Goodbye Moscow, hello ten thousands of kisses!

Long time no reading, I know… But I think we just needed some time apart, figuring out what we really want out of this relationship. No really, I thought I would spare you all the reading for a few weeks, considering I’ve stolen a lot of your precious time already during the past half year. Also not entirely true, I’ve just been very selfish and couldn’t find the time to write anything. Yep, that’s closest to the truth, I’m afraid…

So after our last long-distance gathering, I had a few days left before classes started again. What did I do? Can’t you guess? I walked around, visited some churches, monasteries, parks, museums, … and enjoyed the real Russian winter – we’ve reached minus 23 degrees – and for those who are very eager to find out: yes, your snot does freeze without any kind of protection (people are apparently more interested in my snot’s welfare). So there I was, walking around like an Eskimo enjoying my last few days of what Russians dare to call “каникулы”, or “holiday” for foreigners.

All those cultural outbursts of mine will probably sound deadly dull for most of you, but I had a mission and when Sarah has a mission, it is to be taken deadly serious! After the first month here, I decided to draw up a list with everything I wanted to see. To be honest, that list was rather unnecessary, seeing in the end it turned out I’d just copied the whole travel guide. Honestly, I myself thought it rather impossible to visit all those places whilst not forgetting about my supergeekness. But ladies and gentleman, allow me to quote Tom: “Mission accomplished”!

And then classes already started again (let me tell you Vlad, only 1 week of holiday in almost half a year is definitely one of the worst violations of human rights). And then those sleepless nights started to become even more sleepless. I started to think about what else needed to be done before leaving and …oh…oh…ow…Sarah dear, you have a Master’s thesis to write! And yes, the past two weeks I’ve done nothing but going to classes and working on my thesis-to-be--hopefully-in-first-examination-period. Basically that meant spending my days searching for poor Russian professors to become my interview victims, making up an enormous amount of questions on different matters, translating them into Russian, getting extremely annoyed about people’s negligence, and sitting down with my victims listening how they tell me everything except an answer to my questions… Fun fun fun! Now, 10 days before I say до свидания to Moscow, I have had 3 interviews and 2 are (if all goes well, fingers crossed) yet to come. Luckily, us geeks are very prescient and I thus already prepared another 6 pages of questions.

Ha…two weeks of Moscow in only 184 words. I feel like crying…

On Monday Karen and Natalie arrived here in Moscow. These girls are also studying Russian at HIVT and are now in their fifth interpreting year. Respect!!! So they came to visit Moscow for a week and are planning on studying here as well next school year. Yes I know, I am actually not worthy the title “geek” when comparing to these two.

Antwerpian news: I have found a guy to rent my student’s room in the second term, which is great as I was starting to get worried about having to pay for the place another 6 months without actually needing it. Which means: bye bye my dearest student life! L Sad, but нужно…

Well, I’ll probably not be able to find time to write in the next couple of weeks, I’m afraid. Anyway (warning: I am extremely bad in this kind of sentimental talk), it was very nice to share my Russian adventures with all of you! I hope it was a little amusing for you too, apart from all the boring reading. I myself have surely enjoyed every minute of it, although I must admit it is now time for me to go home and collect all those promised hugs and kisses!

Keep those lips wet for me another 10 days!

More photo, still too much twaddle…

First of all: I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! May all your wishes come true…. You know the drill.

I’ve had the honour to make the acquaintance of the officially most effective alarm clock, the only one that can get me out of bed within 10 seconds: the fire alarm! When at 5.25 am the alarm went off and some woman screamed through the intercom to leave the rooms and head for the emergency exits, I jumped up, woke the other girls, opened the door, saw nothing but smoke, ran back into my room, took my bag, laptop and documents (no point in staying alive without these things, according to my subconscious), dragged the girls out of their room (one of them ran back to go and get her contact lenses – What??? Apparently there are people who would risk their lives for those things because they don’t look as good with glasses), ran to the exit and ended up in front of a locked door. Realising we couldn’t go back up, seeing that’s where the fire was, I felt a panic attack coming up. But nothing left to do than to run up to our floor again and hope we can make it to the other exit. When we got up their one of the security guys said that the fire had already been put out. That day in class the boys, who couldn’t seem to hold back their laughter, told us they’d had another party that evening and apparently one of the drunken guests thought it necessary to go cooking at 5 in the morning. So that’s how it all began, in the kitchen 10 meters from my room… Funny??? Hadn’t it been for that big fire 3 months ago at another faculty, which cost ten’s of students their lives, the state wouldn’t have ordered to install those smoke detectors at the dorm and it would probably have been a very deadly joke. So no, you don’t see me laughing…

Apart from this, the past 2 weeks existed mainly of culture, parties, cold feet and Russian smelling-broad-chested-machos-with-horrible-haircuts.

As I had been in bed for almost 2 weeks, I felt I had to make up for all that lost time and, believe me, I did. In a week’s time I visited 5 museums: Chekhov House-Museum, Pushkin House-Museum, Gorky Museum, the State Armoury (my absolute favourite, btw) and the New Tretyakov Gallery. Next to that I often just wandered around in town and meanwhile visited some churches, cathedrals, state buildings, monasteries and parks (it still hits me when I see such a ridiculously large country estates in the middle of a city). Believe it or not, but the last day of 2007 we spent on a cemetery where some of the most famous Russian historical figures are buried. For example, we saw the graves of Gogol, Bulgakov, Chekhov, Gorbatchov, Stalin’s wife, etc. No worries, I won’t go further into detail, I suppose photos will say much more than my lengthy writing…
So that leaves us with the parties. Obviously, we had happy ones, but also a whole lot of goodbye-parties. Lots of students left during the last few weeks, some to come back after the holidays, others never to return at all. A list of every one who has left me and Moscow: Yves, Cedric, Petra, Julia, Sarah, the girls from Gent, the German girls/guy, the Italians, the Finnish girls, and so many more. Honestly, I’ll really miss them all, we had a truly great time! On the 8th of January the 3 last girls from Brussels will return home as well, leaving me on my own to represent our beloved country. My King and yet non-existing government (you see, I’m only gone for 5 months and everything falls apart in Belgium – hopefully not literary); you can count on me guys!
Anyhow, Russian life goes on… Let’s talk about the happy occasions. First of all – “HOHOHO” – Santa Claus came by to tell me what a good girl I’ve been the past year (no surprise, of course) and we thus welcomed Him with a small Christmas party. Considering in Russia Christmas is officially celebrated on the 7/8th of January, the 24/25th of December were just like all other days and I thus had to attend classes (apparently I was the only geek/idiot who thought this necessary, as I was practically all week alone in class…). But on Christmas Eve we saw our opportunity to enjoy a major meal and have a party. When I say “major” I do mean “maaaajor”. Unfortunately, I lost the count on the bottles of шампанское (read: champanskoye > isn’t Russian just too easy for our linguistic heads), but the number of courses reached up to 6½. I admit that “Comme Chez Soi” would provide 7 courses, but seeing we’re only poor students – still wet behind our ears – who have to cook their own Christmas dinner, I’d say we did pretty well. Anyway, the menu:
1. some little snacks to get the party going.
2. a small aperitif: toast with salad, smoked salmon and caviar.
3. a bigger starter: cold pasta, a Caesar salad and monstrous scampi.
4. an entirely self-made pizza à la our German chef.
5. the main course: roasted chicken, a variety of warm vegetables and baked potatoes.
6. a delicious Christmas cake.
6½. around 3.00am we found our second breath and thus started all over again.
How’s that for a student’s meal? Only pretty faces and genius brains? I don’t think so! We Moscow students have proved to be true kings/queens of the kitchen! ;-)
So on the 25th of December I woke up with a major hang-over and had to spend 6 hours in class. Speaking of torture…

Moving on to the 26th: Мой день рождения! (Russian class, on request of D.) Or “my birthday”, for those who are not convinced. Even this festivity isn’t considered to be an official holiday over here, can you imagine? And yes, again I spent a few hours in class, but in the evening I cooked dinner and we had a nice little party.

On the 29th I had to pass on my crown to Maria, моя соседника - aka the girl next door, as it was her birthday. Meanwhile her parents and brother had arrived and we thus all celebrated together. In the evening we went ice skating on Red Square (Maria’s father was kind enough to take a picture of my first steps on the ice, after more than 6 years. BUT: I didn’t hit the ice once, although I must admit I’ll have to work on those pirouettes and double flips…) and had a delicious dinner at a lovely tradition Russian restaurant.

And then all of the sudden it was already time to say goodbye to a wonderful 2007. On New Year’s Eve we decided to cook ourselves a delicious meal and for the countdown we relied on a bridge to show us all fireworks Moscow had to offer (Red Square was a no-go because of ten’s of thousands other Muscovites who had the same idea). After all those sparkles we were strongly advised to go back to the dorm and spend the rest of the night/morning celebrating there as Moscow is said to be one of the most dangerous cities on New Year, mainly owning to drunken Russians armed with all kinds of fireworks. And it turned out to be everything but an exaggeration, as the day after the newsreader had a hard time struggling through the list of incidents that had occurred that night. [The evil шампанское-creature is to blame for a lack of visual material of this night. Простите меня! – My apologies.]

Right, I think I’ll go on freezing now… It has been between -10 and -16 degrees the last few days and apparently my heating thought this to be an appropriate time for a winter sleep. In addition, I kind of broke the handle of my window which means I can’t entirely close it anymore. And if one goes and asks those tough macho-security-dudes whether they can come and have a look, one can aspect the following answer: “Our handyman isn’t working during the holidays, but my room is nice and warm, девушка (girl)…”. May I introduce to you all; the Russian cool blokes!

All in all, spending the holidays here in Moscow was great fun and a nice experience. I’m really glad I persisted and decided to stay, although I must admit that realising how lovely it is to share such a days with family and friends made me miss home badly… But I’ll send of all you big telepathic kisses for now and when I return in February I’ll order another Santa Claus, another birthday and a new New Year. Lots of celebrations are yet to come, meaning a huge amount of kisses for Sarah!

До свидания, мои дорогие!

Raising from the ashes

Right, a lot of explaining and catching up to do, I suppose… Before anyone starts blaming this honourable girl for disloyalty, allow me to point out that my absence was fully based on legal grounds. Two main reasons: busy- and illness. So here are your culprits, blame it on these guys!

The busyness can be attributed to thé dreaded deadline on the first of December. According to some HIVT-rules (yep, in theory the school is based on some sort of “organization”), I needed to send my promoter a title, more or less definite plan of work and an interim bibliography for my Master-thesis-to-be. Oh oh…someone had some research to carry out! So for almost 2 weeks my Moscow life existed almost entirely of libraries, universities, bookshops, internet cafés and mainly stress. I will spare you all the boring details, the most important thing is that I pulled it off (even 2 days in advance – super geek!) and that my promoter liked my – obviously brilliant – ideas. Well done my genius brain cells!

All set and done, let’s have fun! And 3 parties in a week is exactly what I call fun. The first one seemed to have gone a little out of hand, well actually just a little too loud. An old baboeshka came into the room (uninvited and even without knocking – that’s how rude these Russian grannies are) and complained about a few too many decibels and threatened to go to the director the next day. Apparently the old woman bites even harder than she barks, seeing two days later I was unkindly asked to go to the director’s office. Someone was in trouble… Fortunately it was not this well-behaved girl. The grumpy old man just made me a business proposal: he wanted me to become his personal spy, the mole amongst the Belgians. There you go, that’s the way the Russians handle things… The second party was in honour of the departure of a Belgian girl and a Bulgarian guy. I didn’t stay long as I do have classes to attend in the morning, you know. Apparently they had some uninvited guests again. Around midnight some of the dorm’s toughest security guards came bursting in. Big mouths and a lot of threats, but when it comes to it there is nothing they can do. Finally the last party was the most queer and notorious one. An Irish guy who had lived in the dorm for a while moved into his own apartment and gave a moving-in-party.

Arriving there around 1am, we decided to challenge the small elevator and us 8 squeezed in all at once. What an idiots! Not only did the damn thing refuse to go up, it also wouldn’t open anymore. Suddenly a lady started speaking through the intercom, saying she would call some kind of service to come and get us out. It would only took about half an hour... Now I really started to get worried! No one could move an inch and 8 people in a minimum-sized elevator meant that there would not be a lot of air left soon. Cold sweat, I can assure you! After 15 minutes all started to get blurry and another 15 minutes later I woke up on the floor, outside the elevator, someone holding my legs up. Yep, I managed to take the easy way out and hence fainted in there. Luckily Cedric was there to catch me; a true hero!

Sunday then: minus 10, streets like skating rings, Yves and I decided to go to a major book fair. I was told: “just cross the bridge and go to the left, it’s only a 10 minute’s walk”. Yves was told just the same, but seeing he only responds to Basel’s (a very intriguing Flemish dialect), he apparently didn’t really understand much of it. Obviously, I started doubting myself and generous as I tend to be, I told him he was probably right. Eh wrong! We walked around for almost 2 hours, freezing our heads off, when he suddenly decided to admit he maybe could have been wrong. No shit, dude???!!! Then we tried it my way…10 minutes and we were in. We could even see the student’s dorm from up there! I could have slapped his frozen ears, but seeing my own hands were practically lifeless, he got away with it this time.

In the beginning of the next week I suffered from some kind of cultural overdose. On Monday we went to see the world famous ballet “The Swan Lake” from Tchaikovsky in the huge Kremlin Theatre and on Tuesday I went to see the play “Reviser”, based on one of Gogol’s classics. All very nice, but that same evening I went to bed with a sore throat and earaches…

On Wednesday I woke up feeling awfully bad, with an amazing bump on the right side of my neck (even worse than the one during my glandular fever). No big deal, just caught a cold, a day in bed will solve the problem. Or so I thought… Next day, Thursday, I officially declared the most sick day of my (almost btw) 21-year’s existence. My throat was entirely blocked with those bloody glands - up to the point that I couldn’t eat nor drink - , I couldn’t lie still because of horrible pains all over my body, my head was nearly bursting as well as my ears, I was feverish, … Anyway, I ended up taking way too many painkillers according to the instruction leaflet. Oops… And so on Friday, 6am (everything in Russia is open 24/7), I went to see a doctor. After a quick look at my throat: “Oh, let me give our E.N.T. specialist a call to ask when she’ll be in and whether she can squeeze you in asap”…Now that put my mind at ease! After only 5 minutes she could see me. She did some small tests and it turned out I had caught some kind of virus and that, as a result of not taking care of those glands properly, an abscess had formed at the back of my throat. She gave me two options: Or I’d stay in the hospital over the weekend or I’d stay there 6 more hours to get some injections and a drip. As you can imagine, this was not a very hard decision. So there I was, drugged, on a drip for almost 6 hours. When I was allowed to leave they gave me another one of those heavenly injections in my bum and then: time to pay… Hold on: nearly 18,000 roubles (= almost €500). “Eh...hmmm…Excuse me?…swallow…can you please repeat that…sweat…I don’t believe I’ve heard that correctly…freak…you stingy bastards!!!” Anyway, my throat soon started opening up but on the whole I still felt like sh*t. On Monday I had to go back for the results of my blood test: a severe bacterial virus which should be cured with antibiotics and a week’s bed rest. Given the situation, this news wasn’t all that bad... Then the doctor asked me how I felt and considering my complaints he asked me to take off my top [Oh…Mister Doctor…J] and told me my back and chest were covered in red spots. Conclusion: an allergic reaction to one of the 13 pills/day that affected my stomach, kidneys and gave me chest pains. What a bummer! So there we went again: two buminjections, another drip and new medication. So for the rest of the week I was kept under strict dorm arrest. But fortunately I started to feel much better after a few days and on Friday the doctor officially declared me “as fit as a fiddle”. All’s well that end well!

Unfortunately, the same can not be said of mummy dear. She is currently suffering from pneumonia (chic for lung infection) and, though she won’t admit it, is feeling crap as well. Now this is what I’d call sincere mother love resulting in exaggerated solidarity! Very sweet of her, but I am worrying sick about her over here… So mum, for once listen to your dearest (good thing she only has one so that I can say this with certainty) daughter and stay in bed! Get well soon!!!

Some last small announcements:
The great money/Russian students problems have finally been solved. Only one thing to take care of now: finding someone to rent my student’s room in Antwerp from February until August ’08 (or longer). Any help or advice would be more than welcome!
Putin’s party obviously won the Dec.2 elections, they “stole” almost all seats in the State Duma. Everything went smoothly here in Moscow, no revolution or whatsoever took place (a shame as I was ready to show the Belgian flag on television worldwide). So here’s my advice to the Belgian politicians who can’t seem to form a government after almost half a year: Corruption is the solution; works every time here in Russia!
Cedric’s friends came to visit him for a week. Obviously, a week of Duvel and Leffe in Moscow exhausted the poor chap.
Yves had his birthday last Sunday, that same bastard took a plane home on Wednesday, and on Monday Petra will follow him. They’re all leaving me…


My sincere apologies for this ridiculously long update! I hope you’ve survived…

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!

A diversity of Russian culture

Newsflash: Lenin will finally be granted the opportunity to die properly. To leave no doubt; the chap has already been dead for quite a few decades now, please don’t be mistaken. But instead of burying the poor guy, they made of him a tourist attraction by exhibiting his embalmed corpse in the mausoleum on Red Square. But a few days ago was decided to, in order to let the man rest in piece, find him a final resting place within a few years. So we, being cultural geeks and all, thought it was the last chance to pay our last respects and we thus visited him in his glass coffin. Weird, seeing one of the most famous historical figures lying there, being all death but looking so much alive. It gave me the creeps…

Another sort of Moscow culture: libraries. I visited another 3 this week and can assure you that nothing is as exhausting as spending a few hours in such a place. When entering one first has to meet someone of the directive staff in order to, as always, fill in some unnecessary pieces of paper. The next stop is the metal detector which here in Russia is preset to beep every single time, just so that the Moscow militia has something to do next to getting drunk. “Please ma’am, empty all your bags” (in Russian that is) and I then say “Sorry, I do not understand any Russian” and then the answer is always the same: “Move on”. Russians hate people who don’t speak their language, you see, and thus I more than once tend to take undue advantage of their laziness. Can you blame a girl? Then one has to queue for half an hour because some grannies, who should in fact already be retired for quite a few years, need to put away all coats and bags. Then, what do you know, another metal detector. When one finally succeeds in entering the actual library one’s first reaction is: RUN! In a ridiculously big room one sees a thousand huge cabinets with a million small drawers with a trillion cards on which author and title are handwritten. So what needs to be done: first of all one has to know in advance which books are required, then one has to start an impossible search for that one tiny card (you need to be lucky with the handwriting as well), then one has to queue again to order the books, then one has to sit down and read the d*mn thing at once as one cannot take any books home and if it concerns old books 1 copy costs €3. If you ask me the best thing one can do is to pitch down a tent in the library and camp there for a week. But sorry, that’s even for this cultural geek a “no-go”.

On Wednesday I visited the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. I was so very proud of wandering around in there, being a “Vlamingske”, as almost the entire first floor was stuffed with paintings of famous Flemish painters. People looked at me as if I were some kind of freak because I couldn’t help smiling all the time and I wanted to inform everyone there on the fact that MY country (Flanders – no, I am not a proponent of the separation of Belgium) had produced such a bright souls.

And then on Thursday I had another one of those pleasant days: class from 8am until 7pm. Illegal, I tell you!!!

After class on Friday me and the Russian girl went to “Shoe centre” as Moscow forecasts promised us lots of snow and minus 5 and I thus needed to get ready for the Russian winter. Just as was the case with the libraries, my first reaction again was: RUN! A trillion shoes under 1 roof, even I cannot handle that. But already after half an hour I saw my leather beauties and I immediately knew we were meant to spend Russian winter together. Fur on the inside and an extra layer of antiskid on the outside… Together we will bear all weather conditions!

On Saturday I first took the metro+bus to Moscow’s biggest and cheapest supermarket, and was almost killed by a couple of grannies who were desperate to secure a seat at the bus. Take my word for it, you have never seen anything like that before. Next time I will take my camera and film the whole event. Just brilliant!
In the evening we decided to go clubbing again and in the end we managed to gather as much as 18 girls to come with us. LADIES NIGHT! First a pre-party in one of the rooms and around half past 12 we took off. And guess what time we were allowed in: freaking half past 2! We had to wait outside for 1.5 hour, in the freezing cold and snow (Fortunately me and the leather beauties were already inseparable and thus my feet were covered in fur). Then we finally managed to get in (after another metal detector, obviously) and OH MY GOD I had never in my life seen anything like it before. That place was way beyond eccentric! Russian carnival songs and disturbed, unbelievably drunk people was all the place had to offer. When arriving a few boys and girls were performing a strip act, which appears to be normal in Russia, and already a whole lot of drunken people were sleeping wherever they could lay their heads. Girls really had to watch their bags in there as before you know it some randy cow would grab you from behind. Just disgusting! Boys were wandering around, kissing one girl with their hands already under another one’s top and when that was done they moved on to another pair of sluts (excuse my language). Although I felt disgusted beyond believe, I had more than a good laugh in there. Bed time: 6.30pm, way better than last time.





On Sunday I mainly slept, to be honest, and on Monday I did my laundry, studied, went to the market, cooked and in the evening went to the cinema again with a few Russian students.

Near future plans:
- Writing essays, translating, studying, visiting some more bookshops and libraries gathering material for my thesis,…
Now the more exciting prospects:
- Going to the cinema to watch the film “1612” which is a huge subject for discussion in Russia at the moment and I thus wouldn’t want to miss it.
- Celebrating 90 years of Revolution; Moscow will turn into one hell of a party (and communist manifest, I'm afraid). So watch the news on Wednesday; I'll be saluting...
- Going to see the football match (Moscow-Germany).
- Going to the world famous theatre “Master and Margarita”, based on the book written by Bulgakov.

Quick update

Considering I don’t have a lot of time these days, you’ll have to do with only a short update. Please accept my sincere apologies!

In the past week I’ve been:
- working my a*s off for school as my English professor thinks it necessary to make me write essays (only about 10 pages…) each week;
- working my a*s off for my Master Thesis as me and my big mouth promised to already hand in a interim plan of work on Sunday and I thus had to spend the entire weekend in bookshops, libraries and the internet cafe;
- happy, seeing my proposal regarding the equivalents was approved;
- spending time with a few Russians: going to the cinema – next week real Russian theatre –, wandering around, having a drink and practicing my (their, actually) Russian;
- visiting a few markets
- cold – next week minus 5 and snow;
- over the moon as Danny has found a job!!!! Congratulations again krullebol! ;
- jealous of Yves because his family (parents, sister, girlfriend) arrived on Saturday and will stay here for an entire week;
- getting enraged at the whole money-situation as all of the sudden they’ve decided that 4 students will come to Belgium in the second semester. Our professor told us Moscow University insisting on that and Moscow University told us our professor did. Once more, it gets one to thinking… However, they told us they are not sure they’ll find students and we’ll thus have to wait for another few weeks. Considering I don’t have a few more weeks as I need to decide whether or not I’ll terminate the tenancy for my student’s room in Antwerp, I am getting extremely annoyed and fed up with the whole situation;
- cursing at the Russian workers – when I came back from class and good-tempered entered my room all was covered in white dust and dirt. Apparently they had been installing new smoke detectors and did not find it necessary to cover anything while drilling wholes into the ceiling. They were even too lazy to clean up their mess, so I grabbed a pile of wires and pipes and threw it out into the hallway. Everything was covered in dust: the entire floor, my bed, closets, table, seats, towels, books, food, cutlery, plates, glasses, mugs, cooking utensils, my notebook (which was btw open), my clothes that were hanging over the chair, my laundry that was drying on the thread, … Yep, I spent almost two hours cleaning everything from top to bottom, then had to do the laundry once more and then I went to do the exact same thing at Cedric’s room as Yves and his family were arriving within an hour for a true Pelmeni feast ;
- making a very hard decision – last week Petra told me she was about to buy another ticket seeing she had decided to return home in December as well (Yves already bought his ticket a month ago). To be honest, I think that is a rather wise decision – class ends in December and we’ll thus have nothing more to do for another month, I can’t properly work on my thesis here as I don’t have internet nor the right environment, a new ticket is much cheaper than staying here another month, I could arrange things for the 4 Russian students that are said to be coming to Antwerp, I could start getting used to my natural biotope again and getting settle before the second semester officially starts, I could start working again, most importantly I would see my family and friends and finally have a bowl of granny’s delicious soup, … – and so I was considering to follow suite. On Monday I surfed on the internet for a while and found a ticket for only €98 which is close to nothing. I filled in all required data and only had to press “enter” to make it official… But I couldn’t do it. Don’t ask me why, probably just pride as I decided to come here and I don’t want to give up just like that. Anyway, something held me back from pushing that button and I’m glad it did. I have no regrets whatsoever and am pleased with my final decision: I’m staying until the 3rd of February and thus expect some visitors (Lotte, go and get those visas for the English gang – Marie, Moscow is waiting for you). I am also thinking of jumping on the train in January and travel to Siberia, Lake Baikal. Anyone interested???.

That’s all for now; a few translations, an essay and a thesis are waiting for me…

До следующей недели, друзья!

Sarah aka cash machine

Right, I suppose I owe you an explanation… Last week I finished by saying I’d soon get back to you with more important news. Two reasons why saying sorry would be in place: 1. I shouldn’t have written this in the first place, seeing many of you thought the news would be very exciting and positive, which it certainly isn’t. 2. I didn’t get back to you earlier, as I couldn’t yet sort it all out myself.

Please allow me to update you on the story. I’ll try and keep it as short as possible, though…

It all began almost 2 weeks ago. We received an email from our Belgian professor (the one we had met here in Moscow a few days earlier). She was kind enough to inform us on the fact that she’ll have to claim a “small” amount of money from us. That she had been talking to the people in charge here in Moscow, and that, seeing Moscow can’t find any counterparts to go to Belgium, they had mutually agreed that we have only 2 possibilities: 1. paying the University of Moscow €260 a month for this 8m² room ; 2. transfer €1000 to our teacher’s bank account in order to ‘buy ourselves free from obligations’. Now, do I perhaps look like a walking cash machine that gladly hands out money to everyone who wants some? If I do, please let me know, because then I might seriously consider changing my looks. So, after a few sleepless nights we went to talk to those so-called people in charge. And well what do you know, it was the first they heard about any possible problems. They had never talked with our teacher about students not going to Belgium or about us paying anything. It gets one to thinking, doesn’t it… Anyway, we asked to have a look at our contract again and it was clear we had signed a bilateral agreement – exchange programme – and that we therefore didn’t have to pay anything for our stay here. What a relief! So me and my mum (you can’t believe how awful it was for me to phone her up with such a news, leaving her to worry over there, not being able to do anything) were granted 1 night’s sleep. Next day was decided to change our contract so that we would pay for our stay here in stead of having to provide a place to stay for future Russian students. After I’ve heard that it would only be €95 a month (again, it gets one to thinking), I agreed with that plan. So we went back to uni to explain our situation again. After a whole while of communication problems (why does everyone in this country has to speak such a difficult language???), they finally understood and got very angry with our school for putting us, as well as the university and their students in such a position. So they decided to talk to our professor first. Next day they filled us in on the latest developments: we can’t change the contract as we’d need permission from “higher authorities” (which means we just need a signature from our principal, if you ask me) and somehow our teacher succeeded in convincing them paying her would be the best solution. But they agreed with us that under no circumstances we should pay as much as €1000. So at the moment the situation is as follows: there is no situation, really, we'll just have to wait...

So that’s all I know at this very moment. Why I wanted to inform you on this asap? Because it could well be I’ll come home earlier, seeing that a new plane ticket would probably be much cheaper than having to pay one month more for the room and my living here. So for all of you who are planning a trip to Moscow (or Siberia, sorry L.), please wait until I’ve decided myself on what’s best. But for the ones who already start worrying about being stuck with me again that soon, I can put your minds at ease for now since I’m afraid nothing will be definite for quite a while.

Other things that happened to me this week: On Monday I went to the market and bought a whole backpack full of fruit and vegetables for as much as €2. Yes, after almost 2 months I finally know where to buy these things in order not to pay €5 for 2 plums. In the night of Tuesday to Wednesday we had another birthday party, this time C. from Brussels turned 20.



On Thursday I tried a new course (Translation science), only attended by Russian students. I felt a bit like a piranha being put together with a whole lot of goldfishes. But at the end of the course they came to talk to me, what really surprised me as Russians aren’t usually that sociable towards strangers. But they turned out to be very nice and especially curious (they were even interested in Belgium, imagine…). So they asked me to go with them to the cinema on Friday and, seeing I really wanted to get to know real Russians but had given up all hope by now, I gladly accepted that invitation. It turned out to be great fun, they were really friendly and interested in all I had to say. I also learned a lot about them and the way things are done here in Russia. For example: they have 35 hours of class a week, including Saturdays??? I know, I couldn’t help my mouth falling open either... But most importantly: I understood them and was able to talk to them while feeling rather comfortable. I was really worried about that as real Russians tend to talk very fast and often forget to articulate. Thus, considering I decided that I’d want to attend those courses in future, I have finally found all the equivalents I wanted. Jieha! It only took me 2 months… So I’ll send out my proposal today and if they accept it, I’ll only have 5 hours of class a week next semester. What a luxury! I’ll need that time to write my master thesis, though… On Saturday I first went to class and when I arrived back at the student's residence security were searching all the rooms again. This time they were in search of water boilers. I know, I too had difficulties not to laugh when the guy asked me how I can make my coffee if I wouldn't have one. But then he filled me in on the latest news and told us that he just came to warn us that in case we would have one, we need to hide it by Monday. Apparently, after that fire two weeks ago, Moscow finally got the message: they need to make their public buildings much safer. So at the dormitory they already started installing brand-new fire detectors, because apparently next week Russian authorities will start checking all University buildings in Moscow. And that’s why the boiler has to go (=be hidden for 2 days, as I couldn’t possibly survive without coffee in the morning). In the evening some evil students convinced me to go and explore Moscow’s nightlife. I think it’s best not to provide you with too many details but I can, however, assure you that everything they say about it is more than true; except for the rumour that it’s dangerous, you just need to know where to go as is the case even in Belgium, if you ask me. In other words: WOW! It was amazing, I couldn’t believe what I good time I had. Consequence: I came home at 10.45 today… Sorry mum, just this once, I promise I’ll go back to being the well-behaved daughter as off now!

That’s all folks!