Like everyone can see, I don't post blogs very often (my last was more than 18 month ago... Phew...) but this time, I really want to share my thoughs.
Since 2 months I'm living in Wernigerode a small town (or a big village) in Saxony-Anhalt near Hannover, Germany.
I live here with 5 others young french people like me as part of an European exchange program; our goal was to gain some european experience working as trainees in differents companies.
I didn't really know Germany until then, I traveled here for some music festivals before (Wacken Open Air & Summerbreeze for those who knows) but it's the first time that I stay for so long in this country and, more importantly, away from my hometown.
And the least I could say, it was a really nice experience. Why "was" ? Because this time, it's over. I'm leaving Germany on tuesday but I would have liked to stay longer.
Even if I have German roots on my mother's side, my spoken german is really poor (I never had any classes before coming here) and the communication was really hard at first, but people are really nice to foreigners there, much more nice than where I come from. Don't even try to speak another language than French to French people. Even if you talk in English, you have little chance to being understood and they won't even try. After talking with my German colleagues, I definitely understood why we are seen as cocky and obnoxious by foreigners.
I guess countries with Anglo-Saxon's origins are more "open minded" than Latin countries like France, Spain or Italy.
Anyway, since I worked in an IT company with clients in all Germany, I had the opportunity to travel to many cities like Hamburg, Stuttgart or Munich; even if it wasn't for tourism, I enjoyed every moment there.
But my favorite city is without a doubt Berlin. It's the only city we visited for tourism with my group but It was definitely too short : only a week-end from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon. The thing that really surprised me is that even if it's one of the biggest city in all of Europe, it's particularly quiet and peaceful during the day. We visited the Reichstang, Checkpoint Charly, the Berlin Wall and other places, and even if there were a lot of people, there weren't as much noise as in my hometown.
What I also liked there is the multicultural side of the city. We met people from France, Spain and even Finland and spend a great night in a club. Needless to say that the next morning was really hard.
I will finally conclude by saying that I'm really sad to leave and going back home, find my boring routine.
But two things are sure :
- I'll definitely come back in Germany, and particularly in Berlin for a longer period
- This experience made me want to travel more and visit places I never went.
With this goal in mind, I'll focus strongly to find informations about "couch surfing". It seems to be really interesting after what some people said to me...
Anyway, that's all for now SG Folks !