I didn’t realise what I was getting myself in for.
I didn’t even expect to be chosen.
During one of my frequent bouts of procrastination one winter’s evening, I stumbled upon a website which was offering a free scholarship to Germany. Eight lucky British people would be spending the month of July travelling Germany with people from all over the world. I’m very passionate about languages and own a plethora of phrase books, so I thought this would be my best chance of going abroad. I had longed to visit another country for years.

To have a chance of taking part in this scholarship programme, I completed so many forms I thought my hand would fall off. Thanks to my habit of procrastination, I was a day late finishing everything. Too bad, I didn’t expect to be picked anyway. Surely there were many others across the UK who were so much better at German than me.

One April morning, I discovered a letter on the hall floor, stamped ‘UK-German Connection’. I was sure they were letting me know I wasn’t successful. My heart dropped to the floor as I tore it open and saw it was all typed in German. I could hardly understand the reading passages we did in German class, this was a bit mean. However, I quickly realised I wasn’t going to need a dictionary to work this out.
“Herzlichen Glückwunsch!”
Surely you don’t say congratulations to someone who hasn’t been accepted.
I read on, not sure whether to trust my German skills or not.
“You have been chosen for this year’s scholarship programme in Germany!”
But I don’t even have a passport!

The next couple of months passed like a dream. I had to apply for my first passport which involved getting an interview and I didn’t think I’d get it in time for July. I needed a bag to fit everything I would need for one month and I needed transport to London and back. Fortunately my grandparents took care of that for me. It would appear that the only thing for me to worry about was how I would manage away from home for so long, as I am a shy person and don’t easily talk to people, let alone in a foreign language. However there was one other problem.

When I had applied to go to Germany, I was tired of my life at home. I wanted to escape from the stress of my family arguing. I wanted to forget about my friends who couldn’t even talk about anything more than celebrities and music, whilst I wanted to debate about philosophy and politics. I was so lost and out of place. But since the new year, I had found somebody to be with. It might seem soppy, but I had completely fallen in love. The boy in question, Andrew, had known me vaguely for a few years, but we had recently been talking and discovered that we had a lot more in common than we had ever before realised. By the summer, he had been my boyfriend for several months and as July approached, the month I would spend abroad didn’t seem quite so appealing. He didn’t want me to leave, and I wanted to hide him in my bag and take him with me.

But this was something I had to do.
Arriving at Terminal 5 on the first day of July, I didn’t want to think about the month ahead. I tried to keep myself calm to avoid the onset of stomach cramps that always happens when I’m nervous. Soon it was time to board the plane and I said goodbye to Britain. During the journey, I talked to the other British people who were very posh, but other than that, very nice. They had the same concerns as me, and we hadn’t been told much about what the month would involve. Soon we were in Düsseldorf, and as we left the plane, the flight attendants warned us how warm it was outside.
And warm it most certainly was. I wanted to strip but I wasn’t sure how accepting the German culture was of naked people. It’s strange how even on the European continent, culture shock can be a big thing. Not even hours after I stepped off the plane, I was confronted by the absurdity of trains suspended in the air, and double decker trains!

Finally, I was in Bonn, our first stop in Germany. I stumbled up to my hotel room and discovered it was occupied by an African girl in full traditional dress. This was the first of many encounters with people from Brazil to La Reunion, Lithuania to the USA. I will always feel a connection with these people. Complete strangers with whom I ate, lived, and in some cases, shared a bed with. We were like a family who couldn’t always communicate with each other. There were certainly some idiosyncratic characters, such as Liliane, a girl from the Ivory Coast, who was fascinated by such things as MacDonalds, English, and white people.

In amongst my adventures to a restaurant in complete darkness with blind people for waiters, an improvisation act in a Jazz café, the Berlin Wall, Dachau concentration camp, Beethoven’s house, traditional Munich pubs, reaching the top of the highest mountain in Germany and so much more, I read Emails from Andrew, and it was through these that I learned more about him than I could ever imagine. The girls I shared my hotel rooms with teased me about him and wanted to know all about him. It was like having annoying sisters, but I enjoyed it. As I lay in lake Constance with my American friend Karl, we discussed our lives back home and what we missed. Being in Germany was a different world. I wasn’t on Earth any more and everything that went on in my usual life didn’t exist any more, it was a memory of something that never happened. At least, until I read my Emails from Andrew, that’s how it felt.

As I stood in Berlin airport at 6 am on the first day of August, I almost cried. I was torn between this idyllic life with people who cared about me, amazing food, a new adventure everyday, and going home to my messy house with my depressing family and friends… But being with Andrew. Germany had influenced my entire life, my character, my dreams and my outlook on life. There had been good times, and times when I wanted to take the next plane back to the UK. When I was back home, trying to speak English instead of German, stepping over the mess in my house, hiding in my room away from the dark mood between my family members, I wanted to be with Andrew.
It was a summer’s evening, and I was sat in Helensburgh station waiting for him. I ran into his arms and almost knocked him off his feet. Do I regret missing him so much that I sometimes wanted to reverse time and never consider going to Germany? No. There is nothing I regret, nothing I would have changed, save perhaps the wish I had been a little more dramatic and kissed him while he was trying not to fall on his bottom.