Unbelievable Adventures of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation Master Students in Italy!

September 1st is the day when the school year begins for millions of schoolchildren and college students, and of course, for the master students of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation. However, Alina Budaeva, Ekaterina Natkhina and Alina Van-Gui did not take their usual route to Akhmatovskaya St. to attend their classes, but started their studies in Ca’ Foscari University, that is situated in Via Dorsoduro, Venice. The world famous Ca’ Foscari University is one of the oldest educational institutions in Europe, where the master students will grind away at their studies for a whole semester.
This is what Alina Budaeva says about her first impressions of life in Italy: “There are some cities in the world every earnest tourist wants to visit. These are Paris, New York, London…And of course, Venice is on the list. Now I know why. The beauty of the city strikes the unsuspecting visitor. Plenty of canals, magnificent St Mark’s Square, The Doge’s Palace, The Rialto Bridge … Even a sun-faded palazzo that is so timeworn that it seems to be on the verge of falling into the canal can make your heart throb. This is where we’re staying and studying! Felicità!
Some of our classes started last week. We attend lectures on psycholinguistics and peculiarities of learning English by foreigners, and also a course in American English. The latter is our favourite: Professor Jeremy John Magorian, who is the course lecturer, easily and skillfully grabs the students’ attention with his extraordinary knowledge of linguistics as well as of culture and history. The atmosphere in the classes is friendly; we discuss various topics, do drills to expand our vocabulary and revise some points of English grammar. By the way, our fellow students get fascinated when they learn we are from Russia! A lot of them dream of visiting our country, and the first question they usually ask us is, “Who is your favourite Russian writer?” The Italians love Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. It also turns out that they do not like Adriano Celentano. They say that only elderly women are fond of him.
Our Italian language and Italian culture classes will start soon, and we are looking forward to them.
In fact, the stay here is an incredible experience. We have been here less than a month, but we have already seen a lot (It will just suffice to mention Venice’s Burano Island!). We had a chance to get to know fascinating people and to understand that the borders between countries are fairly conventional, that friendship, respect and kindness know no nationalities, and surely, that Italian cuisine is one of the best in the world! Pizza, lasagna, pasta, gnocci…of course these are not as good as Russian borsch, but still very delicious!”