Aurel Samsom: Blogpost I

A New City, A New Chapter

While I’m sitting here writing this at the kitchen table in the house I’ve been living in for the past three weeks, I find myself thinking about the place I call home: Utrecht.

Even though the Netherlands, and especially Amsterdam, is where my heart truly lies and where I feel happiest, I have to admit that Munich is doing a pretty good job as well.

Sometimes, Saturdays here remind me of one of my favorite Dutch traditions: King’s Day on April 27th. On Friday afternoons and Saturdays, the streets of Munich fill with people holding a beer in their hands (well, in my case, usually an orange Aperol Spritz) and spending hours outside in the sun, talking, laughing, and simply enjoying life. I love how people here really live on the streets, how public spaces feel social and alive. That is definitely something from German culture I would happily bring back home with me.

I was born in Amsterdam, where my parents still live, but I study in Utrecht at Utrecht Hogeschool. At some point in my younger years, I realized it would be a little small-minded to stay in Amsterdam my whole life, so during my student years, I decided I wanted to explore other cities and other ways of living. That is also how Munich happened.

I believe that if you get the chance to live abroad, the most logical thing to do is take it.

During the past six months, I completed an internship at a podcast company in the Netherlands. It was an incredibly valuable experience where I learned a lot about the Dutch media landscape and got to see many different sides of the industry. It was one of those experiences you know you will not forget easily. But because it was mainly practical work, I am now very happy to return to university life and focus more on the theoretical side again.

The reason I chose Munich might be a little different from what others would say: I wanted to discover a city I knew absolutely nothing about.

I had never been here before. In fact, I had never really spent much time in Germany at all. Usually, Germany was simply the country I drove through on the way to somewhere else, like Italy.

That is exactly why Munich felt like the right choice. I liked the idea of challenging myself with a new adventure, a different culture (still Western, so not too much of a culture shock), and giving myself the chance to truly get to know a completely unfamiliar city.

And honestly, Munich makes that pretty easy. It is a big city with endless cafés, bars, parks, and neighborhoods to explore. You can keep walking for hours and still discover somewhere new. There is so much green around the city, and there is a certain calmness here that gives me a lot of energy.

I am (unfortunately) only here for one semester, but I hope to gain a lot from it.

What I sometimes miss in my studies back home is depth: things can stay quite broad, without really zooming in on the smaller details. Here, after only the first few classes, I already notice that subjects are discussed in a much more detailed way. I really appreciate that, and think I could learn a lot from it. 

Besides experiencing the well-known German culture of Wirtshäuser and Biergärten, I am also excited to learn more about student life, media culture, and the entire communication system in Germany.

In short: there is a lot to discover.

By the end of this semester, I hope to have gained more theoretical knowledge, stronger academic writing and critical thinking skills, practical inspiration for the future, and of course, to have fully experienced the atmosphere of student life at LMU.

And hopefully, I’ll also have found my favorite Aperol spot in Munich.

Proost!

Aurel Samsom