous of that boy’s abilities when it comes to sh*tting. And he too is very proud of it, it even tends to be his favourite subject of speech. (apart from Cedric’s “pens”, maybe…)

Petra, on the other hand, is getting more and more annoyed with Cedric, as he keeps on flirting with her. (don’t get all too worried, B.). Although she herself gave away her ultimate flirting secret yesterday. Excitement all around! Will be continued…

Yesterday 2 Belgian girls arrived, both of them are studying at ISTI, a university in Brussels. They told us that four more Belgians will arrive this week. I was very relieved to hear that they are also studying English and I thus won’t be alone in those classes.

There we go, I am now going to try to enjoy the end of this not-so-very-enjoyable day. I’m sure all'll be fine tomorrow…

Hi my foreign fellows!

So a week passed by and what did these foreigners do? Let’s see…

We went into town, looking for some amusement. Believe it or not, we didn’t find it. If you ask me, I’d say there’s seriously something wrong with this world if one cannot even find amusement in Moscow. Never mind, we passed by some famous and beautiful buildings and statues, which I’ll gladly share with you below:

Peter I /// St Basil's Cathedral

Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer /// big walls surrounding Kremlin

So on Monday all four of us went to class, shivering because of the announced test. And what do you know, apparently there was no test whatsoever. We just were informed on all the different possibilities at the university. The test will probably be moved to next week, as some more people (including Belgians, so I’ve heard) will arrive then and they should also be included in our group. At the moment our group consists of only 8 students and based on the test it will be divided into two. Hmm….I don’t really mind private classes. The teachers put my mind very much at ease. They are all very friendly (yes yes, the combination Russian-friendly does seem to exist in very few cases. Hurray!). They talk very clearly and not at all too fast, as Russians tend to do. Surprisingly enough, I seem to understand most of it. And and and, I even started studying already! I decided to take this all very seriously. I’ll force myself to study approx. 2-3 hours each day and I am making a large list containing all the new words I’ve heard that day. Can one be more ingenious??? “No Sarah”, is the right answer…

So during those classes we got to know some more highly-gifted (as we tend to be) students. To be more concrete, one Finnish girl, two German girls, one German and one French guy. One of the German girls, who was born in Russia and therefore speaks Russian fluently, was friendly enough to go and talk to someone and got me a single room. YIEHAH!!! Well, actually I am now in the same room as the 2 German girls, but my bed is in a separate smaller room. Yes, Russians tend to make things rather complicated. So, a quick glance at my new home:

Big enough a room, possibility to be on my own when needed, and nice roommates… win-win-win situation, that is!

Today, however, the above mentioned German girl had to leave us. Meet the Russian mentality: We had to hand in our passports at the university almost 2 weeks ago. They need it to provide us with a registration for Moscow, as Moscow is actually a small state within a big one. Even Russians need a registration, and thus a very good reason, to be allowed to stay in Moscow. So yesterday we had to go and collect our passports. What did they tell the German girl??? Your visa doesn’t specify that you’ll need to stay in Moscow to study and thus you must leave Moscow (and rather today than tomorrow). WHAT??? Really, if it were me, I would have been able to commit a murder. So, why can’t she just go to the German embassy here in Moscow? No no, too much a risk, she has to leave as soon as possible. So now it’ll cost her approx. €800 and even more tears to fly back, get a new visa and fly back within a week. Poor girl, I really felt sorry for her. I don’t easily say this but “long live the HIVT” for doing something right for a change! Hereby I’d like to thank Ms Vanhassel!

Earlier this week, we finally found a good and very cheap place to eat. Me, the two German girls and the Finnish girl went to “My-My”, which serves a lot of traditional Russian dishes, soups, salads and desserts for a ridiculously low price. So we’ll certainly go there again, as us four Belgians are the only ones here who have to pay for food at the university (no more “long live the HIVT”).

Yesterday the Swiss guy left, leaving me the book “War and Peace”. My challenge: reading 700 pages of “The Idiot” and 1600 pages of “War and Peace” before I get back to Belgium. Ha…I can hear everyone think: “Impossible for bibliophobic Sarah”… Well, a little confidence in this girl would be in order, thanks!

So, for everyone who thinks Russian life is cheap, I’ll now proof you wrong:

I don’t know if it is clear enough, but this picture shows that I’ve paid 194 rouble (equals €5) for 1 bleu plum. Maybe just a little bit out of order, I’d say…

Finally, some practical information. Firstly, my mobile phone should be working now. I went to the big Megafon Office and asked for their help in my best Russian. Considering my best Russian was so perfect, their help was enough to fix the problem. Again, sorry for the inconveniences before. Secondly, find below the exact address of where I’ll receive all my post:

Сара Вандекрейс
Жилищный комплекс МГЛУ
Комсомольский пр-т д.6/2, комната 321Б
119021, Москва
Russia

So I guess this is the end of a very long update.
As we Russians would say: До следующего недели! In other words, I’ll talk (write, rather) to you again next week.

Take care and know that we’re all thinking of you!

Здравствуйте мои друзья!

Oh how I hate goodbyes! I thought I'd take some memories with me to Russia:

So on Tuesday our plane took off - destination: Moscow, Russia. Yes, believe it or not, I was brave enough to undertake the big adventure. The flight was okay, no problems whatsoever. We already had the chance to meet a real Russian drunkard on the plane. What a laugh…

Arriving at the students’ residence, we quickly realised that it was time to leave the Belgian luxury behind us. Me and Petra have to share a room, as well as the 2 boys. 1 small room, 2 bad beds, 1 dirty toilet, 1 horrible bathroom.

We were practically the only ones at the dorm, except for 1 Swiss guy who speaks around 10 languages. Crazy that is…

Then I had to start acclimatising to the new Russian environment. What does that mean? Getting ill, of course. My throat started to get soar, my back hurts, as well as my head and ears. Today, I feel much better, but still not 100 %. But not to worry, I'll get integrated soon.

The last few days existed of loads of shopping, walking, pushing in metros, going to the university to arrange some things and, obviously, UNO & BEER!

I also bought a Russian number: +7 926 75781 42. There were some problems with my mobile, but I think I've sorted it. Sorry if someone had difficulties getting through.

Yesterday Moscow celebrated its 860th birthday. So we decided to walk into town to join the party. However, all we could see were police men everywhere and sealed streets. Hmmmm... Is that how the Russians party? To find out, we went to the club in the evening. Well, we tried anyway... First one: we couldn't get in, second one: expensive and very suspicious, third option: uno and beer! ;-) Always a winner!

Also, yesterday the girl next door arrived. She is Russian, living in Germany. So finally we get to practice our Russian a little. It is often hard to understand her, but in the end I've realised that I can do it if I have to. Again, I'll be just fine. By the time I get home the only languages I'll be able to talk are English and Russian. No no, I'll have to keep practicing my Geelish!

Tonight we're cooking. Spaghetti probably as the guys bought 3 kilos of sauce. No idea why.... It'll probably take us about 2 hours to prepare it as the Russian cookers are rather slow. But it'll all be worth it in the end.

And then tomorrow, the big day: We have to go to the university and do an oral test. Then they'll divide us into different groups, depending on our Russian skills. We (me, Cedric and Yves) already know that we'll end up in nursery :-) No, it's better that way, as we don't have to be afraid to say something and make mistakes, which would be the case if we're n class together with real Russians...

Right, 1 more thing to say: Mum, Dieter, Moe Jeanne & Bo Jos, Danny, Cathy, Elke and Marie; thank you very much for my farewell presents and letters!

I'll try to update my blog every week, but I can't promise anything.

Missing you all!