I have just returned from a year spent in Germany – a year during
which I consumed unparalleled amounts of sausage, dressed in some ridiculous
outfits, raved all night to techno music, learned to enjoy beer, and fell in
love with a nation. Here are some of the most memorable moments.
The
majority of my time in Deutschland was spent working full-time in the Private
Wealth Management division of a well-known bank – whose decision to employ me proved
all the more remarkable when I discovered that my name in both its forms
(Rosanna, or Rosie for short) are the names of notorious prostitutes in
Germany, who have been immortalised in conveniently catchy songs to ensure that
the stigma attached to these names shall never fade. Considering that I was
expected to email high-profile clients on a daily basis, the firm’s decision to
employ me was my first, somewhat fortuitous, example of the accepting,
forward-thinking nature of contemporary German society.
Having
settled into the job, it was time to find a place to live. When I came across a
house shared with sixteen lovely people, the small matter of having a rather
eccentric landlady who insisted I paid my rent in cash in the shisha bar down
the road didn’t bother me all that much. However, she did have a slightly bothersome
habit of practising her ‘street English’ in email exchanges with me, in which
she would begin messages with phrases such as ‘Hey bitch!’ and ‘Yo slut!’, something
which was, regrettably, alerted to the attention of the Compliance division of
my brand new job. Fortunately, the open attitude of my peers and superiors salvaged
me again – in fact, their patience proved inexhaustible in my case, only mildly
chastising me when I attempted to send bags of gummy bears to colleagues in the
London office via internal mail. Following my first visit to the staff gym,
during which I had the misfortune of entering the sauna to be greeted by a
senior colleague sat there completely naked, I considered myself fully integrated
in the German working world.
Outside
of work, I embarked on cultural activities with gusto. I donned a Dirndl and
went to Oktoberfest, and discovered it is possible to drink vast quantities of
beer from dawn to dusk (just try to ignore the constant, chronic urge to go to
the toilet). During the Christmas markets, I resigned myself to the necessity
of consuming mulled wine at regular intervals in order to keep warm – the steadily
increasing levels of drunkenness that accompany this obligation being only a minor
side effect. And in Cologne, as I sat on a bus wedged in between a middle-aged
man dressed as a bumble bee and an older woman in a unicorn costume on their
way to the Karneval parades, I cherished the thought that fancy dress parties
needn’t be confined to childhood memories.
I even
began to assume a number of German habits: at work I weaned myself off the procrastination
pleasures of the Daily Mail news feed; subsequently, my efficiency surged at a
quite remarkable rate. I soon adapted to the Sunday closure of shops, only
encountering a few initial teething difficulties when I forgot to purchase
toilet roll on a Saturday and, through desperation rather than intention,
immediately befriended my neighbours who took a kind of bemused pleasure in
providing me with emergency supplies. I even came to master the ‘Pfand’ system of
returning bottles for cash, hitting the jackpot each time my house hosted a party
– one time I even collected enough to pay for my weekly shop! (This was, of
course, no reflection on the quantity of Bitburger and Riesling consumed in our
household.)
Aside
from alcohol, food is undoubtedly one of Germany’s finest features. The staff canteen
churned out a dependable supply of stodgy delights such as pizza meatloaf and (a
personal favourite) cornflake-crust Schnitzel, and my sweet tooth reached
levels of euphoria when rice pudding, pancakes and giant dumplings with custard
were served up as main courses. I did, of course, return from Germany looking
wonderfully svelte and radiant.
As time
went on, the Germans seem to warm more and more to this inappropriately-named
expat, and I found myself in the unforeseen situation of embarking on an
alternative modelling career. I was asked to participate in a modern art
exhibit involving young women dressed in white headdresses, silver corsets and
floaty skirts wandering around a room in an alternative interpretation of ‘The
Divine Comedy’, which was filmed and can still be seen in Frankfurt’s Modern
Art Museum. A few weeks later, fresh from my modelling debut, my personal
trainer asked if I would mind posing for some photographs to advertise their
EMS (Electrical Muscle Stimulation) service, which involves being covered in
straps which are plugged in so that electric currents can be used to exercise
your muscles. The diversity of my modelling portfolio is, in my humble opinion,
already quite commendable.
Before
I knew it, my time in Germany had flown by quicker than you could say ‘Prost!’.
As my experiences confirm, it was a time of varied degrees of hilarity, humility
and, most of all, happiness, feelings which culminated in the euphoric 7-1
World Cup semi-final victory that coincided with my final evening in the
country. I left filled with amazing memories of the friendships I had made, the
places I had visited, and the lifestyle I had experienced – a sense of
admiration for a country whose brilliance was confirmed when the national team
emerged victorious a few nights later.
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