Guy Galun

It seems probable that at least the beginning of my experience this time in Germany was a bit different from most of my course classmates’ experiences. While it is expected that some, maybe most of them did visit Germany in the past, close to none have stayed for a prolonged duration of time.

For me, though, that was the second time I would be staying in the country long term - although in some sense, it was my first planned one. You see, my first extended stay in Germany was kind of a mistake (albeit a very fortunate one, in hindsight). Two years prior to the language course, my girlfriend and I were set to a start a semester abroad in Cornell University. But, a few months before that semester had began, it turned out that due to some kind of misunderstanding between the Technion (my home university) and Cornell, there weren’t two available spots for foreign students in Cornell that semester, but only one. Therefore, I decided to take a look in the available options that were left. As it was already quite close to the beginning of the semester, the open spots were unfortunately mostly unattractive, but I was fortunate enough to have one of the students who chose to study in Berlin to cancel that week, and so my destination was chosen.

As my stay in Berlin caught me by surprise, I didn’t have neither prior knowledge of the German language nor a strong cultural connection. Two of my grandparents have indeed been born in German-speaking countries, but a long time has past since then and they have immersed in the newly-found Israeli culture quite perfectly, making German culture quite rare at their house, with a few traditional dishes, 19th century music and 3sat the rare exceptions.

Nevertheless, daily life in Berlin grew on me very quickly and quite fondly, perhaps because of some mysterious resemblance to life in Tel Aviv. Both cities felt surprisingly similar to me in terms of culture and atmosphere. I also enjoyed my time in the university, and was blessed with some great Professors who made me considering coming back to Germany for my further studies in the future. I even shared my excitement with my girlfriend, who was in Cornell at the time, who thus decided to take some German courses there.

With that said, and considering I had not prior knowledge of the German language, the rudimentary language course I took while being in exchange didn’t allow me to integrate in the surrounding environment the way I wanted to, and definitely wasn’t enough in case I wanted to come to Germany to have my M.Sc. there.

So, when I came back home to Israel, I continued taking German courses for a while in my home university. The Technion, being a technology institute, doesn’t have its own foreign languages faculty, but fortunately I was lucky enough that German would be one of the few languages offered. I even had one more chance to practice the skills I have acquired one year after my exchange, when I joined my girlfriend to a couple of weeks in Wuppertal, where she completed a summer research project at the BUW.

Two hours of German a week for a few weeks weren’t enough though, so once I heard about the amazing opportunity offered by the DAAD to learn German every day for eight weeks, I was determined to apply.

Coming back to Berlin was a great experience for me; Even though I never really lived there more than a couple of months, I enjoyed the weird experiences of travelling again in my old paths after two year of absence, and seeing what and how many things have changed in the meantime. The area around Bebelplatz was perhaps the most astonishing for me, as it was heavily renovated during my student exchange, while two years after all renovations were completed- revealing this historical part of Berlin in all its glory.

My living arrangements during the intensive course were also a bit different from most of my classmates’ arrangements. While most chose to stay in host families or student dorms arranged by the DAAD, I was fortunate enough to know some local students from my previous visit to Berlin. By pure luck, one of my friends was moving into a new apartment that summer, so I could stay at her old place in Wedding- a WG with 4 other German students, all from the faculty of Environmental Engineering in TU Berlin. So, while my fellow classmates could have refrained from speaking German on the afternoons, I was forced to keep using it daily- which I believe contributed to me a lot.

Living with local students also made me reflect on the differences between life as a student in Israel and in Germany. As I mentioned before, I see life in Berlin and in Tel Aviv to be quite similar in a lot of ways, but I must admit that being a student in Germany has a few compared to what I was used to. In Israel it is very customary to work before going to university for a year or two, to be able to afford the tuition, which makes the governmental loan most students receive in Germany look very appealing. The existence of Mensas in universities also seems like a big advantage to me, as in Israeli universities cheap, substantial food is very often quite hard to get.

During my stay in Berlin I also managed to reconnect with some other friends of mine who I met during my exchange period, and also to resume touch with a Professor I had in TU, making the possibility of me coming back to work or study in Germany in the next few years even greater. I also stayed a few days at a German couple’s place whom I hosted as Couchsurfers in Israel, partly in order to further practice my spoken German.

Privat

Impressions from the festival in Zurich

Due to my interest in the difference between regional dialects of German (which I developed during my time in Wuppertal), a friend I met in the intensive course went on a weekend to a music festival in Zuerich, to experience the local variety of German spoken there- which weirdly reminded me of the Yiddish my grandparents rarely spoke at their house.

Another great experience I had, which I surely would’ve miss if it weren’t for the intensive course, is the chance to meet with quite a few Turks of my age. Unfortunately, and perhaps due to political or religious differences, I never had the chance till then to meet and converse with Turkish citizens, even though our countries (and may I also add- our cultures) are very close. I was blessed to share most of my weeks in the course with a few Turkish classmates, and since coming back home I even managed to visit a few of them in their homes in Istanbul.

Perhaps quite similarly, I also had the chance to revisit my apartment in Wedding during New Year’s Eve a few months ago, and attend my first mass German house-party. For all of the reasons mentioned above and more, I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart to Dr. Winkler, as without the scholarship that was very generously provided to me, I would never be able to take a part in any of the mentioned activities and experiences.