Bis bald Bonn!

“Colours are only names. I mean if you tell them the grass is green, it makes them start expecting the grass to look a certain way—your way—instead of some other way that may be just as good, and maybe much better”. J.D Salinger

So it’s time to go home for Christmas and probably the first time I’ve actually properly been home in a while. Between working two jobs over summer, seeing friends and the like, the only real time I was there was when nursing particularly bad hangovers in the foetal position on the sofa. After some, or rather copious amounts of time indulging my Thought Catalog addiction – and if you don’t know what it is don’t look for it, it’ll be 2015 before you look up from the computer again – I came across a list of mega-cool J.D Salinger quotes. For those of you who still have a blank face, catcher in the rye. If your face is still blank shame on you. Go to your nearest library, immediately. I was going to link the list in this post, but I think I might want to just talk about others in the future. So anyway, I found this quote (at the top) and it seemed fitting given that the German green is not the English green, but green and good nonetheless. (I don’t deny that this quote goes deeper than what I’m about to discuss, but being provocative yet not exhausted isn’t a bad thing, you guys can think on it a bit more for me). My Erasmus friends are all so keen to go home, to go back to their green and the comfort that it offers, but I’d rather just take a minute to reflect on how seeing a new green – gruen let’s call it – has changed how I see the grass, and more importantly how I expect to see it, or the fact that this expectation is really nothing to expect nothing at all.  

I think the most overwhelming difference in Germany to me personally is time. And the abundance of it. I am in no way belittling German degree programmes, in fact I think some of the German students I have met here are amongst the most engaged people I’ve ever come across. What I mean is, there are not constant essays and reading lists that suck up all of your time. There’s actually some room for living too. Time to try new things, visit museums, actually get to know the place you’re living in. Student culture here, in my opinion is very different (but do bare in mind that I haven’t befriended thousands of Germans). Nightlife is much more proper. Yes they drink. A lot. But there seems to be something more relaxed about the way that German students do it, it’s not like British binge drinking culture so much. And it’s totally okay to drink on the streets here. Something tells me not a lot of work is going to get done in summer semester… And German girls, just thank you for not going out in winter in a crop top and hot pants. Without a coat. I have not missed this. So on the eve of my return to Norwich and the inevitable sight of Prince of Wales on a Saturday night, I’m forced to try and reconcile my two expectations of a night out. A reconciliation that I have decided will just be to recognise and enjoy the variety that I’m being presented with. Both are good and bad in their own ways. Though having experienced both, I’d like to see a middle ground.  English girls with coats might suffice?

Coming back to German university, what I found most interesting and challenging is the lack of lectures here. I do six courses, one of which has lectures. The rest are seminars, often student led, which is not the English way of doing things. We like to sit quietly, withhold our reservations, then leave the lecture hall and bitch to our friends about what we just experienced and how awfully boring or wrong the lecturer was. Here critical discussion is much more normal. No not even much more normal, it just is normal. I think it is a terribly british thing – which yes I am guilty of – to not just express your honest opinion. But here it’s okay to just say it. I like that. Beating about the bush didn’t ever really help anyone. In fact, dishonestly is actually one of the most unattractive qualities a person can have (or withholding the truth equally so). So apologies if I come home and say things that appear rude (though I’m sure some of you are used to me being blunt on an English scale anyway). It doesn’t serve anyone for me to tell them what they want to hear when it’s not what I want to tell them, when it’s not what helps the most. So going back to Salinger, don’t expect the grass to look a certain way. I will not tell you it’s green, I might say it’s gruen and just because it’s not what you anticipated, don’t take it personally. There is nothing malicious about it, it’s just a matter of me having a different perspective. And the emphasis here is that it is my opinion, take it or leave it.

This isn’t a blog about how I think living in Germany is better (which I’m not saying it is or isn’t) just about variation and being critically open to it. I think I was relatively open to being critical before coming here, but I think living abroad and the exposure to the unknown forces you to take new perspectives into account, to challenge norms, everywhere, not just at home. I think it’s important for people to be critical and not accept something because ‘that’s just how it’s done’. Or because it’s easier or you are told it should be this way. These are not good reasons at all. I think contemporary society is plagued by this kind of apathy. And I’m tired of being apathetic and disheartened by seeing it in others around me.

This may a little previous, but it’s the season of resolutions. I’m not aiming to be more productive, eat better, read more books. I would like to do these things, but I don’t want to set myself unattainable targets (said tongue in cheek).  I’m resolving to not make resolutions at all. Instead I want to try and see everything, not just though my green lens. There might be “some other way that may be just as good, and maybe much better”. And what’s more, I’m going to go home, and really go home, and give it a chance. Maybe Norwich isn’t tarnished with the grungy green brush I think it is. Maybe it doesn’t even smell like manure anymore (though I would(n’t) want to hold my breath on that one). But here’s to finding out, and being constructively critical of my future discoveries – a life plan, not a new year’s resolution – and to spending the Christmas holidays with the best people I know in the world. Merry Christmas guys. 

Five things to do when everyone around you seems to have direction and you feel a million miles away from where they are or where you want to be

I haven’t posted a blog in a while so in another attempt to avoid doing uni work, I’ve decided to put something a bit more personal out there.  I’ve been doing way too many things since I last posted to even try and fill you in, and they really aren’t that interesting anyway, so instead I’m going to write about something I’ve thought a lot about this week. With it being Christmas and everyone going home to their family and peoples it’s an appropriate topic, in my opinion. For reasons I really don’t care to discuss, there have been a number of things that have bothered me. But don’t worry, this blog isn’t about them. In all honesty I probably don’t like you enough to tell you about them anyway. And I hate people who whine on the internet and clog up my Facebook with statuses like ‘feeling sad. Need hugs’. Get off your laptop and get them then. (Perhaps harsh, but my opinion. I appreciate the British stiff upper lip mentality and reckon most people could just man up). Instead I decided to talk about things I think are good to do when you get to a point where there is a lot of change going on in your life, which I think is probably true for most people whether or not they are living in another country or not. So, as indicated by the title, here is a list of things to do when everyone around you seems to have direction and you feel a million miles away from where they are or where you want to be (both physically – making me around 600km out depending on where ‘away’ is – and emotionally). I could probably talk about this for a long time, but I’m going to limit myself to five things. Being concise is a good skill. And these are things that I think are important. Feel free to disagree, I really don’t care. It’s just more interesting for me to write about rather than how many lectures I went to (and failed to understand) last week.  

1.  Give up on things that no longer do anything for you, if they ever even did. Yes it’s hard to break a habit, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.  

I have been trying to do this in more ways than one, but I think the best way of explaining it is with my decision to be vegan. Since being in Germany I feel like the amount of junk food I eat has increased, exponentially. Although I can’t claim that chocolate doesn’t taste good, I always instantly feel bad after eating it, mostly because I know I have no self-control. I just bought a big bar of milka but am only going to eat two squares said no one. EVER. So by taking away my ability to eat milk, I have removed this issue. It’s probably fortunate that Germany doesn’t have good cheese too. But on the wider scale, just do something to break the cycle. Stop holding onto how things were, things change. So change with them. It’s like stuffing your feet into shoes you wore when you were five. They aren’t right for you anymore, they will hurt and you won’t get very far. 

2.       Listen to some new music.

I love music. Anyone who really knows me knows that in times of hardship my iPod is my best friend; well it always is to be honest. It’s dependable, adapts to my every mood, and is way less annoying than people. Anyone who has ever listened to a song and got goose bumps will understand how deep this bond goes. That said, music is not always good. I don’t mean this in a sense that some songs are rubbish. Yes they are. But music can also be bad because like everything it has connotations. There will always be those songs that that boy sung to you, or you listened to on repeat when your dog died, or from the summer you spent with the friends you are now missing so much. They will make you feel worse. So stop listening to them. Play something new. Embrace the fact that your life is going somewhere else, and make a new soundtrack for it. Here’s a good starting point. It took my ages to work out that this was originally by Kylie…

3.       Do some exercise.

I have read/been told that it has been ‘scientifically proven’ – which I am saying with caution – that exercise releases good endorphins. I’m not saying you will instantly be happy and that you will stay happy. The world is not that simple.  But for an hour or so you’ll stop thinking about other things and you’ll feel better knowing you aren’t a coach potato. And if you’re doing this at the gym, check out all the hot guys (or girls) while you’re there, added bonus. 

4.       Talk to people you haven’t in a while, for whatever reason, who are still important despite this. And tell them this. A good friend doesn’t care how often you talk to them. It’s about quality, not quantity?

If you’re feeling a little unloved or detached don’t just sit around and sulk. Relationships work both ways, so make the first move. Make time to talk to friends, no matter how long it’s been. Find out where they are at; just don’t judge your life relative to theirs. Yes they might have a job lined up whereas you are coming to the end of uni with no prospects. But rather than being bitter and anxious about it, be happy for them. If you can’t do it for someone else, what chance do you have for yourself? 

5.       Do the things you’ve got to. Postponing things only makes it harder later.

This is somewhat hypocritical given my current procrastination. But finish that essay you’ve been putting off or whatever else it is. This is a no-brainer really.

So I lied. There are going to be six points. 

6.       YOBO

To quote Kate Frantzusova 'you only Bonn once'.  Go out, party too hard and be exhausted. You don’t remember the nights you stayed in… well unless it was a house party maybe.

Better late than never

It’s been a fair while since I last posted a blog so I’ll try to remember what I've been doing in the past few weeks, and I suppose talking about lectures is a good place to start. So after my initial issues with classes clashing, after picking up two more modules I finally seem to have enough credits for this semester. Apparently it’s a universal trait for universities to have poor scheduling skills. But at the end of a stressful day sorting this out a friend gave me a hug so it was all good. A little bit of affection goes a long way. After finally having lectures to attend, half were cancelled (including my 8 am that I walked 40 minutes to get to) so meeting actual German students is still going slow. Had the most awful experience of sitting in a seminar with people actively choosing to not sit next to me and basically ignoring my existence. That said, the cancelled 8 am seminar was a blessing in disguise as a boy in my class exchanged his grievances about the ordeal with me. To be exact he said it was ‘super’. There was me thinking that the Germans didn't get sarcasm. Silver lining and all that.

In accordance with my usual behaviour, when finding out I was behind on a 20 page paper as well as having to actually do my usual work I decided to take this week off and do absolutely nothing. You can take the girl out of England, but not the slack out of the girl. Though having said that, I have finally reached 3 pages of said 20 page challenge and feeling pretty good about it. It’s been a while since doing any kind of uni work so it’s hard getting back into the swing of it, especially when you don’t actually know what ‘the swing’ is. Ultimately on a work front it’s happening, slowly, but I’ll get there.

I was also really lucky to have a visit from a certain Czech friend a week or so ago. It was a relief to see a friendly face again and to feel a bit more normal. I guess eventually this will all feel normal, and then it will end and I can find another normal, as is the fashion of life I guess. During said visit we were sadly outraged by a night club experience: as if paying 8 euros to get into a club wasn't bad enough, paying 5 to get out is criminal. Also what’s even more outrageous (in my opinion), water costs more than shots in clubs. I have a severe lack of understanding for this logic. And as an aside, not appreciating the amount of sparkling water being sold either. Too many times have I bought a bottle of drink only to find that it was in fact not still. Touché liquids, touché.

I spent last weekend in Berlin with other Erasmus students and had a good time, though certainly had mixed feelings about the city. It was strewn with cranes where building work is still going on following the war and reunification and general development. It was almost like a foetus of a city. I found it to be a bit cold but I don’t know that I can really explain why. Maybe it had something to do with the main tourist sites relating to particularly unpleasant historical events, so no matter how much the city tries to build and reimage itself, it can’t escape its foundations. We went on a tour around an old stasi prison (Hohenschönhausen) and I don’t really know what to say about it other than I was there. I think when I see places with such bad connotations I just can’t really process them, like the Anne Frank Haus. Nothing you ever say will encapsulate what you felt being there and seeing the remnants of it all, which is bleak enough despite being so far detached from the reality of it. So it was just rather incomprehensible. I would put pictures from the inside up to show you what it was like, but I feel like these things aren’t mine to share so I won’t. To sum Berlin up, I went, I saw, I ate an obscene amount of junk food, got nowhere near enough sleep, and then I came home. But more importantly, I saw a polar bear. Just a shame Knut wasn’t there.



Gonna end this post with a brief reflection on Halloween. Had a suitably lovely evening despite never actually making it into a club. I will explain. Headed to a student wohnheim for a party/pre drinks type affair where Angelica and I picked up some German strays. We essentially walked into town and found out that all clubs were charging 10 euros entry so decided to not go in anywhere. But all in all it was a good night. And though my German is so far from good, it’s getting better, or at least I am more comfortable using it. Comfortable enough to just talk to randomers, which I probably wouldn't even do in England. That is the thing about moving to a foreign city alone, or maybe anywhere alone. You have to put yourself out there and make the effort, because at the end of the day you’re just one small person in amongst it all.

Also zum Schluss, have been having a good time, exploring a bit. Also surprisingly played a reasonable amount of sport. Gotta keep the spirits up somehow! I will endeavour to buck up and do some work as I feel that some good time management now will pay off at the end of the semester. It’s just a case of being a bit stricter on myself and trying to be consistent. I’m going to try to apply this to other aspects of my life too, which I’m sure some of you might appreciate. It’s just that at times it’s hard to not feel anxious about where this all leads. I feel it’s only suitable to leave you with this question: is this the futurity that Heidegger warns us of?If anyone has can answer that let me know. Like seriously do. 

Meine erste Woche in Deutschland – My first week in Germany

After spending a week in Germany it seems that it is high time to actually start my blog, and begin as I intend to go on. Despite my wish to make this as witty and nonconformist as possible, I am inevitably going to begin where it started, not so much Norwich bus station at 5am, but rather the idea of my departure. Departures are usually synonymous with loss, whatever form they might take. Having arrived in Bonn as the sole Bristol student taking up an Erasmus place at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität it is easy to understand this. For a start, my first excursion to a supermarket was a melancholic affair due to the lack of cheddar being sold (and the consequential dread of a year of cheese-deprivation induced calcium deficiency). But despite the initial realisation of the culinary limitations of my new home, it has certainly become clear that departure might actually mean something entirely different. That is to say, arrival.  So rather than thinking about all that I’ve left behind, my friends, comfort, and blocks of mature cheddar, I’m going to focus on the things I’ve gained in my first week abroad and the promise of what lies ahead.

Good friends will know that I’m starting with what is most important i.e. a pair of roller blades. After arriving and meeting one of my new housemates – a German computer scientist who goes by the name of Volker – I quickly became overwhelmed by the hospitable nature of my new home, and excited at my apparent possession of some wheel-embellished shoes. I am living in a WG, which is kind of a flat, but also kind of not. It is a flat building where tenants drop in and out all of the time. Some WGs are just quite places to stay, but Rosenstrasse has more of a quirky, homely fee (as epitomised by the vase full of kinder egg toys on the communal bookshelf). From the moment I arrived it was clear that I got lucky with this place. Overlooking the perfection that is my room, my arrival here has been unreal, beginning with my housemate taking me round town, giving me some rollerblades that had been left in the WG, and facilitating a trip to the Seibengebirge (nearby mountain/hill type things). After a suitably tiring walk up the Drachanfels peak, I was presented with a view of the Rhine with Bonn merging into Cologne in the valley below. I can’t express how it felt to see my new home sprawled out along the Rhine, but all I can say is that there was tranquillity about it I’ve never really felt before. What a way to begin, kudos to you Volker.

And since the initial success of acquiring roller blades (which I had always dreamed of owning to skate down the Rhine) my departure has continued to be about my arrival. Since being here I have met some lovely people also on the Erasmus course (and been joined by a good friend from home), sat on the Rhine’s river beach at night, marvelled at the Cologne cathedral and so much more that I can’t even remember. What’s more, the loss of cheddar pales in comparison to the additional foodstuffs I have encountered, with good bread and Federweisser being among the most notable additions to my diet. So I have not only gained many new experiences, but also some weight I am guessing. Don’t be surprised if I come home obese…

So on the eve of the commencement of my new university life, I sit in my room writing to an audience back at home where everyone I love is, and rather than feeling daunted of what is to come, I'm glad that I persevered and allowed myself that initial loss of comfort for the trade-off of the arrival at some place new and different. I am trying to keep this short enough that it isn't boring or a chore to read, but simultaneously I don’t want my point to be overlooked. So if you want to know more, check out my Facebook for future blogposts and photos, and I’ll leave you with an anecdote from a good friend of mine: Adele once told me that one goodbye is another hello, and she was right. So to conclude, hello Bonn, I'm ready and waiting.