While I was working on my career job, I had this burning desire of going abroad for an MSc degree. I had some close male friends in Germany who encouraged me to apply there. It was not long before I got admission in Ulm, and I was making my preparations when much to my mom’s comfort, I found some acquainted male colleagues from work, who were also going to the same place for the same purpose. They helped me get tickets from their familiar travel agency, and we were on the brink of making a travel together, three to four of us. I haven’t travelled abroad a long time and even during my childhood when I did, I just tagged along because my dad took care of all the formality steps during the journey. So I too felt relieved travelling to Germany along with some familiar people.
While we journeyed together, I sat by the window watching the green landscape segregated by pools of water, and it all seemed to fade away as I went higher and higher upwards, eventually only being able to see the white clouds. It was at this moment I recalled my dad helping me with the essay in grade 4, “Journey by Air”. The first three sentences in it, as far as I remember were: How freely the birds fly in the sky. Men wanted to fly like birds. Hence, the invention of airplanes……
Back to the flight to Germany, yeah we reached the airport at Munich. We had got all our luggages and I looked around to see the brightly lit up airport. It was good looking, spick and spawn and systematic, being in one of the prominent cities of Germany. A shuttle was waiting for us to take us to Ulm. On the way, I went sight-seeing around through the window. It was dark because evening had approached but I could decipher all the shapes and features of nice-looking objects, long roads, restaurants, houses, pathways and other cars and vehicles scantering by. Boy, it felt good to be abroad after a long, long time.
When I reached the destination dorm there along with my companions, some of their contacts there helped me lift my luggages to the dorm I was to be in. I soon realized I was to share bathroom and kitchen but had the privilege to possess my own room. I didn’t see my roommate in the other room instantly but in two days’ time I got to see her.
Some good people living in that area treated us with food and drinks for the night and by the next day I was trying to settle down as much as I could. There were running buses every 10 minutes near the bus stop of our dorm and while I was in Ulm I enjoyed this service very much. But academically, I soon realized the field I had to take courses on deviated a lot from my familiar field of interest. A solution needed to be sought out as quickly as possible.
I talked with my family back home, and those familiar male friends living in Stuttgart, who had encouraged to me to go to the country. I also got an acceptance letter from a university in that city. Through discussions, I realized Software Technology would be in my familiar field of interest. So it was quits again for a better opportunity.
My good friends in Ulm helped me transfer with my baggages by train to Stuttgart. They helped me identify my university as well as my dorm. Unlike Ulm, Stuttgart had train services which were more popular than bus services. I soon got acquainted with the train charts and services. To nearby places you had to travel by U-Bahn (smaller version of trains) and bigger prominent places by S-Bahn (bigger version of trains).
I soon reached the dorm I was to be in, this time destined for a more positive future direction as you will see me mention later on. It was a small spaced dorm room with an attached bathroom with all the required furnture in, a bed with mattress, shelf and a big, wide table. Surprisingly the heater was on the floor unlike as it was in Ulm. But I had to share a moderately spaced dining and kitchen, which I got used to anyway and were all friends with other dormmates on the same floor soon.
While I settled down, I started catching up with classes and boy, it felt good this time. I felt aligned with the courses and in the right direction. Soon it was time for exams. Exams came and went. Now time for holiday break!! Whew!! But a few days down the track, I started missing my family back home and felt immensely homesick. When it was time for classes again, we had a three-day course, Presentation Techniques which taught us tips on giving presentations. On the final day we had to give presentations on any topic of our choice for 3-5 minutes. And boy, I thought it was a perfect time to present a topic on My Family, our backgrounds, places we stayed, the schools we went to and finally my career life and my current status. Among these subtopics, I did not fail to mention my immense homesickness during the break but that I was happy to be back to classes. My professor had a grave look on her face. She said, “We all feel with you, Rosina”. Two days later she awarded me with a two-way ticket for coming home to see my family in the summer break. And was I happy!! I was over the moon, dancing in joy!!
Classes came and went and tweet, tweet and tweet: time for summer break!! It was time to make use of the award: the two way air-ticket. And accordingly I was on an airplane again journeying with flying colors to my home country. And it was an indelible vacation I spent with my near and dear ones before I went back to work on a six-month long exciting and exhilarating master’s thesis. Facing the challenges and coming up through, I was soon at the graduation ceremony and my angelic professor, who had awarded me before and inspired me all along, was there at the ceremony, congratulating and complimenting me. I was only blissful to take a photograph with her, and it stays pointing to me in my bedroom on the top of my desk till date in a cute photoframe.
A small study tour I remember that I actively participated from Stuttgart to a place called BadBoll. The whole trip was free of cost, including lodgings and food. We made the trip initially by a train stronger, bigger and wider than S-Bahn and from near BadBoll to the destination by bus. My companions were batchmates from the university in Stuttgart and one of its administrative staff members. It was an elegant, enriching trip by the big subway going past trees, houses, and landscapes and finally reaching the end of the journey in the evening, exhausted and hungry. As we were taken to our rooms, which exhibited neatly spread bedsheets with bed covers and pillows, widely spaced shelves and a mirror with a basin below. I had to share this bedroom with a female classmate. Next we went to dine. And boy, what huge abundance of food stared at us from regular carbs, vegetables, meat to varieties of delicious desserts. We couldn’t put them all inside us in one night, and so we had to wait for the next day to get the rest inside of us. Just joking!!
Next came the turn for creativity games like remembering all the names of my new classmates, and also BadBoll representatives, forming groups and sharing real-life experiences in Germany, talking about religions and cultures and what not!!
Soon it was time to return back. The journey was smoothing and people barely talked, and I let my train of thoughts about the newbie experience run and replay in my mind soundly.