My name is Andrea and I am an intern here at Sugartrends along with three other students from the same university in Jakarta and the other 212 students that have chosen Germany to have their internship as well. Yes, I say it right, we are from Jakarta, Indonesia in Asia in a land so far far away from here in Cologne. Never have I been so far from home so this is quite an experience for me and for that I want to share it with you our hilarious stories and happy moments that are unforgettable while living here in Germany.
Most of us arrived on the first of February. All the way from Dusseldorf, or Frankfurt and head to the same city which is Soest before we start our internship. Maybe some of you are wondering where Soest is, well in that case, try to imagine how confused we were back then when first tried to find it on map for the first time. Long story short, we arrived in Soest safe and sound and gathered in the University for briefing later on that day. All of us were handed in a guide book. There we can find address of the University, transportation, and important places to go such as where the hospital is, etc. Basically we were fully equipped to be left alone there as long as the ‘magic book’ stays with us at all time. The fun thing is that most of the students were already forgot that book the second we left the university building. Clueless of what might come, we held our head up and see this great opportunity as a big adventure.
As students, we are granted this semester ticket that allow us to travel NRW region for as often as we want regardless time. No wonder German students look happy or at least from what I see on the train everyday. With this magic card we have with us all the time, we can move cities within a day! The problem started when there were 8 students including me, got in the train from Dusseldorf heading to Soest. The train was empty during that night, and we sat and there and play cards, and chill until the ticketing guy came. Smelling something wrong the ticket guy asked us for tickets. Confidently all of us gave the guy what he asked and smile. That smile of his made us all uneasy. The bombshell was dropped when he said that we sat on the first class and for that we had to pay 60 euro each person. All smiles were gone and we turned to stone except for this one of our friends that keeps smiling as if everything is okay. The ticket guy was explaining the rules and that we have to look at the sign which surprisingly was right above our head and to be careful next time. While we nod to the lecture he gave us, this one friend of ours smile all the time. The ticket guy was more than confused seeing this. He then asked us what is wrong with her (btw this friend of ours is a ‘she’), and she keeps smiling and the other friend sitting next to her, jabbed her with elbow. She finally answered that she just wanted to smile because there’s nothing we could do about it. The ticket guy couldn’t help to laugh and released us. We all ended up laughing together with the ticket guy and called it a night.
Living in Germany especially in big city like Cologne for 5 months, we still find in hard to pronounce some basic word in German. It’s not that we haven’t learnt the language before, because we have German class in our university but still most of us are not fluent. There are two types of the students of our university based on the ability to speak German. The first one is those who have lived here in Germany years ago for some time. They usually understand the language and rules here and for that we rely on those people. I once saw a little boy with his mother walked on the street when suddenly the red light was on. The mother who is already on the other side of the street shouted to his son who is in the middle of the road to step back because it’s red light. From there I know German really takes the rule seriously. The second type of students is those who guess and so I called it ‘guessing group’ because these people guess every words thy heard and have very limited responses when in conversation. They usually passive and just nod to everything when German talk to them. I guess you know exactly which group I am in, aren’t you? Like no matter how hard I tried to pronounce REWE, people do not understand it. Little did I know that W is pronounced like a V. But still they are clueless whenever I try to mention that word. My friends and I usually ended up pointing to the place or even describe it as “supermarket nearby”. My friend told me an even funnier story. One of our friends named ‘X’ was asked by his friends on the train where they were right now to check on google. X look around and confidently said,”We are now on ‘Wagen Halt’!”. Clueless on what that means the other friends search that on google. There are tons of stories like this happening like a student got in to ICE thinking that our student semester ticket is also permissible to ride the ICE and he ended up paying 60 euro for it. Well, you never know if you never try, aren’t you?
Those are a few things and I do have a lot more stories to tell. I do love how Germans always greet people even when they don’t know them and smile to them, or simply hold the door and wait until my friends and me pass through. I think it’s very nice. I realize how tall most German are and I envy them so much. Smart dogs are everywhere and it’s cute to see dogs following its owner and running without leash and many many more that I like about this country and its people. Now that I finally complete my internship I will go back to Jakarta and continue my study. Bad experiences, good experiences and mostly funny experiences while we are here in Germany will be memorable and Germany especially Cologne, you will be missed!
