mattus.co.uk: the website of Matt Wood

As I sit, on the back of my first week in Bonn, it is difficult to banish the notion that the entire world is spinning around me. The experience has been at once all-encompassing, confusing, humbling, unnerving yet somehow comforting. With the formalities dealt with and the introductory week out of the way, I feel as if I’m finally making inroads towards feeling at home here in Germany.

Monday morning, 4am. After one final, befuddled sojourn in the bed which had stood all these years for safety and unassuming routine, it was time to make tracks. Blearily I exhaled into the sharp autumn night as the hastily-selected subset of my possessions were loaded into the car. Hearty goodbyes unbefitting of my pensive mental state resounding in my ears, it was time to draw breath and to move forwards towards the sunrise. A quivering, evolving cocoon of consternation and excitement in the ephemeral twilight, I stepped from the car onto the tarmac of Stansted airport and prepared to leave terra firma far behind.

The flight to Duesseldorf took all of fifty minutes; grappling with the thought that I held no return ticket, with my Dad by my side I stepped from the plane and onto German soil. I had worries in abundance, but now was not the time; I was on a mission; nothing which had surrounded me back home held much meaning here; having always been a reticent person, I knew that now I had to be hellbent and open and involved and involving. The train glided noiselessly through the morning sunshine, and soon I had arrived in Bonn, and that was that.

Immediately on the search for the Accommodation Office in order to sign my room contract, I happened upon Jess and Iona, the other two students from Oxford who were to be studying German in Bonn. Even in times such as these, the world proves comfortingly small. A quick chat later, I had learned that the office had closed for the day, and that it was best to proceed straight to my accommodation. Lesson One: German public services are open at odd times, the majority of these being indecently early. A taxi ride later, I was met at ‘Tannenbusch I’, my home for the next four months, by the tutor for international students, who proceeded to lead me around the facilities like a whirlwind and inform me of the many intricacies of the (over-)conscientious German recycling system, most of which I don’t remember.

And then he was gone. Lesson Two: German halls of residence aren’t really anything like English ones. I’d done a year in halls when I first came to Oxford, but nothing which that experience taught me is really applicable here. In a word, life in the German halls is much more self-centred (a pecularity which seems only to apply to Wohnheim living, rather than being an enduring impression of the effusive Germans I’ve since met.) In Oxford, everybody left their door ajar and flitted from one room to another; much-needed cups of coffee were made for all, and there was one fridge which was shared harmoniously by everybody on the floor. Here, though, all the doors remain resolutely closed, the walls reverberate to the sound of silence, and the fridge is divided into a couple of dozen locked compartments.

Day-to-day life in German student accommodation, then, repulses me. The meagre nature of the furnishings sadly extends to the social life which the hall furnishes. The only saving graces are Cathy and Holly, the lovely English girls who also reside in my block. Most have already resolved to spend as little time as possible anywhere near the place. This was what I did this week – and, as a result, I had a lot of fun.

<to be continued…>

I am leaving for Bonn in six hours’ time. In recent times excitement and anxiety have been steadily converging, and now it feels like they’re two names for the same feeling.

During the process of getting ready to leave, the thought of immersing myself in a different culture has led me to appreciate how greatly our thoughts and actions are culturally influenced. Everything I’ve done this week has seemed to reverberate in my mind with a heightened cultural resonance which has made me aware that many of the things I was wont to take for granted – and more importantly, for universal – are in fact quintessentially English. The squeezing down tiny country lanes, peering at the rolling fields and roadside hot-dog joints from the back seat of a rickety old bus; the relentless majesty of my University city of Oxford and the quiet, unassuming homeliness of the town of Leighton Buzzard where I spent my childhood years;  the bustling shops where queues are orderly and the Queen’s head is currency… and the British people! Waiting quietly at bus stops and watching the day go by outside pubs and greeting one another with that warm but reserved affection… and making me feel wonderfully like I am, and always will be, one of them.

Nevertheless, it has been said that he who has two languages has two souls…and yet how do I reconcile the aspects of my life in Britain which I yearn earnestly to take with me, with the desire not to carry too much weighty cultural baggage through the jungle of customs and traditions and attitudes which I will doubtless encounter in Germany? The problem is not dissimilar to that of packing my suitcase. Of course, I would be lost without the essentials which enable me to keep in touch with the country I leave behind, both literally and metaphorically – my list of contacts, my books and my photo collection, along with the essential materials for a fortifying cup of tea or a blast of Pink Floyd through headphones in the dark. Then there follow the features of my life which are important to me, but which do not seem culturally emblematic and should thus fit into my daily life in Germany as they do my existence in Britain, sitting at a form of crossroads. In this category: my mobile phone, my laptop and my belief that the majority of people hold fundamentally good intentions.

Finally, there are those facets of life in Britain which I will, for the most part, leave behind. As one who is rather fond of the English tongue, the most trying of these will be my language. I won’t just be communicating in German; the change of language will affect the way I think, the way I relate to people and possibly the way I feel. Expressing yourself in a new language is truly an adventure in itself.

At this point I must cut this post short, as I have to rise at 4am to make my way to Stansted airport. My thanks are due to everyone who has wished me well on my trip; I’m not sure how the next few days are going to pan out, but I’ll be sure to get online at some point to update you all with the latest.

But for now – Gute Nacht!