Munich my pearl

Everything unknown is a new beginning

My time in Munich passed very quickly, when I think of it a stealthy smile scurries over my lips and my eyes become watery. Munich has opened its gates to me for three months, I could experience a lot here and have gained new experiences. I am going to enjoy the final two months here in Munich although this time is going to be full of stress due to my final exams. Munich became and will remain my home when I go back to Switzerland – I will always relate to this city and its inhabitants with my heart. Thank you for the indescribable time in Munich – we will see each other again!

Munich my pearl

Every beginning is difficult – says the vernacular

My first two weeks in Germany were not exactly the biggest hit. I had to enroll at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich on 1.10.2018 and then had two weeks’ vacation until the semester started. In the first week my mum and a good friend of hers were there until Wednesday before they returned to Bern. On the day of their departure I accompanied them to the bus station and watched them drive away, which felt completely wrong. My feeling tells me, why aren’t you on the bus too, you belong there too.

My Home in Munich

In the second week I could move – finally. I feel more arrived – I was in Munich. I spent my first week in Augsburg because it was impossible to find an apartment or a room in Munich. The second week therefore started with the move to Munich and the Welcome week, where I met some international students with whom I have had contact until now. One of them, Sarah, is sitting opposite me on the train while I write this. With the start of the university everything got better, my days got more regular and I started to get used to life in Munich. I joined the same student organization where I was in Bern and got to know new people again and also got a new insight into the same organization, which gave me the impulse to apply as Vice President in Bern for the new university year.

LMU

As I said my beginning here wasn’t easy, because I didn’t know anybody, didn’t get a place in a dorm, only got a buddy from the Ludwig-Maximilian-University (LMU) after one month – but nevertheless I have to say, I don’t regret anything at all.

To be allowed to do a semester abroad was a great gift for me and I am very happy that I took this step into the unknown and dared new ones. Not only do I have an insight into a new university, a new culture (even if it doesn’t differ much from Switzerland) and a different life. I have found countless memories that will always connect me with this city and many dear people that I will surely visit.

While thinking about my last blog I realized that I can’t pick out a certain thing that was unknown at the beginning of my stay abroad, because it was all new and unknown to me.

When everything changed
With time it got better and better, I found a room that was not so far away from the university. I developed an everyday university life, got to know new people and all this gave me great confidence. I feel at home in Munich, even though I still don’t know all the places in the city, it is still deep in my heart.

The unknown always seems to me to have an uncanny side at the beginning but it also keeps its promise of a wonderful new one. I once read that the unknown always frightens us, it is apparently anchored in our genes and is a legacy of our ancestors. I have tried to deal with this fear of the stranger, why are we not able to defeat this fear? Everyone I know has started his semester abroad with anticipation but also with a gut feeling. I believe less in the fact that it is with me the fear of the stranger, but more the fear not to be accepted or to be alone. I need people around me to be happy and to be able to entertain me. But there is no guarantee that you will find new friends and will not be alone, although it makes no sense to think so. After all, all exchange students are in the same situation and don’t know anyone.

AIESEC in Munich time

What I’m trying to say at the beginning, everything seems unusual and new: the city, the university, the people, (the language) and many more things. But after some time, everything becomes much more familiar, it can take maybe two weeks, it can take a month, it’s never the same and it varies from person to person. But if you get involved with the city with all its beauties and quirks, you will surely be rewarded with many unforgettable experiences. Before you know it, the unknown and stranger becomes a friend and you can’t imagine life without it. The unknown became a part of me and turned into my home without me even noticing it.

This experience has helped me in two different ways. I have become more open and just start talking to people sitting next to me and beautiful friendships have developed. I also try to be more careful not only to talk to a friend in a lecture, but also to the people around me.

But I was also able to put myself in the shoes of people who come alone to a foreign country and how they must feel about it. I was privileged and could speak the language of the country, knowing that in the worst case I would only have to go through “that” for half a year. But how must the people feel who have lost everything and come to a new country, of which they dream of a better life and then they will be expelled from society because they do not speak German or because they look different. How can it be that someone takes the right to judge who has the right to live in one country and who does not, and which ethnic group is better than another? No one can be proud of what country he was born in, so why should you be proud if you didn’t contribute anything to it? I don’t want to live in a world where borders and human hatred are widespread. I prefer to keep it with Novalis and Konstantin Wecker: “To romanticize the world means to perceive it as a continuum in which everything relates to everything. It is only through this poetic act of romanticizing that the original totality of the world as its actual meaning in the work of art can be foreseen and communicated.”

Thank you for everything Munich