November 5, 2013, by Guest blog

Week one in Köln: a roller-coaster of emotions

The ability to squeeze every emotion possible into one week is a pretty tough but I’m sure my first week in Köln has had me the most stressed but also the happiest within the space of a few hours! I was pretty sure that I would get accommodation fairly quickly when I got out here because in England it is not too difficult to find accommodation but I was 100% wrong. The first house I visited I was greeted by three students who seemed nice enough but before I could even open my mouth to say “schöne Wohnung” they proceeded to ask how long I could stay there for and apparently 7 months is too short! No accommodation. Work starting soon. What was I going to do?

After 3 days of intense accommodation searching and meeting every Tom, Dick and Harry that Germany has to offer, I finally signed a contract for an 8 bedroom house in Ossendorf.

Anyway enough of the moaning and more about what the year abroad is actually about…fun!

I went to this street festival with some Germans called “c/o pop”! With an ice cold Kölsch in my hand and the sun beating down it was so nice to just relax and listen to some German indie music. The band, called “Neufundland”, played political, grungy, indie music, which is actually surprisingly good! Here is their Facebook if you care to check them out: https://www.facebook.com/neufundlandmusik?fref=ts

Meeting Germans was one of the scariest factors for me because there is the stereotype that all Germans are quite hard-lipped and blunt but just talking to people at any chance you get really is the best way and Germans really are not as emotionless as a piece of wood! I met this guy called Marian on the plane coming over and he took my number in case I needed any help and a few days later I received a text from this guy called Jan who is Marian’s friend and lives in Cologne. What is even better is that he is training to be a German teacher so he will be giving me FREE/KOSTENLOS German lessons. It’s all about the networking.

My first impressions were definitely proved wrong and even though it was a shock to the system to be thrown into a new country knowing no-one! It is an experience that can only make me grow as a person!

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