I’ve found my home

It’s difficult to find the right words to start this blogpost with. On the one hand I’ve had some great parties, met a bunch of nice people and did quite a lot of great and fun things to keep busy. On the other hand, some really frustrating situations have occurred (and are still going on to be honest), mostly in regard to my apartment in which numerous problems have arisen since the very beginning. I guess I’ll start with some negatives so we can finish the post with a positive note.

First of all, way before I even got here I found out the hard way that finding an apartment in Munich is one hell of a task. I got unlucky with StuSta and Olydorf as I was not selected for an apartment over there. In stead I think I must have spent weeks online of contacting advertisers on Wohnheim and renting websites, mostly to no avail. After I sent about 80 messages, all to different people, I finally got a response from an agent who told me about a completely new building they were working on, and they were looking for tenants. I jumped right on the opportunity because time was not on my side. Price wise it wasn’t great but the apartments itself looked really nice. Fast forward a couple weeks and I move in to this apartment. Firstly, it’s basically on a construction site, which would prove to be a big issue later on as they tend to start at 7 in the morning. Mind you, I’ve been living as a student, drinking and partying during weekdays as well as weekends, so getting your brain smashed in with a spiky bat would probably feel better than the extreme noise and vibrations that came from the construction site about 1 hour after I finally got to bed completely wasted only to get rudely awakened. You can only imagine my annoyance, it did not help my mood one bit. Secondly, there was no stable internet connection for weeks and even now, my connection drops about a dozen times a day while also not being stable when it does work. Furthermore, even our heating tends to drop once or twice a week which would be no problem if it wasn’t effing -8 degrees celcius in the night! No heating also means no hot water, which means no showering, and I need my daily shower. While not completely ruining my experience, it does leave me with a sour taste because it has been quite stressful trying to deal with our landlords who don’t seem to be too eager to fix our problems.

Internet issues

Now obviously it hasn’t all been a trip to Münchner hell and back and back to hell. When I first arrived in Munich, I stayed with Kristian for about a week because my apartment was not ready yet. During this week, which was before the start of the semester as well, we were basically walking bottles of alcohol. We went clubbing every night. We went to some Erasmus parties, we went to clubs in the city, we ate a metric funkton of McDonalds after our nights out and, of course, we also went to the Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest was great, and even though I didn’t go a lot, I enjoyed the vibe and the festivities. The hectic “drink as much beer as you can” vibe inside the tents where the music is playing and the fun fair outside with actually good attractions and great food was a nice combination, although I wonder if it’s a good idea to mix people that are drunk as weasels with rollercoasters, you know, with the dangers of puking and all… Anyway, it was awesome.

My friend Tomas when we went to buy some cheap vodka

Another great thing was meeting a lot of international students. This trip has for sure been the time where I met the most people from different countries. It’s great to talk to them and notice they aren’t that much different at all from yourself. In it for the fun and a little bit of studying on the side. Lots of partying, lots of daytrips, just enjoying the time. The friends I made here are from countries such as Spain, Morocco, Australia, England, Norway and many more. It feels weird to say that I didn’t make any German friends at all, being in Germany. I didn’t actually meet that many of them, and the ones I did meet I only saw once or twice. It doesn’t bother me too much though, because I still met a lot of nice internationals.

Very small but awesome party I went to solo

Last and definitely least, studying. I actually didn’t do that much yet. Exam/deadline period is coming up next month so I’m slowly starting to get to work, but so far the only thing I’ve had to do was write these blogs and do a presentation for this same subject. What was also peculiar to me was that I had only 6-8 hours of class per week. I’m used to a low amount of hours in The Netherlands too, but then I’m talking about 12-15 hours a week. This felt almost like a very very extended holiday period up until now that I have to actually start studying at home and all. Most of the people I talk to, in my house for instance, study their butts off every day of the week and I wonder why we don’t have to do much at all. They go to class every morning and get home just before dinner time while I literally only have classes on Monday and Thursday. It sounds like I’m complaining, but I’m not necessarily doing that. I do not like studying at all, so not having to study is kind of a win for me, but at the same time it makes me wonder: Why am I here if I’m not studying?

I look back to a period of mixed feelings. Enjoyment on the one hand with meeting nice people, partying and doing things, but stress with my apartment and the landlords and questions like “Why am I here?” on the other hand. I was happy to be back in The Netherlands for my christmas break, because I do miss it when I’m here and I look forward to returning soon as well. However, I will surely be able to make the most of my remaining time here, as I’m still planning to go on a snowboard trip and, of course, a lot of parties still ahead (and a little bit of studying). What I take home with me is definitely that there is no place like home. I never thought being away from home for an extended period of time would mean I’d actually miss it since I don’t often miss things, places or people, but apparently I do and I can safely say: I know for certain that The Netherlands is my one true home for the rest of my life.