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The time has come. This is, in all likelihood, the last text that will be published on this blog, at least in the near future. One semester passes so incredibly quick, no matter how hard you try to hold on to all the little moments that make up time. I have chronicled this one Erasmus semester on this blog, primarily because I enjoy writing and it was a fun way of processing all the things that happened. But now, looking back, I realize that this blog, as much as it's got some slightly cringey online-diary-vibes on occasion, will be a place for me to return to in the future, reading through the small anecdotes that are on here, looking at the pictures and smiling fondly at the memories (yes, go ahead, dear reader, compare me to a grandma. At this point, I don't care anymore). It's been an amazing semester all around. I would make the decision to come to Leuven and especially to Amco a hundred times over, because this place and these people (meaning you guys) have added to my life in a way that I wouldn't have been able to imagine beforehand.
(For everyone among you who cannot take grand declarations and emotional outbursts in texts - there are a lot of those coming now. Feel free to skip some passages, I won't hold it against you - the really good stuff is at the end anyways.)
I have to go back soon, I might already be back home when this post is up. I'm probably gonna be depressed in my room, maybe crying a little bit, just the right thing to do after a semester abroad ends. There's gonna be someone else in my room at Amco, in Toni's room, in Vonne's room. I'm gonna be somewhere again where I have mountains in front of my windows and no frituurs for a mile. A bleak perspective, isn't it? Well, at least the worrying lack of frituurs.
It was an amazing five months in Leuven, in Belgium, at Amco. I changed a lot, I grew a lot, I think we all did, but it's weird looking back at how different you were once, ages ago it seems. You don't want to go back to be the person you were before, but you have to somehow combine two different kinds of life into one now - the German life, the Leuven life. Gonna need some compromising and some changing and some solidifying all at once. But it's gonna be fine. It always is.
I want to use this blog post to thank all of the amazing people I met during my time in Leuven, because it wouldn't have been nearly as great if it wasn't for you guys. Thank you to all of the great people from our hallway at Amco: Sarah, Kareem, Lotte, Jakob - thanks for welcoming us there, for being open and inviting with us, for letting us share your life for a bit and making it fun. Thanks to Jorge for some of the best one-liners and jokes we had during
these months in Belgium, and for always being a great neighbour. Thank you to Timon for just randomly being in our kitchen and making cookies every once in a while, and for some great conversations and the fact that you were always so interested, asking questions and answering our questions back. Thanks to all the cool people from Mark Twain Hallway, which was probably the second most relevant hallway for us (due to that British dude, you probably still see him wandering around there). Thanks to Samantha for being there, supporting us and being a part of our Erasmus network from the first day on. Thanks to Gabrielle for flying eleven hours to Belgium for an Erasmus - otherwise, I wouldn't have met you, and that would have been a shame, because you are amazing all around. Thanks to Niels for always being interested and all the nice conversations. Keep up the German learning and I'll keep up the French (and maybe I'll vote for Volt this year, but I haven't decided on that yet). Thanks to everyone else we met at Amco, every single person, for your openness and your readiness to connect and your interestingness - you truly have something special over there at Amco. Preserve it. You are all such treasures, really. Thanks to the amazing people in the Praesidium, thanks for allowing us to be a part of it for one semester, thanks for speaking English with us, thanks for all of the great ideas and events, they (and you) are a huge part of what makes Amco special. Thanks to all of the amazing guys and gals I met at my classes and in my Dutch course, all of you are so cool and deserve all the success, joy and happiness that the world has to give. Who knows, you never know if you do not end up seeing a familiar face around the bend of life's road.
Benji. Thank you for semi-parenting all the little Erasmus students in your hallway successfully through a semester in Belgium. Thank you for all of the shitty jokes (or maybe for like 90% of them). Thank you for faithfully enduring all of the dad-jokes (literal dad-jokes, in this case. I still want you to meet my dad at one point.) Thank you for that one evening where we illegally climbed over a park gate during our first week in Leuven - one of my most memorable break-and-enterings. Thank you for the kitchen company on early mornings, the fun facts about pretty much everything, the german-o-meter and the German accent. Thank you for always being there, always having an open ear for our struggles and our joys too. Thank you for that one "I'm proud of you" after that fucking 24-hour-run. When I think back to my first evening at Amco, when I watched you struggling trying to fix Toni's router, I'll always smile to myself. If travel fever hits you and you ever want to go hiking in Polish/Czech mountains, let me know. And you deserve to have such an amazing time in Peru, which I'm so sure you'll have! Once you're back, I want to see so many pictures of you bonding with the locals (and you'll probably end up bonding with some trees and wild animals too. Take some pictures of that as well, please.). Thanks for everything - there's a lot to be thankful for.
Line. You are probably one of the biggest reasons I'm sad when I think about not being at Amco anymore. I am so incredibly grateful for all that you did for us, because you did a lot and you deserve to hear someone sing your praises. From day one, you made us feel welcome, you were so incredibly supportive and enthusiastic and excited about showing us your country. Thank you for that day in Bruges, and the one in Ypern, which remains one of my greatest memories from my time in Belgium. Thank you for being fun, for the amazing and really perspective-changing talks we had, thank you for the Waterstones and the Waterloo days, thank you for the pictures you took and hung up on the wall. Thanks for organizing the second international dinner, because I truly believe it was only so successful because you took to making it happen. You and I are so different in so many ways but we managed to become such close friends during such a short time - isn't it incredible how life sometimes throws people from all around the world and all walks of life together and they end up becoming friends? You are one of the most amazing people I know, you are so strong and determined, and I wish you only the best with all of your goals and plans. I'm so grateful for our friendship and I'll continue to miss you very much. But no worries, I'll see you on Goodreads!
Vonne, girl, I cannot state enough how thankful I am that you moved to our hallway in the beginning of the semester. You, with all of your excitement and enthusiasm and optimism and hard-work that you put into everything you do, and your determination to take care of yourself at the same time, you deserve the world. I'm still amazed at how much we have in common when it comes to our experience of the world. You are such a great friend, and the amazing thing is that I could be so honest with you about so many things, which is a treasure to have. You are gonna do such great things with your life, and I'll sit by and watch in awe. Changing the world, baby! You can do it! I'm sure one day I'll end up seeing you on the news giving an important speech somewhere or motivating people to care about things. And then I'm gonna be in the first row cheering for you. All of the experiences we had together these last few months were so good, you broadened my perspective on so many things and even the deep talks about sometimes a bit sad topics were so important to me. I am glad you were equally excitable and motivated to try out things, because it always (or mostly, haha) turned out to be amazing. And forever thank you for that lentil salad recipe. You truly changed my life - and my dinner habits.
Joe, maybe I should start off by apologizing for never letting you forget for five months straight that you were the only person of our group who needed a visum to enter Belgium. So - sorry for that. But I can truly say that nothing (except the high uni fees for international students in the UK) has made me more pissed off about Brexit than the fact that I will likely never share a citizenship with you. Well, you could get the German one, of course. But anyways. I don`t wanna go to lectures on my own again, I wanna go together with you, make jokes and discuss the content of the lecture afterwards. Thanks for buying more books than me, which made me feel way less bad about my own book consumption. Thanks for being an amazing conversation partner, thanks for usually being the funniest person in a three-kilometer/one-point-eight-mile radius. Thanks for coming down to that Dixit game, because otherwise, a lot of really great things might not have happened. I'll miss you a lot, and not only because of your accent. It's always such an amazing thing in life to find people who are equally excitable about a lot of things, and the fact that I found someone who is excited about history and discussions and books and printing presses to spend my Erasmus with is just something I'm very happy about and very grateful for. You are an amazing guy, you are so hardworking, and you deserve it all. I'm already looking forward to addressing you with Dr Joe, should you ever decide to get a PhD. And if you ever feel down - just look at your laptop and repeat after our boy Kennedy: "Ich bin ein Europäer." (He definitely wasn't in the EU.)
Toni. When I think about that first time we exchanged messages, I know I would never have expected things to turn out the way they did. Just think back to it for a second - you probably wouldn't have, either. You are making me actively think about and plan trips to Berlin (and that's a Big Thing for me, I usually avoid Berlin under all possible circumstances). But in all seriousness, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. For the fact that I didn't just live with flatmates, I lived with friends. The way you committed yourself to our group, the way you planned things and made them happen, the way you were there for me, you supported me, the fun we had, all of the Colruyt trips, all of the KU Leuven rants - spending time with you really made all of the usually boring everyday stuff an experience. It made life an experience. You are such a special person and I am rooting for you all the way to achieve everything you want. I am so grateful to have met you, I can't stress it enough. And it's like you said - I don't want to go shopping alone again, I want to do it together with you, getting wraps and the veggie stuff and seeing you get the little chips and the cream cheese. It's the big things we did during those last months, but it's mostly also the small things, the fact that you just brighten everyone's day when you walk in it, because that's just who you are, and you are a very special person. Thank you for everything you did and everything you were to all of us. We wouldn't have been the same, we wouldn't have become the same, if it hadn't been for you.
I'm gonna miss you people so incredibly much and I cannot wait to see you all again and catch up over tea, Kombucha or even the good ol' Stella.
And now, for the actual end of this blog, I want to do something else. I've only written about the highlights and big things on here so far, the trips to different places, the international dinners, the events and the fun. But that's not what made the time here so memorable for me, or at least not exclusively. Instead, it was the little things, the fun asides, the inside jokes, the things that happen so casually that you don't think about them all too much. You laugh them away, you forget them quickly. But they become a part of you and, even more importantly, they become part of the way you connect with other people. They make up friendships, they're the material that we use to remember each other when we don't see each other every day anymore. That's what I want to chronicle here now, so that we have a little something to go back to when we want to reminiscence about these five months, a small communal diary entry for all my lovely Erasmus people. Not the big things, if you want to remember those, read the rest of the blog. The little stuff, the stuff that we don't have pictures of but also don't want to forget.
Like what, you might ask? Well, I say. The Thai soup, the Friday lunches there and the fact that I still owe Joe 5€ for that. The argument about headphones on trains and if it's okay to listen to music and not talk to each other during train rides. The fact that Joe and I always sat in the EU lectures on Wednesday morning wondering if Vonne was gonna show up, and then she did, a minute before the lecture started, always on time. That mousse au chocolat debacle and Timon baking cookies at 10 PM on a random Thursday evening in our kitchen. The Germanometer going to the red zone every time the DB is mentioned. Playing pool and me being so fucking bad at it that no matter how easy the shot was I was bound to fail. The trips to Colruyt, Toni and I swaying on our bikes because we'd buy so much food.
The fact that food in our oven has caught fire, not once, but twice (what up, Amco, time to get some new safety regulations). That time Toni, Joe, Vonne and I had a completely random late-night rant about Blok in the middle of the hallway, which ended in us just shouting at each other out of frustration. The fact that Vonne bets money in the lottery. Having a shared little professor-crush on Ms. Kanglaslahti. Every conversation somehow circling back to being about (British) politics. Benji eating his maggot-infested rice because it's Bulking Season and you need your carbs right? Toni's and my hunt to find red lentils (there are probably like 3kg of red lentils in the entire city of Leuven and they're all in Asian supermarkets). That tea date with Line and Vonne. Joe's Toad in the Hall, with veggie sausages (I still appreciate that). The Bavarian Embassy in Brussels being a literal castle. Joe watching two solid hours of memoryseekers content on Youtube just to send me the video of Ironbridge because Wolverhampton is mentioned in it. Door slamming at night. Going for Park Abbey walks in the middle of blok, the lake frozen over. Apparently.
The Pangaea bike ride Vonne and I went on, which took like six hours and where we were the fastest in the entire group, which led to us overtaking the actual leaders of the trip at one point. That time Joe wanted to throw a snowball at me, slipped on the ice and landed on his ass (should he tell you that not ten minutes after laughing at him, I myself slipped on the floor outside Amco and hit my shins on the letterboxes so hard it actually started bleeding and hurt for two solid weeks, don't believe him. He's making that up. Complete and utter fake news.) Vonne and Joe having a three hour class on Thursday evening, when EVERY fun event is happening on Thursday evening. All of the Brexit jokes, all of them. That time I made an amount of pierogi that could feed three families, and Toni fed us each half a kilo of mashed potatoes as a light starter to a dinner with about 10 courses. Joe wearing that BEAUTIFUL hat during pool and us managing to pay for our pool session with a voucher that had already expired. "The bar is open", every time I got out my utensils for wrap-making.
Jakob's whistling and everyone being slightly creeped out by it - he's not an axe murderer, guys, no worries. Joe getting his mum to bring his copy of Dorian Gray to Belgium because I needed it for my Literature exam and me ending up annotating it with stuff along the lines of "HE FUCKING LOVES YOU DORIAN". Line showing us her hood in Ypern. The whole British-people-wearing-make-up debate. "I'M GETTING PISSED" (and never actually getting pissed). Vonne creating a massive number of WhatsApp groups. Joe buying his softdrinks at Carrefour because he literally does not drink water, yet making the bold statement that a Sodastream is "posh". Watching Ice Age on the hallway floor and defending it as a quality movie against Jakob. Toni being able to see Father Matthew's room from her window. Me, being the little literature student that I am, romanticizing the shit out of Britain and Joe enthusiastically endorsing it minutes after calling it a shithole. Benji wearing that red thong thing for New Years Eve. The absolute underwhelmingness of Loempialand and us bashing the picture that's on the wall there.
Climbing over multiple gates semi-illegally. Very Bad Wordplay, a novel by Benji and Joe. The whole mice drama and Toni cleaning the entire kitchen to prevent a mice infestation. Vonne and I bonding over looking forward to Christmas at home. The Utopia situation, Joe ordering it (he still hasn't read it) but it was printed in Leuven!! The Pangaea mugs that have been bought but never been used. All of the book talks and the recommendations (still have a stack of books on my table that I want to read because of Joe and Benji). Toni's Ciabatta sandwiches on every trip. Vonne putting her name for the trash week where she is no longer at Amco. Running after that train in Gent that we knew was already gone, but still running after it, and then witnessing a literal bar fight while waiting for the next train (and drinking the best hot chocolate I've ever had). The Delaize vs. Colruyt debate, with Toni, Joe and me ending up at Delaize once and never again.
The infamous head-shaving session of that British guy in the Mark Twain Hallway, which took till one in the morning and included everyone coming to watch and taking a turn with the razor. That late night talk after the Dutch elections. Joe not vibing with my personal Jane Austen obsession. The Eastplaining interview with Vonne and Joe. "I'm just gonna sit in your kitchen for a bit." Toni, Joe and I going to that random football watch party in that café at Oude Markt. Giving Benji the Blokken calendar for his birthday. Joe not going on the trip to the European Parliament because he was massively stressed like six weeks before Christmas. Vonne and I coming to the conclusion that we don't actually like going out all that much. The fact that I now know the essential role of the wolves for the Champions League.
That legendary final win at Secret Hitler, with Toni, Joe and Aleena being Fascists and me being Hitler. Benji and Joe cracking themselves up about reels no one else has seen and generally being two peas in a pod. "The witch must be so smart" - Joe, 2023. Jakob randomly showing me the map of the German Reich in his room on an otherwise fine morning. Joe's great-grandpa owning alligators that were allowed to walk freely through the house. Playing Dixit in the living room on our first evening at Amco. That movie we watched in Toni's room which literally started off with a sex scene. Joe going for walks in the middle of the night. The cocktails in the Mark Twain kitchen. Line walking over to other people's doors at night to defend her own (and everyone else's) sleep schedule. The whole "Inside the Deal" quest and Jakob ending up owning that book. Benji explaining basic scientific facts to me repeatedly (one of them being the distribution of Wi-Fi).
Benji hating to go shopping so he only goes shopping once in a blue moon. The mystery of study guy (I still haven't seen him in real life). Marrakech planning in November. The Engineer 70-30 phenomenon and their superiority complex (according to Benji). Toni's and Joe's train to Berlin being cancelled on the evening before the trip, after Joe was so adamant about wanting to take the train. Toni's aulnezaal frustration. That one city walk where we couldn't hear anything the guy said and we talked to that German woman instead. Line and I forgetting about exchanging our goodreads profiles for half a year. Lifting each other up and getting ready for the cantus together. Benji and I despairing over all of the brown colour in the map of the US. Eating at Alma 3, including Joe ordering a whole entire chicken for himself. Stella being watery. Arenberg library phase beginning in October. Vonne putting her name for the trash week during which she is literally no longer at Amco. The toilet seat issue and the mystery about who is at fault (I still don't know). The Macron video we still get every Friday. Joe who said to us "We're all gonna do great things".
That stuff. Exactly that stuff.
It was a hell of a ride, guys.
See you in a bit.
Hanna
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