I arrived in Frankfurt at approximately 7 am on a Monday morning in January, I had just gotten married 9 days earlier in South Africa. For the European Business School, which was the university at which I would be spending a semester, this was the start of their Spring term. The weeks leading up to my departure were difficult not least because of all the wedding planning, but mostly due to the fact that I had applied for a long stay visa at the German embassy in Cape Town and this particular visa took a long time to process. The fact that I applied just before the festive season meant that the many public and religious holidays as well as the opening and closing of the university itself during this period created an administrative nightmare, which delayed my application.
According to the rules one of my documents had not been filled in the proper format i.e the proof of financial assistance. I had submitted a letter for this however the visa office in Germany required it in a specific format which the Cape Town embassy claimed to not know about. In the end I got my visa a few days after my scheduled departure and had to rebook my plane ticket. All that aside, I finally made it to Germany in the end.
When I arrived I immediately got onto a train headed for Wiesbaden Hauptbahnhof, which was the nearest main station to Oestrich-Winkel where the university was situated. From Wiesbaden my landlord had very kindly arranged for his girlfriend’s mother to pick me up and take me to the flat. Sitting in a left hand driven car whilst jet-lagged driving at German speeds made for a very interesting first impression. The first few days were all about admin. I had to go to campus to introduce myself, register and pick up my student card as well as my semester train/ bus ticket. Mr. Schmidt at the university Service Point really made me feel welcome and I often went back to him and Ina at the international office daily to figure out how to use the train and bus schedules.
My apartment was situated in Hattenheim about 2kms from the university and about 800m from the nearest train station. Hattenheim was more like a village than a small town, with only a bakery and a handful of restaurants located in vineyards, but oh my word was it beautiful to live amidst the vineyards of the Rheingau region.
The language was the most difficult hurdle to overcome once I had arrived, but luckily the first class on my timetable was the German language course which I opted to take for the whole semester as opposed to the shorter course offered to exchange students, I found it helped me get more and integrated as I learnt more and more German on a continuous basis.
Another great feature of that first month was the smell of great food at the railway stations, you can really find some delicious food and bakeries at German stations and convenience shopping too. So missing the train was always a great opportunity to explore the railway bookshop (which had an English section) and eat some “bratwurst und brotchen bitte.”All in all the first month felt the longest because of all the overwhelming sensory experiences that were taking place.
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It’s currently the beginning of March in Germany and all the courses are in full swing. The first two months were more relaxed as far studies are concerned, and I used this time to get to know other international students, explore the city of Frankfurt, as well as explore the surrounding small towns of the Rheingau. I am taking a combination of courses from the Masters as well as the MBA programme as I also wanted to take more applied courses at EBS.
So far I’ve loved my courses particularly the MBA programme, after studying economics for so long it’s so nice to feel a part of the real world again. Because EBS is a business school there is a strong focus on what is happening in industry, so we have a lot of guest lectures coming from the business world coming to give presentations either on course content or various themes that relate to a specific company. For example I am currently involved in a workshop with Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, for students who want to learn about financial modeling. The course started at the end of February and will end with a presentation of our financial models at the bank’s head office.
I’ve also had the opportunity to travel outside the country. I recently visited Strasbourg in France with some other students where we got to see the amazing cathedrals and architecture in this quaint part of France. The best part of that trip however was eating French pastries, which even though I love German bread and believe it to be Germany’s best kept secret, there is nothing like eating a macaroon or an éclair in France. As you can tell by now I am a real foodie so a large part of this adventure has been getting to taste new an interesting cuisine. I’m still however not a fan of escargot (snails in French) and still not a fan of German sauerkraut or pickled cabbage, and I do miss eating seafood as the Germans really love pork!
Back home:
My European experience has finally come to an end. In my last month in Germany I visited Zurich, Switzerland and attended even more gatherings with friends from all over the world. I wasn’t able to do as much travelling as I would have liked since every time I made plans to travel I would be dragged off to do something I hadn’t experienced yet locally, and since I came here to experience what living in a European country would be like I really did want to get to know and explore more of the local surrounds rather than constantly jet off to some place far away. In Europe by the way travelling within the Schengen area is not that expensive; in fact it’s cheaper than travelling locally in my opinion so the international students were always travelling-budget and course work permitting of course.
In my last two weeks I had to close down my blocked bank account as well as deregister my home address, as every time you move in or out in Germany you must register your address at the local office. My flight ticket was booked in advance so there was no stress with that; however I was quite worried about the luggage allowance. In Germany you pay 100 euros for excess luggage. In the end I ended up leaving behind some books and donating some clothing items to keep my weight down. I also attended about 4 farewell functions thrown by various friends I had made. On my last day my landlord came and inspected the flat upon which I got my deposit back, I then rushed to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof to store my luggage and then rush to the last of these farewell get togethers, which this time was a picnic along the river in Frankfurt. My whole German experience felt very much like this, the people are incredibly hospitable and leaving was very difficult.
Germany has a lot of things about it which are difficult to get used to for example there is an incredible amount of rules for everything, but once you get used to the obsession with order it really is a lovely place; at least it was for me.