I'm Canadian

Me at the Tacheles Gallery in Berlin

A professor of mine once mentioned in lecture that if you cannot summarize a topic within a single paragraph, you do not truly understand it. I’m not sure if this statement is true, heck I am not even completely sure which one of my professors told me this. All I know is that I have been staring vacantly at my wall for the last 10 minutes trying to figure out how summarize, condense, or even where to begin describing my experience working in Kaiserslautern, Germany doing a Geotechnical and Soil Mechanical Engineering position I had found through a student run program called IAESTE/AIESEC. All I have established is that I have a really boring looking wall and that pounding my head against my desk does not make ideas flow any better.

Coming back to Germany was something of a romanticized idea of mine.  I had been here in 2006 with my female ice hockey team, the AAA Rocky Mountain Storm shortly after we finished a hockey tournament in Prague, Czech Republic. We had visited such German cities as Passau, Munich, and flew home through Frankfurt. As some of you may have guessed while I mentioned that I had played ice hockey, I’m Canadian.

I’m about to return to school studying Civil Engineering taking a minor in Sustainable Energy (and ideally another minor in German should my schedule permit) and I have that trip through Germany partially to thank for the direction I took for my bachelors degree. I remember being in awe by the structures and architecture around these cities and ultimately this is one of the factors that inspired me in my career direction. It only seemed natural to want to come back.

I ended up being positioned in a small university city called Kaiserslautern. A large concern of mine was the cultural shock and being constantly lost in communication with those around me. I could not have been more wrong. I have been living in Toronto, Canada (the single most multicultural city in the world) for the past three years and while living here in Germany, there were moments here and there where I found myself debating whether I had more trouble understanding people’s accents here or at times back in Toronto. As my friends and family will soon discover upon my return, my German has barely improved. The majority of Germans speak impeccable English and I found myself shrinking in my seat while chatting with a companion who finished his degree in political science and quiet obviously had a richer vocabulary than me. Luckily, my employer and supervisors all spoke excellent English so their explanations of the theory behind each task were excellent.

Reception Weekend in Cologne

One thing that often bothers me about travelling is that the local residents rarely visit the tourist attractions. As a result, it is pretty difficult to truly experience another culture while you travel unless you just spend time with people who know the area. With the internship provided, I was able to get a wonderful balance of both local life and taking the time to be a tourist to visit such cities as Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Trier, Koblenz, Heidelberg and small towns within biking distance.

Probably one of the most invigorating parts about doing an internship through IAESTE/IAESEC is the fact that I did not only experience the local culture, but had the opportunity to experience other foreign cultures as well. I had two wonderful roommates from Tunisia and Poland as well as a co-worker who was from Greece who each found their positions here through the same program. Each one of us found ourselves comparing and contrasting local German customs here and there to our own at home so I can honestly say, I was not expecting to get a taste of Tunisia, Poland, and Greece while I was here. Also, I think I have been in more debates about societal and political issues over the past 2 months than I have over the past 2 decades of my life (by the way, I’m 20 years old.) It is quite strange spending a lot of time with people who seem to have completely opposing views on every issues but regardless, it is was really interesting hearing theirs and sharing my own justification behind each belief.

Light Festival in Cologne

Despite having a wonderful experience, I have to admit, there were a few things that I resent about Germany. First of all, there are bakeries everywhere and as a result my pants are snugger than they were two months ago. Second, the “y” and the “z” kezs are backwards on the kezboards so for the first two weeks I was here felt like an idiot everz time I had to pause in mz train of thought to realize that I hit the wrong kez. The “@” symbol is all in a different spot so for the first while I found myself needing to copy and paste “@” from another web page! Another problem was that there are too many choices of beer. I decided before I was here that I wanted to try all the German beers which resulted in a massive FAIL on my part because I am positive that there is no way I will reach my goal by the end of this trip without waking up hung over in a gutter at the other side of the country. Frankly, I have no ambition of trying this.

I would like to thank everyone who had anything to do with helping me along with this trip including my parents, employers, the local IAESTE/AIESEC comity, and friends for making the trip such a success. If my professor ever gets a chance to read this, I can simply summarize this by saying “It was a good trip.”

Auf Wiedersehen eh

Alanna