Reflections on Brexit

Picture the scene. I'm lying on my bed in an apartment in Valladolid, Spain, watching the breaking news about the EU referendum on my phone. It's 11pm in Spain and BBC News are predicting a comfortable victory for Remain. Even Nigel Farage has admitted defeat. Phew, I thought; the country has come to its senses and decided to stay part of the largest single market in the world and a group of progressive co-operative nations. I could sleep in peace.

Fast forward about 5 hours. I'm half awake, and pick up my phone from my bedside table and through bleary eyes see a 'UK votes to leave EU' headline from the BBC. How could this have happened? Disappointed, disheartened, I can't get back to sleep before my alarm goes off at 7am. I'm in Spain for a language course. After getting to graduate level in French and German, I wanted to learn some Spanish - or rather, continue the language after learning some basics whilst in Germany. I got a scholarship from the Fundación de la Lengua Espanola to study in Valladolid for two weeks. The first week was fun - especially after England beating Wales in the Euros and receiving my degree results. The second week - punctured by Brexit and England's Euro misery (it seems we're good at leaving Europe in more than one sense) - was just as memorable.

Let me put forward why Brexit means so much to me personally. I am not an economist - if I'm honest, I don't know whether leaving the EU would be good or bad for the economy, though I would suspect bad. I'm a linguist, a student of culture. I received my grade for a BA in Languages and Contemporary European Sudies and in the same week my country decides it's better off separating itself from the very cultures I've been studying. You see, I'm part of that generation that considers itself to be British and European. Likes the UK and the EU. Appreciates the progressive nature of breaking down borders and building bridges, not putting up walls. During my time in Germany, I walked over a bridge between France and Germany (admittedly, because we got off the bus one stop early in Germany, rather than waiting to go over the border). After having studied France and Germany in depth, I could really appreciate the pertinence, even beauty, of being able to go between these great countries without a passport, without even seeing a security guard. Two nations who have been at each other's throats for generations, now at peace. Working together.

I've always been a Europhile - fascinated by French food, an enthusiast of Spanish football, an admirer of the German work ethic. That's what inspired me to learn languages, for a different language truly is a different vision of life. For me, the most saddening thing about Brexit is that it reveals what kind of country most Brits want to live in, a country that is so far removed from everything I stand for and believe in.

The day of the Brexit announcement happens to be my last day at the language school. At the awards ceremony (slightly too grand for a two week course, I might add), it was clear that it was not just the Brits on the course who were incredibly disconsolate about the result. Many people - from India to Italy and beyond - said to me that they were sad, and they felt sorry for me as a Remain voter. Language schools are a rare - and brilliant - opporunity to learn in a truly global environment. In my class, there was a Brazilian, a Russian, two Indians, a Croatian. I'm privileged to have been able to have such experiences - to learn from and alongside people from all over the world, and it is this that has shaped my own life philosophy and values. This is where the Remain campaign failed. Instead of embracing what is positive about Europe - the benefits of globalisation, co-operation, peace builiding and so on, far too often a negative rhetoric of austerity and recession were used. 

In an age when Britain chooses to look inward rather than outward, I can be reassured by one thing. There are many others like me, in Britain and beyond, who still believe that there could be a better world where we put nationalism and patriotism to one side, and favour intercultural understanding and friendship instead.

Southside Festival

SOUTHSIDE FESTIVAL. 19th - 21st June 2015. Neuhausen, southern Germany.

We arrived with German-style efficiency on Thursday and set up our 'bargain' tent from Argos. Did you hear the rain? Before long our tent was letting in quite a lot of water. We closed the small zip window in order to keep the inside of the tent drier (a futile attempt) before trying to get to sleep. Friday's line up was incredible and we wanted to get some sleep beforehand.



My boots before and after I cleaned them

At about four in the morning we were all still awake, wet and (believe it or not) having difficulty breathing. Why was this happening? It turned out that when we closed the window to stop getting drenched, we cut out some of the air supply to the tent. There was a lack of oxygen in the tent so we begrudgingly left the window open, favouring oxygen over keeping dry (good decision, I think).



On Friday morning we woke up after a few hours sleep, now breathing at normal rates. There seemed to be beer drinking games going on around us, everywhere. 9am and people were downing can after can. I know it's Germany, but come on? I don't suspect many of them lasted to see Florence + The Machine 14 hours later. After finding some elusive and expensive coffee we headed to the arena with high hopes. Apart from Ben Howard pulling out due to illness, it was a brilliant day. The Vaccines, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Of Monsters and Men, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds (he performed Don't Look Back in Anger. If that's the closest I come to seeing Oasis, then so be it!) and of course Florence + The Machine. That girl can sing.



Alt-J

Although Friday was the main event for us, we also saw some other great stuff. Amidst the mud, madness and Beck's, two newish bands that were really great were Sunset Sons and Nothing But Thieves, if you wanna check them out. We also saw Alt-J, George Ezra, The Tallest Man on Earth, Placebo, Kodaline and some others. Overall it was a brilliant weekend and another great memory for my year abroad. What a life!

Cologne/Germany v US, Brussels and the European Parliament

"Who are you going to support?" is what my friend Sophie asks me as we head to the friendly match between Germany and the USA in Cologne. "Neither - I'm neutral," I reply. Would I rather support England's rivals, the World Cup winners and our 1966 victims Germany, or a nation that calls our beloved sport 'soccer' and will probably before long be better than England, the US?

Germany vs USA - 10.06.15

Despite my inability to support either team (I love the countries, don't get me wrong. But football's a different ball game - or not) the match was pretty exciting and ended 2-1 to the US, much to the shock of Die Weltmeister and the joy of the visiting fans. You could hear "U-S-A" being shouted for at least an hour after the final whistle. I would feel pretty disappointed if I were German - they played well below par in the second half and the US deserved to win it.

As for Cologne itself, it's worth the visit for a day or two, I'd say. The cathedral is impressive and there are couple of very good museums. We enjoyed the Kölsch beer and had a kebab (not as good as the ones you get in Freiburg!) while sitting on the Rhine river. The rail journey between Freiburg and Cologne is also a treat. Large parts of it run along the Rhine and there was one part of the journey where we passed a castle every few minutes.

Cologne Cathedral

I took a coach to Brussels the next day. On arriving (only three hours from Cologne), I followed my map to get to the city centre because I'd booked a free walking tour of the city. This is the fourth time I've done one, the others being in Rome, Munich and Ljubljana. This one was just as good. Our guide was a guy called Charlie from England who was enthusiastic about Brussels and beer in equal measures (we stopped for a beer half way through). His stories were interesting and funny (you don't get that from museums!) and we went to all the main attractions. The square is beautiful and there's also an impressive palace. We saw the statue of the baby weeing (why this is exists is beyond me, but it's become a symbol of the city).

Grote Markt/Grand Place, Brussels

The next day I went to the European Parliament. Anyone who knows me well knows I love (and also sometimes hate) politics, and I loved visiting the Parliament! Beforehand I grabbed a coffee and a pain au chocolat in a cafe nearby. I felt a little out of place wearing my stripy white T-shirt and red shorts while everyone around me wore fancy suits and nodded seriously while making notes on leather encased notepads. The tour itself was good and the Parliamentarium is brilliant. It takes your through the events in Europe that led us to having the EU. History shows that cooperation aids peace and the breaking down of cooperative institutions leads to states acting in their own interests rather than the common good which can lead to war (and by god, do Europeans know the consequences of that).

 

Me at the European Parliament

Lakes, Beer and Darts Championships

I've been really busy for the past week and now my family have gone home I have some time to write about what's been going on.

Last Thursday was my 21st birthday and I feel very lucky for a few reasons. Firstly, all my friends at home made it special by messaging me or sending me things. Secondly, I had a big party in my flat and (despite the horrendous mess in the morning) I had a brilliant time and I feel really lucky that I've met such great people in Freiburg and that so many people bothered to come! I hope you had a great time if you're reading this and you're one of them :)

Thirdly, it was fun having the General Election on my birthday. In 2010 my birthday was the day after the election which was even better because on the election day itself not much happens apart from people heading to the polling booths. This election was just as interesting though. I remember frantically telling anyone at the party who might care that the Conservatives are heading for a majority or just shy of it. (It would have been interesting if they were a couple of seats off - what would they have done? Asked the Lib Dems to join forces again with their eight seats?) Anyway, I promised not to politicise my year abroad blog so I'll leave it there and just say that British politics gets more interesting by the year.

My parents, brother and friends Nigel and Nina arrived on Friday and luckily my birthday hangover had subsided. Tom came down from Strasbourg for the party and after seeing him off I headed back to my flat to start cleaning up. There was a lake just slightly smaller than Titisee (if you continue reading this, that will make more sense) on the kitchen floor and lots of empty beer bottles. EVERYWHERE. But I was just relieved that the hangover wasn't too bad and my family were coming that lunch time so I cracked on.

On the Friday evening we went out to a restaurant called Kräuterküche which to our surprise had a menu dedicated to Spargel (white asparagus, the Germans seem to live off it at this time of year). The Spargelkarte (Asparagus Menu) had things like 'Asparagus with fillet steak' and 'Asparagus with turkey breast'. Since when has asparagus trumped steak as the main event? You can see Spargel everywhere in Germany at this time of the year and when I tried to cook it myself I had to be saved by my flatmate from cooking it all wrong (thanks, Anni).

On Saturday we went up Germany's longest cable car, the Schauinslandbahn. Something got lost in translation and I mistakenly bought us single tickets, but very reasonably they made us pay only the difference for a return (rather than buying another round of singles). That was a relief because the hike down looked a big one. The views from the top are stunning. That evening we went to my favourite place for schnitzel, Martin's Bräu. Archie and Nige had the large schnitzel which looked more like a shark but triumphantly finished them.

The view from Schauinsland

On Sunday we went to Titisee, a huge lake near Freiburg. It is beautiful. We went on an electric ring boat which travelled at around 1mph. We were repeatedly overtaken by people on pedalos but ours didn't require any effort. My dad also managed to upset an angry German by nearly driving the ring into his fishing lines. "Don't you have eyyyes", he said. 

Titisee, slightly bigger than the beer puddle in my kitchen

Total relaxation by a beautiful lake is tiring business so when we got back to Freiburg we had a well-earned beer in O'Kelly's and then Feierling. The weather was brilliant (and still is) which I'm happy about because Freiburg is best seen in the warm sun with a large beer. We played darts in O'Kellys, three v three. I am still excited by the fact that I finished the game by (eventually) hitting the double one to win it for us. In the heat of the moment I cheered loudly, probably to the annoyance of the rest of the quiet pub.

Darts German Championship winners 2015

The one that sealed it

Eight things I've learnt whilst living abroad (using gifs)

1. Not everyone gets your sense of humour (although that happens to me at home, too).

2. It takes a bit of time to settle in. That's normal and it's something you have to get through. You might think, why have I left all my friends and family at home? WHAT AM I DOING HERE? But doing something different is good for you.

3. You're not going to understand everything people say to you which means you have to weigh up the decision of whether to ask them what they mean or just nod.

4. There's loads of admin to sort out like setting up a bank account, getting a foreign sim card and registering as a resident. It all takes twice as long as it's in another language. 

5. You find out that football, and not English, is the international language. 

6. You spend more time with other nationalities which makes you more open-minded, confident and tolerant. 

7. You learn that when you're forced to, you can become independent. 

8. And finally, you learn to love what the locals drink and eat. In my case...

"I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”

Summer. One of the best things in the world. And for the first time ever, I'm spending my whole summer away from home, but that's okay, because half of it will be in Germany's sunniest city and the other half on the French Mediterranean coast in Montpellier. Ça serait formidable.

Every year I get this budding excitement about the summer because even once you've left school for university it still seems rife with possibility and free of responsibility. This is the very same feeling that distracts you from doing your revision or writing your dissertation, in favour of watching videos of your favourite bands at summer festivals on YouTube or working out if you can afford to go on holiday. 

On Friday I arrived back in Freiburg after being away for a ridiculously long semester break, expecting sun and warmth and getting rain, and lots of it. I'd left the UK's mini heatwave, most of which I'd spent sitting in the garden by my newly-dug pond (which now has at least three fish and a frog, gotta love nature), for rain! Luckily that passed over quickly and Saturday was blue sky and warm breezes. It hasn't changed from that for the last two days either. April's warmth, like October's, always brings out the debate in your mind of trousers vs. shorts. Do you embrace the heat while it lasts and go home as the sun goes down a little chilly? Or do you put up with being too hot and feel smug about wearing trousers when it starts getting cold in the early evening? A debate you will have no doubt encountered and one you thought was too uninteresting to put in a blog post.

So the next few weeks hold some things of interest. As every third year Southampton languages student will (definitely) know and (probably) be panicking about, our Year Abroad Research Project is due in two weeks. I have to say it's a relief to be writing this in English. Once that's done it's summer as far as I'm concerned. Then on my birthday, 7th May, the UK Government has decided to hold a general election as a 21st birthday present for me. And people say David Cameron isn't kind.

George x
P.S. Anyone know where the opening quote is from?!

An A-Z of Germany

Seeing as I hadn't done a blog post in ages before my last one, here's another. The definitive A-Z list of Germany. Warning! Stereotypes present, but at least they're based on my own experiences.

A is for ADMIN
Ok so the Germans like admin. My supervisor in Southampton mentioned this might be the case. Can't we just email them something to add their electronic signature to? Nice and easy. No! The Erasmus co-ordinator at Freiburg stamped my arrival form twice and then put a sticker on it, before finally signing it. Needless to say, 'E' won't be for efficiency.

B is for BEER
A stereotype, but the beer in Germany (unlike the sausages in my opinion) really is amazing. A 500 year old brewing law in Germany means beer is only allowed four ingredients: water, yeast, barley and hops. That means you get none of the chemicals you find in lagers from the UK, France, Holland... and, well just about everywhere else.

C is for CARS
Supremacy: 'the best or nothing' (Mercedes), arrogance: 'the Ultimate Driving Machine' (BMW). But it's hard to deny that German cars are pretty awesome, and as uniquely German as the Autobahn itself. However, I think the Germans love their bikes even more than their cars.

D is for DEUTSCHE BAHN
I don't like them very much. Check out my previous post.

E is for ENVIRONMENTAL
I might be coming from a biased viewpoint because I'm living in the 'Green City' but it seems like lots of Germans really care for the environment. It's easy to here with such amazing scenery around. Who would want to see the Black Forest chopped down to make post-it notes?

F is for FUßBALL
I had to put this in whilst living in the country of the world champions. You can't win a World Cup without huge dedication for many years from your home country. And the Germans do love football. But still not as much as us.

G is for GEORG HOFFNUNG
That's my name in German. Not that you can translate names, but it's still fun.

H is for HOMELY
Maybe because it's a nice country, or that the people are friendly and welcoming, but I do feel very at home here. Deutschland ist meine zweite Heimat.

I is for INTELLIGENT
I don't know if this is more of a stereotype or if it's actually true, but in my experience Germans are very clever people. History would also seem to back me up: Bach, Einstein, Kant, Nietzsche, Goethe...

J is for JA
I really can't think of anything for J.

K is for KLAR or ALLES KLAR
Literally means everything is clear, but I would also translate this as sure, okay, any time, yeah, all right, understood, are you ok?, looking good, of course, absolutely... and those are just the ones I can think of.  They say it all the time. After living in Germany I'm sure of only one thing: there are more uses for 'Alles Klar' than there are people in the world.

L is for LINGUISTS
The Germans I've met are excellent linguists. It seems most people can speak English, and a lot can speak French too. The bathrooms in our flat are respectively labelled 'Boys/Chicos/Jungs/Garçons' on one door and 'Girls/Chicas/Mädels/Filles' on the other.

M is for MENSA
German universities have cafeterias, or Mensas, that serve pretty good food for very low prices. You can get main meal for €2.50 or a soup and bread of €1.50. We need this kind of thing at home!

N is for NO SENSE OF HUMOUR
People told me this before I left for my year abroad. Definitely not true. They have a great sense of humour.

O is for ORGANIC
I like buying organic stuff here, mainly because it's more affordable. I think in the UK it's largely about class and status. "Oh God, I would neeeevvverrr buy non-organic produce. All those God-awful pesticides..."

P is for PEGIDA
Germany haven't been immune to anti-Islam demonstrators either. Pegida is a group of populist anti-Islam, anti-immigration activists. However, on a positive note, the response to it has been very strong, with thousands demonstrating against them in practically every German city. Remember, Freundshaft hat keine Grenze! (Friendship has no borders).

Q is for QUATSCH
I picked this because I think it's such a great word. Pronounced 'kvatch', it means nonsense. This blog post is mostly Quatsch to be honest.

R is for RULES
I think Germans appreciate having structure and rules they can adhere to. The perfect example of this is when they cross the road. A respectable German will wait until the light goes green to cross, even if there's not a car in sight. Pretty much any other nationality will make a judgement of how fast the approaching car is going before making a quick decision. I'm not saying the rules are a bad thing. The beer law as I already mentioned is great. The ordered recycling as I've talked about in previous posts is the future.

S is for STREUSEL
Streusel is a delicious topping the Germans put on cakes and pastries. It's made from butter, flour and sugar, so it's a lot like a crumble topping. Try it!

T is for TRAMS
I love the trams in Freiburg, and in Germany in general. They're cheap, much more reliable than trains and they seem to cover almost every place I want to go to in the city (except Ikea).

U is for UNTERKUNFT
Unterkunft means accommodation. I live in a Wohngemeinschaft (WG, shared flat) here. They're similar to halls in the UK except they're not just packed with freshers; I think they're for students of all ages. People often stay in them for more than one year, which means they feel more lived in and less 'don't put anything on the walls or you won't get your deposit back'.

V is for VAUBAN

A really cool district of Freiburg that is a model of sustainability. I'm also using it as one of my cases studies in my dissertation. Look at all those solar panels!

W is for WURST
The eponymous word for this blog. I hope that's the correct use of the word eponymous. I'll happily admit that German beer is the best in the world. But sausages? Give me a Lincolnshire any day over any of their ones.

X is for XYLOPHAGOUS
That means 'wood-eating'. It has absolutely nothing to do with Germany, but you can try thinking of a word beginning with X that does.

Y is for YARP
Ok not strictly Germany-related either, but the Year Abroad Research Project is what we have to do as our third year dissertation. It's what I should be working on now, really. And on that note...

Z is for Ze End.