mattus.co.uk: the website of Matt Wood

Why must we separate our rubbish in this ridiculous way? It drives me up the wall.
Warum müssen wir unseren Müll auf diese lächerliche Weise trennen? Es ist zum die Wände hochgehen.

How come your trains are so reliable, especially bearing in mind that your buses arrive at seemingly random times?
Wie kommt’s, dass Ihre Züge so zuverlässig sind, besonders wenn man in Betracht zieht, dass Ihre Busse anscheinend zu zufälligen Zeitpunkten ankommen?

I don’t suppose you can recommend me a shop that opens on a Sunday? All I have for lunch is a portion of rice and some chilli powder.
Können Sie mir zufällig einen Laden empfehlen, der am Sonntag öffnet? Zum Mittagessen habe ich nichts, außer eine Portion Reis und etwas Chillipulver.

Drinking on the street gives you a wonderful feeling of freedom, until you have to stand dutifully at a deserted crossing for five minutes before the lights go green.
Das Saufen auf der Strasse ruft ein wunderbares Freiheitsgefühl hervor, bis dass man für funf Minuten pflichtbewusst an einem menschenleeren Fußgängerübergang stehen muss, bis die Ampel grün ist.

I wish we could keep our chavs under control as well as you do.
Ich wünsche, dass wir unsere Prolete so gut wie Sie unter Kontrolle halten könnten.

Are your supermarket cashiers instructed to be as irritating as possible, particularly when requesting payment?
Sind Ihre Supermarktkassierer darauf angewiesen, so irritierend wie möglich zu sein, besonders wenn sie um Zahlung bitten?

I’m sorry that I missed my appointment again. I’ll clearly never be able to get used to your asinine opening hours.
Es tut mir leid, dass ich meinen Termin wieder verpasst habe. Offensichtlich werde ich mich nie an Ihre törichten Öffnungszeiten gewöhnen können.

If we let people in Britain drink alcohol before paying for it, we’d truly be in a sorry mess.
Wenn man in Großbritannien Alkohol trinken dürfte, ohne vorher zahlen zu müssen, wären wir wirklich in einer erbärmlichen Lage.

So the first semester in Bonn is done, and I’m back in Leighton Buzzard. Germany already seems a world away.

I can see that my last post portrayed my German experience in an incredibly negative light, and I should probably point out that it hasn’t always been that way. Living in Germany has definitely broadened my horizons and forced me to adopt a kind of independence which wasn’t really required or encouraged in Oxford. When every day and every conversation has been an adventure, being back in your home town can seem a little unadventurous, albeit in a somewhat relieving and welcoming way.

It strikes me that there are ample lessons to be learned from my first semester abroad in time to apply them to the second. A lot of this is about the uneasy relationship that expectations share with reality; I tried to be open-minded about going to Germany, but I did ultimately take plenty of preconceptions with me. I’ve grown a lot wiser about the manner in which assumption and expectation creep into every prediction and judgement that you make. Expecting University life in Germany to be like University life in Oxford seemed fairly sensible before I left home, but now it seems impossibly foolish.

With that said, I will never grow accustomed to German halls of residence, predominantly because I bluntly refuse to. Open-mindedness is important, but it comes a distant second to core beliefs which are fundamental to one’s happiness, such as the conviction that people, at some basic level, share an affinity for one another – and that people share their personal and emotional space with others because they’re pleasant and gregarious and not just because it’s cheap or convenient. It strikes me that there’s no point being open-minded if you’re an island, and that it’s better to be closed-minded about something than empty-minded.

Whilst I’m on the subject of Tannenbusch: Holly, thank you. You were never anything less than lovely and I’m not sure how I’d have made it out of the ‘Busch alive without your company. I’m glad of the thought that wherever in the world I find myself, there will always be somebody in that place who cares, and the preservation of that thought on this occasion is single-handedly your doing.

Next semester, I need to live with Germans. Germans outside of Tannenbusch and the accommodation office have been unremittingly friendly and open-hearted.

Before that, though, I need to live in Oxford again. Returning for Formal Hall on Sunday was a rejuvenation; four hours there countered four months in Tannenbusch. The place certainly isn’t for everybody; the uneasy balance between the parts which are so grand as to be impersonal and inscrutable, and the parts which are so relentlessly intimate, drives some to distraction. Nevertheless it remains, to me, the epicentre of humanity… even if I will need my over-romanticised conception of the city to bring me through Finals unscathed.

Perhaps it’s something to do with escaping the silence of Tannenbusch, but I’m listening to music constantly. I’ve bought thirty-three albums in six weeks.

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!