As the saying goes: “Better late than never”

First of all a rather practical announcement: we have put the Russian post to the test and with a bleeding heart I have to say the results are everything but satisfactory. More than three weeks ago the mother of the girlfriend of my brother (van’t café van achter den hoek van op’t plein van de kolonie…sorry) went to the Yellowish post office and asked how long it would take to send a letter via special airmail to Moscow – “only 4 days ma’am”, the friendly postman answered full of confidence. Well, not if the Russian post gets a say in this! 3 weeks later the letter arrived, after having been stamped by 11 different post offices across Russia. Anyhow, let’s take a rosy view of it all: it did arrive and thus the following address is the correct one:

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

Another delay that has been dealt with last week: our (Myself, the Russian and German girl) television. In the beginning of our stay here we went to the dorm’s director and asked for a new television, as ours wasn’t working and according to the contract we are entitled to one. “Not my problem”, the lady said. 2 months later a bunch of Italian girls arrived and immediately they were given a new one. Does the combination Russian-German-Yellowish seems to be one to mess around with??? I don’t think so! So we went back and claimed our right to a TV: “I’ll see what I can do”, the lady said. And what do you know, when I came back from class a smelly dirty man was fixing us a new television. Yeah, finally I could start following the Russian news… Ehm, good intentions, but as was to be expected I ended up getting caught up in the new Russian series “War and Peace”, based on Tolstoy’s book.

On Wednesday I dressed up in red and joined the communist demonstration. ( For those who are interested: on 7 November the October Revolution 90 years ago is commemorated. However, it is no longer an official holiday since Mr Putin replaced it by the so-called “People’s Day” on 4 November. ) Standing amongst thousands of communists with red flags singing all kinds of old propaganda songs and political leaders stating their manifestos was unbelievably cool. I was even filmed and made sure my beloved country was mentioned on the late news that night…

Last weekend was not much different from the other “last weekends”. I went to the cinema, bought tickets for theatre, went to the market, wandered about in town and wrote another one of those English essays. Talking about which…please make way for me and my “swollen head”. On Monday was another one of those dreaded classes, English Writing skills, even more as the teacher was going to give us the corrected essays back. To be honest, I was not at all very happy about the work I had handed in, seeing I couldn’t find the time to write about 10 pages, and so I was expecting a sound lecturing. But no no, apparently she did think very highly of my essay. Allow me to quote the nice lady: “I will now read Sarah’s essay at loud in order to show every one of you – the other Belgian girls as well as my own students – how its hould have been done ”. ***Blush***

On Sunday it was Cedric’s birthday but, considering he was in Saint-Petersburg that weekend (I kindly declined as the group existed of almost 20 students with different interests and I decided not to spend my money on a city I have already seen), we had to postpone things a little. He returned on Monday but unfortunately he didn’t really feel like partying as his wallet was stolen the night before. He lost quite a lot of money, bankcards, ID and all the things one usually keeps in one of those things. However, it is a blessing in disguise that he still has his passport and registration documents. After a good night’s sleep we all decided it was time to cheer him up and so we threw him a surprise party on Tuesday. Here you see Cedric with his imaginary friend, Marcus:

Putting more than 30 youngsters together in 1 room can obviously amount in a whole lot of noise. And yes, security agreed with me on that. Around 12pm one of them opened the door and shouted: “Everyone out of the room right now! And Belgian girls, (I hope the term does not directly include Yellowish girls) I will ask for you to be separated into different rooms!”. Obviously, half an hour later the party was continued in another room…

When I woke up on Wednesday and opened the curtains I couldn’t believe my still very sleepy eyes: all was white. And I do mean all, as in at least 10 cm of snow. After class me and my fury friends went for a long walk in the snow. I myself was surprised of how happy the snow made me feel and I thus took a ridiculously huge amount of pictures. A few examples, enjoy:








BTW, the biggest one is the University (Linguistic faculty).
Noticed the Lada covered in snow? How Russian can it get, right?!

One of these pictures (the last one to be precise) almost cost me my right of freedom, though. While I was taking it 6 militiamen ran up to me and shouted it was strictly forbidden to take pictures of the building. Considering I don’t even know what the purpose of the building is and there were no signs whatsoever indicating it is forbidden to photograph it, I was rather surprised. I just said sorry and tried to move on. But no no, as they had nothing better to do that day (as all days) they thought it necessary to ask for all my legal documents. Wasn’t I lucky…after what happened to Cedric I decided to leave my passport and stuff at home (notice how I already call my miserable Russian room “home”) and from then on I would only take copies with me. I consider myself blessed for not understanding all Russian terms of abuse, because I don’t want to know what exactly came out of that boy's rude mouth. Anyway, after he calmed down he started writing down all my details and I kindly asked him why the hell he was stealing my identity. His answer: “You will be put on our list”. So I am now officially part of Moscow’s black list of most wanted spies. Ha, what a laugh! However, I must admit I was still rather lucky, compared with the girl who took a picture of Putin’s car (not even sure he himself was in it) last week and was forced to erase the entire memory of her camera. Let’s hope we don’t get poisoned and will still be able to leave the country… Well, I’m sure I’ll be fine, I might just have to reconsider that career as a spy for the Yellowish government…

Right, I think it is about time I got ready for the predicted -12 and snow storm this weekend. Wish me luck!