November 2005
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet
Our intern is dragged back home kicking and screaming
“I am a captive! Bodily in irons in a dungeon, and mentally imprisoned in one idea. One horrible, one hideous, one unconquerable idea! I have only one thought, one conviction, one certitude: Condemned to death!” Victor Hugo
Yes Hugo’s words may seem to some a little dramatic, but for me, they are quite fitting as in two weeks I must leave. I must leave Munich, Bayern, Germany behind and return to England. And, to be honest, I don’t want to. The more I’ve thought about it and the closer it has got to the date, the more I have realized just how much I will miss my life here. In the past year I have been guilty, as I’m sure many people are, of leading my daily routine without much thought or appreciation for where I am. Of course, when I arrived last September, when I was busy making many new discoveries, then I took notice of my surroundings. However, as the days turned into weeks, I settled into what can only be described as a jaded routine. Munich was not new anymore. I became occupied with the mundane, the going to university, the buying monthly rail tickets (Schwarz fahren? Nein danke!) and so I plodded on. I think it’s very true that at times we go through life in a sort of anesthetized state, completing our daily life almost mechanically. Little thought did I give to the fact that Munich is so safe, so clean and offers practically everything. No, instead I became a part of this comfortable, conservative bourgeois bubble. It is only when you read of how at home grandmothers are getting mugged, babies are being punched, MRSA is rife in hospitals, ridiculous laws are being passed and so on that you value Munich life.
In the past year I’ve taken advantage of Munich’s ideal situation in the middle of Europe, making trips to the Carnivale in Venice, Berlin, Croatia and the Côte d’Azur, and of course I have also been back to England a few times. And I can truthfully say that, although I enjoyed each place for its own merits, on every trip I was relieved to come back to Munich. I think perhaps Berlin serves as the best comparison, being not just in Germany, but also the much-fêted capital. The sun was shining on my arrival there, which always imbues a place with a more favorable first impression. Metaphorically speaking, however, the sun definitely wasn’t shining on Berlin life. The many construction sites in the bankrupt capital stand eerily still and unfinished. And figures of around € 56 billion total debt and over 20 percent unemployment hardly add to the sought-after successful new capital city image. A Friday night there quickly developed into a “navigate-your-way-around-groups-of-drunk, shouting-and-vomiting-weekenders” obstacle course. The scenes of people downing drinks on the train and the broken bottles littering the floor is something most people from England are unfortunately used to. For those from Munich, however, it’s something new. The announcement of “In Kürze erreichen wir München” on the ICE train home was met with something tantamount to relief by me—it signaling a return to a quiet, ordered way of life.
To prevent this sounding too much like a piece issued directly from the Munich Tourist Information Department of Propaganda, I must confess that there are several things in the city that I would gladly change. Banks would be pretty high up on my list, as would the level of bureaucracy involved in many areas of life. But, if I try to continue, all I can think of is that there were a couple of U-Bahns that were late and whoever labeled the months between June and September as summer should be locked up. And this is where we get to the root of the matter—there is really not much to complain about in Munich.
What I’ll miss most, though, is my routine. Of course, Munich will always be here and, although some things may change, I can always visit. Yet the specific daily life I enjoy at the moment will be lost. As with many things in life, you never appreciate something fully until it is gone. So, as you go about your life here in Munich, think about it and about how lucky you are. For Munich is, in today’s world, something very rare.
