By Emmanuella Reika
In a far away land, there will be story
“Look at the bright side!” This happened to be my favorite quote since my time here in Germany. But in many cases others don’t accept it the same way as I do and I tend to get scolded instead. Sissy (Gloria) would clearly let me know with the top of her voice saying “Are you kidding me?!” which gives me the idea that obviously we are not on the same page.
The following stories are more less about the (only) four Indonesian girls in Gelsenkirchen and their adventures. You could expect a story from a limited time of six months in Europe, a journey of an exchange student in Westfälische Hochschule, some experiences from the Erasmus+ group and few complaints about how fast our cash runs out.
In most of the occasion the word “we” was said more often than “I”. This was due to the fact that being abroad we felt much stronger being together rather than staying separated. They are like my family when I am far away from home.
But what makes my time here even more interesting is when I meet other people that share the same feelings as I do (especially as an exchange student) and have them become a part of my family too. For instance, the Erasmus+ group often makes some events like BBQ party, Bowling or little parties just to gather us up. Once we had a BBQ party in Wodanstrasse and we ended up sharing dance moves that we each learned from our home countries. While we got together at the party house, we shared out traditional dishes with each others and after dinner we usually had fun playing games. I often called for twister and the game known as werewolf.
Speaking of fun, my favorite city in NRW so far has to be Köln. “Cologne”, the French version of the city’s name, is the largest city in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The first time we visited Köln was with the company of our Indian neighbors; Anna Kavi and Anna Gowtham (No, they are not brothers), and also Hontai, an Asian-yet-American guy.
It was quite chill when we arrived there, but it did not stop us from taking loads of pictures by the Rhine and on the bridge full of love locks. We went to the famous Kölner Dom, then rode a Cable Car, roamed around the city, grabbed some beer afterwards, and ended up in a fancy restaurant to eat a delicious-yet-gigantic pork knuckles (It was seriously huge, I had to share the dish with Uni, a.k.a Rachel). It was quite an experience and it is good to have experiences like these once in a while. For some reason I learned that everyone has the same option in life, what makes it different are the choices we make. Whether or not you are a student exchange, you will be facing many options and most of them are due to the material. My suggestion, the wises thing that we could do is to maintain priority.
After Koblenz tour, me and the girls decided to join our Indonesian friends who were chilling by the river, across the German corner. Due to the sufficient number of participant, we decided to play werewolf game. This turns out to be my favorite game even though I usually take the role as the game master who controls the whole game. Also during the BBQ party in Prof.Janz house with the Americans, I taught them the game of werewolf and this successfully brought us all together.
At first, I had a doubt that we will get along. I thought there will be a gap between the Indonesian and the American group during this trip and we would rather not be mentioned as a single group altogether. But what happened was we were getting along even closer and closer in each day that has passed. There were also one night, that I remember, where we shared personal stories. It was such a pleasant thing to hear one’s stories (most of them were about their love life). Along this exchanging thoughts, I notice that I have a very similar perspective as they do concerning the value of one’s life. “Expect the unexpected” and “let your life flow” are two of the basic principals that you need to keep in mind. Because the way I understand it, that is what this whole life is about, it is about experience, it is about the process and it is about learning and improving and being a better personality without the urge to be selfish.
Thank you for following my adventure! My time here is almost over, so does the journey. But there are still a lot of stories that I have not mentioned yet. Stay tune for the third post! In the next post I will tell you our trip outside Germany. See you!