In the beginning of November I moved to Erlangen, Germany, to start my internship with Siemens Medical Solutions. I moved into a house together with the younger sister of a friend of Andreu. That´s also how I found the room, in the end everything depends on relationships, on a network. This is my 4th house after having left my parent´s roof.
Bosboom-Toussaintplein, Delft, Holland
At the age of 18, I moved to Delft, the city where I would study for the coming 5 years, if not longer. I shared a tiny flat with a male student. It was the first time that I would wake up in a strange room, that I would hear strange noises during the night and that I had to take care of everything myself. That is to say, if there would be some problem with my roommate or anything else, I had to solve it myself. And problems, yes they naturally came.
The way I ´solved´ the problems was to pretend that there was no problem at all. In Dutch you would call it the ´Ostrich-Approach´. The way I ´rectified´ this was to tell myself that I was a tolerant person, that I shouldn´t get annoyed by those ´tiny little things´, which after all, weren´t ´so serious´ at all and bladibla. But annoyed, yes, for sure I was! Another reason to keep silence was that I was afraid to make my roommate angry if I would criticize him. We always want to stay 'nice', especially when you have the idea that the other person has more authority than you. The flat was owned by my roommate's parents.
I ´ignored´ all the irritations (which was equal to accumulating all my frustration) until I couldn´t stand it anymore. I started to search for another flat and I found one after a horrible number of 'Instemmingen' (visits to the flat where the people talk with all the interested people and finally decide who will get the room... ). Without telling my roommate the real reason for it, I left the flat after having lived there for 1,5 years. That was how I apparently ´solved´ my problem. At that time I even thought I ´solved´ it in a very good way, because I wouldn´t have those problems anymore and I hadn´t left the house with a bad relationship with my, now former, roommate.
This photo was taken in my room@Bosboom with one of my best friends Fang. Our friend Yiu Wah was also present at the spot, but refused to put his face on any photo, despite being tortured badly...E. du Perronlaan, Delft, Holland
My new home was a real student flat, there was a big common living room and kitchen, 2 toilets, 2 showers, a room to dry your clothes and 8 dorms along a long corridor. My 7 new roommates were all students, a mix of males and females, and there was a real house culture. I learnt many things in de EduPhuis (this was the name we gave to the house) during the 3 years that I lived there.
Living in a house with 7 others without problems is an art. I had just found out that living with only one other person could already cause a lot of frustration and problems, which were probably caused by the different backgrounds, habits and education. Now imagine living with 7 totally different persons and the question is how to keep life peaceful. It wouldn't have been such a challenge if everyone would have lived a more or less an individual life within the house (as happens in many student houses where one never sees the others), but our house culture was really ´family´-like.
We always had dinner together every evening (those who were at home), we cleaned together, we would watch tv and play games together in the evening, we did excursions, we had christmas dinners and internal theme parties, we rebuilt all the common spaces in the house, we painted a huge Shrek & Donkey on the wall, we went snowboarding together in France, we had a bank account together to pay the common costs, and so on. When you are living so close together with each other, it is much easier to have problems and frustrations. Also, you are more afraid to hurt your relationship. On the other hand you could also say that it was easier to solve problems BECAUSE you live so closely together, so at least they CARE about what you say... Well, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle...
Living in a house with 7 others without problems is an art. I had just found out that living with only one other person could already cause a lot of frustration and problems, which were probably caused by the different backgrounds, habits and education. Now imagine living with 7 totally different persons and the question is how to keep life peaceful. It wouldn't have been such a challenge if everyone would have lived a more or less an individual life within the house (as happens in many student houses where one never sees the others), but our house culture was really ´family´-like.
We always had dinner together every evening (those who were at home), we cleaned together, we would watch tv and play games together in the evening, we did excursions, we had christmas dinners and internal theme parties, we rebuilt all the common spaces in the house, we painted a huge Shrek & Donkey on the wall, we went snowboarding together in France, we had a bank account together to pay the common costs, and so on. When you are living so close together with each other, it is much easier to have problems and frustrations. Also, you are more afraid to hurt your relationship. On the other hand you could also say that it was easier to solve problems BECAUSE you live so closely together, so at least they CARE about what you say... Well, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle...
We painted the boardgame RISK on our dining table during our 'House Restyling Weekend', but we only played the game 3 times on this table. The table still looks the same today!
During one of our house events, we did a workshop 'Golf' where a professional taught us the basics of the sport. The events are always a surprise, so only the ones who organize it know what we are going to do. They went dressed 'in style' as you can see....!
Another house event! We went stepping through Rotterdam! It is a very 'old Dutch' way of transportation. We had a map where we had to follow a historical route and we had to answer questions of the quiz at different hotspots. It was funny!
Our in-house 'Pre Wintersport Party' ! We decided to go snowboarding in France for a week and organized a pre-wintersport evening where everyone had to be dressed in style! On the wall you see Shrek and Donkey painted on the wall... Unfortunately they had repainted the wall when I came back from Spain... :( 
Having breakfast after my birthday party. I went to a farmer to get 60kg of straw and spread it around the house because it was a theme party: 'It's a Pig's Life' ! So I turned our house into a farmer's house... hehehehe....!!!In the beginning it was again a period of insecurity. I simply didn´t know how to behave in such a 'big community'. I wasn't used to be surrounded by so many people and to 'having to' interact with so many people. In my previous flat I could more or less live individually, because there was only one other roommate. Now I would always see other people, when I went to brush my teeth in the bathroom, at breakfast, during the lunch, and of course always at dinnertime etc. And I was expected to always interact with them, talk to them, to be involved. And at the same time, suddenly there were people who were involved in my life, who were interested and who would be affected by the things that I did or say. So now I had to take care of 7 others but at the same I was also taken care of by all the others. I really had to get used to that.
The thing that surprised me a lot in the beginning was the fact that everyone was really direct in expressing him or herself. Especially during the dinners, everyone would directly express his or her opinion on a certain issue. Sometimes these were issues about daily life or just chitchat, but sometimes it dealt about issues that were ´against´ someone´s behaviour or action within the house. For me it was something totally new, because I was used to ignore the bad things. I would certainly not criticize someone directly in his/her face, fearing to be the 'bad guy' and to hurt our relationship for a stupidity.
I was also shocked at the moment that I got criticized by them, because I truly felt guilty and bad for having caused some inconvenience to someone else. It actually came down to this one lesson: I had to learn to accept confrontations and to solve problems as an 'adult'. That is to say, speak openly about things that bother you with the intention to find a solution together instead of thinking that you will hurt someone or that someone is trying to hurt you. I had to learn that speaking about problems doesn't necessarily mean that the result will be something really negative. It all depends on the approach and the way the problem is communicated and solved. The key is to always keep your goal in mind: we want to find a solution together in a peaceful way. It took a long time before I got that clear.
I really learnt a lot in these years, I matured, I developed myself. I learnt how to speak up when something is wrong, and to do that as soon as possible so that the irritation won't accumulate. I learnt how to communicate the message in an adult way. I learnt how you can organize a living community so that everything goes smoothly. We had cleaning schedules and penalties when you didn't comply, we had a good system how to control all the finances in a fair way, we had house meetings to discuss and decide on house issues, everything was really well thought of and organized. I learnt to be more flexible and to be involved with others, as well as to accept being a part of a bigger group where I am expcted to be an active and valuable member.
I have many good memories of the years at the EduP. These are the years that I consider to be the years where I grew up to be an adult. I felt strange and sad when I packed my stuff to move out. I decided to study one year in Barcelona. At that moment I was convinced that I would return after that year and to continue my life 'at home' at the EduP. Unfortunately this didn't happen.
The last theme event before I went to Spain: 'Beauty And The Nerd'! We invited all the neighbours for this BBQ and they all came dressed in style! Our house, being host, decided to make it a little bit more fun: the guys had to dress like beauties and the girls as nerds. A big success!
Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, Barcelona, Spain
I arrived in Barcelona without a flat. I searched on the internet, but I didn't understand anything of the Spanish advertisements. But one thing I knew: there were LOTS of rooms offered! The first days I could stay in the flat of a friend, Josine, and during the first week I was constantly searching for a room. It was a hell, I tried to call sometimes, but I didn't understand a word of what they were saying. They simply didn't speak ANY English.
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport before leaving to Barcelona. From left to right: my friends Yiu Wah and Fang, my sister Marina, me, my mom and my sister's boyfriend Thim. They all came to visit me in Barcelona during the year!
My friend Karfee who also came to say goodbye. He was the first friend who came to see me in Barcelona! Wherever we are on the world, we always keep in contact. I really appreciate him a lot.
In the airplane on my way to Barcelona... A place where I had never been before, a place totally unknown to me, as I knew nothing about the city, its history, its language and its people... I really had NO clue where I was going... The only thing I knew was that there would be the sun, the sea and the beach all together :D!
My arrival at Barcelona Airport. I was excited and ready for a new adventure...!
During the first days I could stay at the flat of a Unitech fellow from my faculty, Josine. We got along quite well during the first semester, but after she went back to Holland we hardly have any contact anymore...Whenever I got some addresses, without any clue of how the transportation system worked, I WALKED to all the places where the room was offered. It was September and incredibly hot, I was constantly sweating like a dog! The most irritating thing was that at that time, I didn't know that the streets were usually running from one side of the city to the other side, so let's say from number 1 to number 700. Once I had found the street on the map (without a clue how big the distances were in reality), I would usually think: oh, that's pretty close. Then I arrived at a crossing with that street and found out that I was at number 3 while the flat was at number 563! I really walked all along those long long streets until I had found the flat, while meanwhile I was cursing the city for having those incredibly long streets. The problem was that they hardly ever indicated at which crossing the house was located, they simply mentioned the number. I wasn't too smart doing it this way, but that that time I had no clue how to do it differently and I was really in a hurry to find a flat.
After having visited a lot of different flats across the whole city, I was really tired of and sick of walking so much in that horrible heat without any result. Usually there were X other persons who had already come to see the room and I was the one who didn't speak Spanish, so I wasn't chosen, or they had already given the room to someone anyway. And when there was not really competition, the reason for it was also quite clear once you stepped into the house: the house was horrible or the room had no window and was small, ugly and dirty alltogether... A lot of people that I knew had rented a tiny room somewhere close to the city center, which meant really old and noisy houses, sometimes also without window, for a really high price. I really got desperate, because the semester was about to start and I really could not stay any longer in the house of Josine.
By the end of the week I was so desperate that I also reacted to advertisements with no additional attractive information at all. It simply said that there was a room for rent at the price of X at that location. And that's it. There was a single line advertisement of a big room, the price was really low for its size, and once I got to the spot, it turned out to be on a dream location; at walking distance from the Ramblas, with many buses stopping in front of the door and at 30 seconds walking from a metro stop of the most important metro line. The man who offered the room was a German guy, so he spoke English very well and his only condition was that he absolutely didn't want to rent the flat to a Spanish. Being very excited only by the LOCATION I waited for the German guy in front of the door. And I waited, and waited. I called him a few times but his mobile was switched off.
After having waited for nearly 1 hour, I felt really stupid to have believed the story. I mean, a BIG room at THIS location for THAT price, come on, after all the rooms I had seen, how could I ever have believed that this could be true?! I started to call other people with rooms for rent and visited more rooms, without any result again. I sat down on a bench in front of the last visited house and I felt terrible, desperate and lost in this big, strange and crowded city with its eternally long streets organized like a Pacmanfield, streets that I started to hate by now, not only because of its lengths but also because of its boringness and, in my eyes, ugliness. I had expected Barcelona to be a real 'Spanish' city, a city with art, latin music, historical streets and nice food, but it turned out to be just a huge squared chessboard! Tears started to well up and I tried to tell myself to be strong, because crying wouldn't help me get a room anyway...
Maybe at that moment someone out there pitied me, or decided that I had suffered enough. My phone rang. It was the German guy who earlier wasn't reachable because of a problem with his SIM card. He said he was terribly sorry and if I could please come over again to see the room. I was really surprised that I was called back, because normally there were so many interested people that even though one of them doesn't show up, they still have 10 in line who want the room. When I was walking back I first wondered if I should believe the story, because as I said before, the conditions where just too perfect to be true. Or there must be something really wrong with that house because it seemed that nobody else was interested in renting that room despite it's size, location and price... Anyway, I had to give it a try anyway, because it was already too late to see other rooms and it was another opportunity.
I arrived at the house and there was nobody. I rang the door and just like before, nobody answered. I waited and called the guy, but he didn't pick up the phone. I started to think that this German guy had just placed an advertisement to fool people for fun, that there was no room for rent at all at this spot and that he would also never show up. After 15 minutes sitting on the bench opposite to the door of where the flat for rent was supposed to be, I wanted to leave. At that moment there was a guy approaching the door, carrying a lot of bags from the supermarket. He looked at me and asked in English with a clear German accent if I was the girl for the room. So this German guy DID exist after all! He seemed to be a nice guy, explaining that he was carrying a lot of stuff, so he couldn't pick up the phone etc. I started to feel hope.
We entered the typical Spanish building and walked 5 sets of staircases up to the '3rd floor' (in Spain they start counting at -1 at ground level...), there was no elevator. The flat turned out to be almost empty, that is to say, there was only one person living there at the moment, in the smallest room. I was the first to occupy one of the 3 rooms that were empty in the flat. It was an old, but decent flat. It had the Spanish tiles on the floor which I really liked. Everything looked old, basic but not dirty at all. The rooms were big compared to the other rooms I had seen before and two of the rooms had balconies, one to the street side and the other one to the inner patio of the block. I was free to choose and I decided to go for the bigger room with the big balcony for a price that was a lot below the price of any of the rooms of my friends! I couldn't believe that I finally had found a room!
That evening I moved out of Josine's flat and I installed myself in the empty big space that was going to be my home for the coming year. I will never forget the first night that I spent there. I wrote a message to my family and close friends to inform them that I finally had found a room and that it was even more than perfect. After I had sent out all the messages and after I had more or less unpacked the stuff that I would need for that night, I sat down on one of the mattresses in the room. It was the first moment of rest after a whole week of stress. It was quiet, silent, peaceful... I closed my eyes and said a prayer of gratitude to whoever out there who helped me finding this room. I truly believed there must have been a kind of angel sitting on my shoulder, directing me to this room after I had gone through a labyrinth. I was so grateful and full of emotions that I had to cry, but this time the tears origined from of relief, happiness and feeling lucky. I felt really really lucky. I sat there silently, praying and crying for a long while. The emotions were so strong that I will never forget that evening. And finally I fell asleep on a strange bed in a strange house in a strange city, again.
After having visited a lot of different flats across the whole city, I was really tired of and sick of walking so much in that horrible heat without any result. Usually there were X other persons who had already come to see the room and I was the one who didn't speak Spanish, so I wasn't chosen, or they had already given the room to someone anyway. And when there was not really competition, the reason for it was also quite clear once you stepped into the house: the house was horrible or the room had no window and was small, ugly and dirty alltogether... A lot of people that I knew had rented a tiny room somewhere close to the city center, which meant really old and noisy houses, sometimes also without window, for a really high price. I really got desperate, because the semester was about to start and I really could not stay any longer in the house of Josine.
By the end of the week I was so desperate that I also reacted to advertisements with no additional attractive information at all. It simply said that there was a room for rent at the price of X at that location. And that's it. There was a single line advertisement of a big room, the price was really low for its size, and once I got to the spot, it turned out to be on a dream location; at walking distance from the Ramblas, with many buses stopping in front of the door and at 30 seconds walking from a metro stop of the most important metro line. The man who offered the room was a German guy, so he spoke English very well and his only condition was that he absolutely didn't want to rent the flat to a Spanish. Being very excited only by the LOCATION I waited for the German guy in front of the door. And I waited, and waited. I called him a few times but his mobile was switched off.
After having waited for nearly 1 hour, I felt really stupid to have believed the story. I mean, a BIG room at THIS location for THAT price, come on, after all the rooms I had seen, how could I ever have believed that this could be true?! I started to call other people with rooms for rent and visited more rooms, without any result again. I sat down on a bench in front of the last visited house and I felt terrible, desperate and lost in this big, strange and crowded city with its eternally long streets organized like a Pacmanfield, streets that I started to hate by now, not only because of its lengths but also because of its boringness and, in my eyes, ugliness. I had expected Barcelona to be a real 'Spanish' city, a city with art, latin music, historical streets and nice food, but it turned out to be just a huge squared chessboard! Tears started to well up and I tried to tell myself to be strong, because crying wouldn't help me get a room anyway...
Maybe at that moment someone out there pitied me, or decided that I had suffered enough. My phone rang. It was the German guy who earlier wasn't reachable because of a problem with his SIM card. He said he was terribly sorry and if I could please come over again to see the room. I was really surprised that I was called back, because normally there were so many interested people that even though one of them doesn't show up, they still have 10 in line who want the room. When I was walking back I first wondered if I should believe the story, because as I said before, the conditions where just too perfect to be true. Or there must be something really wrong with that house because it seemed that nobody else was interested in renting that room despite it's size, location and price... Anyway, I had to give it a try anyway, because it was already too late to see other rooms and it was another opportunity.
I arrived at the house and there was nobody. I rang the door and just like before, nobody answered. I waited and called the guy, but he didn't pick up the phone. I started to think that this German guy had just placed an advertisement to fool people for fun, that there was no room for rent at all at this spot and that he would also never show up. After 15 minutes sitting on the bench opposite to the door of where the flat for rent was supposed to be, I wanted to leave. At that moment there was a guy approaching the door, carrying a lot of bags from the supermarket. He looked at me and asked in English with a clear German accent if I was the girl for the room. So this German guy DID exist after all! He seemed to be a nice guy, explaining that he was carrying a lot of stuff, so he couldn't pick up the phone etc. I started to feel hope.
We entered the typical Spanish building and walked 5 sets of staircases up to the '3rd floor' (in Spain they start counting at -1 at ground level...), there was no elevator. The flat turned out to be almost empty, that is to say, there was only one person living there at the moment, in the smallest room. I was the first to occupy one of the 3 rooms that were empty in the flat. It was an old, but decent flat. It had the Spanish tiles on the floor which I really liked. Everything looked old, basic but not dirty at all. The rooms were big compared to the other rooms I had seen before and two of the rooms had balconies, one to the street side and the other one to the inner patio of the block. I was free to choose and I decided to go for the bigger room with the big balcony for a price that was a lot below the price of any of the rooms of my friends! I couldn't believe that I finally had found a room!
That evening I moved out of Josine's flat and I installed myself in the empty big space that was going to be my home for the coming year. I will never forget the first night that I spent there. I wrote a message to my family and close friends to inform them that I finally had found a room and that it was even more than perfect. After I had sent out all the messages and after I had more or less unpacked the stuff that I would need for that night, I sat down on one of the mattresses in the room. It was the first moment of rest after a whole week of stress. It was quiet, silent, peaceful... I closed my eyes and said a prayer of gratitude to whoever out there who helped me finding this room. I truly believed there must have been a kind of angel sitting on my shoulder, directing me to this room after I had gone through a labyrinth. I was so grateful and full of emotions that I had to cry, but this time the tears origined from of relief, happiness and feeling lucky. I felt really really lucky. I sat there silently, praying and crying for a long while. The emotions were so strong that I will never forget that evening. And finally I fell asleep on a strange bed in a strange house in a strange city, again.
The very first day that I spend in my new room in Barcelona I prepared myself a 'Spanish' meal: tortilla de patatas with salad and juice. I ate it on my balcony, the balcony where I would have many dinners with many friends, the balcony with many stories...
A look into my room during my first dinner 'at home' in Barcelona
The mailboxes in the hallway... Spanish lifestyle: all chaotic, but it somehow works out anyway in the end.... Hehehehe 
Starting to fill my room with some objects that I bought in the cheap Chinese stores at every corner of the street. I liked my Spanish tile floor a lot!
My 'bed' existing of 2 mattresses stacked on top of each other and white walls...
Soon the house was filled with new roommates. There was someone living in the small room just right beside mine, she was a young woman from Marocco with a lot of (imaginary?) health problems and I guess also psychological problems. The other 2 new roommates were young boys, they were kind but always left the kitchen really messy. They didn't know how to organize themselves, it was the first time they had left home and had to live independent. The 3 of us could get along pretty well, although everything was new to us. Soon they had to leave and 2 new girls occupied the 2 empty rooms, a Dutch girl and a Swiss girl. Now we were a 'girl house', new to me, since I had always lived in houses with a majority of males.
Soon I found out that girls can be really tricky people compared to boys. They can be so 'bitchy' when they don't like something. Boys are less complicated and much more straight forward. I didn't like the Dutch girl, Kirsten. She was always smiling and pretending to be sweet and nice to everyone, but only a second later her expression would change totally and she would be gossiping or saying bad things in a very bad way about the person she just smiled at with the friendliest smile ever. From the first moment I knew that I would never become friends with her, she was too fake. She belonged to the type of people that I really really dislike. But yet, you should find a way to live in the same house. In Delft I had learnt how to come forward with your problems, but now I faced a situation that I had to express the things to a person who was fake, you couldn't trust what she was telling you. Luckily there weren't many things that we had to talk over, because we lived an independent life within the house. However, the irritation did accumulate a bit, but more by the way she was behaving in general with her fake personality than that she was directly annoying me.
The woman from Marocco, Kati, had many problems and she would first knock on my door with anything that was wrong, simply because I was the only one paying attention to her anyway. I pitied her in some way, but her problem was that she was making everything 100 times more dramatic than they really were, so I did listen and tried to help her in the beginning, but once I noticed she would just ask more attention and come up with even more dramatic stories only for the attention, I tried to keep myself at a distance.
Kirsten really hated Kati and it was also the other way arond I suppose, but the difference was that Kirsten was always smiling really friendly at Kati whenever she appeared. She would ask Kati kindly how she was doing and so on, while as soon as Kati had disappeared, she would make a gesture like she had to vomit after talking to her. Kati just didn't like Kirsten anyway and tried not to talk to her at all. I was more or less standing in between, I kind of talked to both of them, but I wasn't a friend nor enemy of either. Yes, it was a complicated situation and a good test for your social skills.
Soon I found out that girls can be really tricky people compared to boys. They can be so 'bitchy' when they don't like something. Boys are less complicated and much more straight forward. I didn't like the Dutch girl, Kirsten. She was always smiling and pretending to be sweet and nice to everyone, but only a second later her expression would change totally and she would be gossiping or saying bad things in a very bad way about the person she just smiled at with the friendliest smile ever. From the first moment I knew that I would never become friends with her, she was too fake. She belonged to the type of people that I really really dislike. But yet, you should find a way to live in the same house. In Delft I had learnt how to come forward with your problems, but now I faced a situation that I had to express the things to a person who was fake, you couldn't trust what she was telling you. Luckily there weren't many things that we had to talk over, because we lived an independent life within the house. However, the irritation did accumulate a bit, but more by the way she was behaving in general with her fake personality than that she was directly annoying me.
The woman from Marocco, Kati, had many problems and she would first knock on my door with anything that was wrong, simply because I was the only one paying attention to her anyway. I pitied her in some way, but her problem was that she was making everything 100 times more dramatic than they really were, so I did listen and tried to help her in the beginning, but once I noticed she would just ask more attention and come up with even more dramatic stories only for the attention, I tried to keep myself at a distance.
Kirsten really hated Kati and it was also the other way arond I suppose, but the difference was that Kirsten was always smiling really friendly at Kati whenever she appeared. She would ask Kati kindly how she was doing and so on, while as soon as Kati had disappeared, she would make a gesture like she had to vomit after talking to her. Kati just didn't like Kirsten anyway and tried not to talk to her at all. I was more or less standing in between, I kind of talked to both of them, but I wasn't a friend nor enemy of either. Yes, it was a complicated situation and a good test for your social skills.
The difference between EduP and Barcelona was that now I was not only living with different people, but these people really have totally different backgrounds, cultures and ways of living. The differences between the people were really big and go really deep. But at that moment, I wasn't really aware of that, I was more busy trying to find myself a rhythm in the Spanish way of living. Or, to find a way to live the Spanish way as a foreigner.
With the Swiss girl, Nicole, I wasn't so close in the beginning, because Kirsten tried to stick to her like cellotape. She turned into a real baby when Nicole was around, while normally she behaves like this dominant Dutch woman. That was another 'change of face' that I observed from Kirsten, it was unbelievable, I even thought it was scary. Nicole was neutral, she was nice and didn't have problems with anybody. Although after a while she had a misunderstanding with Kirsten and after that single incident, Kirsten totally 'returned' to her real way of being, I would say... 'bitchy' and their 'friendship' never recovered again.
I didn't know if I could become friends with Nicole, but I didn't dislike her at all, the only thing was that she was close to Kirsten and as I didn't like Kirsten and I didn't want to say anything to affect their 'friendship', I kept myself also at a distance from Nicole in the beginning. But I was interested in her life and her well-being as she seemed to be a 'true' nice person. Maybe due to the 'face off'-incident with Kirsten, or maybe because Nicole gradually noticed that I was sincerely interested and not only being interested because I 'should' be for politeness, our band grew and we shared a lot of things, we talked about a lot of personal things and we went to visit different places together. A real friendship grew and until today we are still friends. She met my friends when they came to visit me for my birthday, I met her friends and family when they came and she knows Andreu as well.
I was sad that she had to go back to Switzerland, because not only would I miss her around, it also meant that I would be left with Kirsten and Kati again, not knowing who will be next to occupy the empty room... Nicole really suffered bad times in Barcelona, which was also the reason that she wanted to leave. She always told me that I was the one who had given her some good memories of Barcelona, otherwise she would only look back in tears, that was really sweet. We took a lot of pictures together because we would go around here and there. I put all these nice memories in a picture book as a farewell present. She was really happy with it and I truly hoped that these pictures would bring a smile on her face instead of tears when she thinks back of Barcelona. Although she left before I left Barcelona, we have always kept contact and I have visited her in Zurich a few times as well. I am happy to have built a lasting friendship, although we can't be so close anymore now we have been living separated for a while already.
With the Swiss girl, Nicole, I wasn't so close in the beginning, because Kirsten tried to stick to her like cellotape. She turned into a real baby when Nicole was around, while normally she behaves like this dominant Dutch woman. That was another 'change of face' that I observed from Kirsten, it was unbelievable, I even thought it was scary. Nicole was neutral, she was nice and didn't have problems with anybody. Although after a while she had a misunderstanding with Kirsten and after that single incident, Kirsten totally 'returned' to her real way of being, I would say... 'bitchy' and their 'friendship' never recovered again.
I didn't know if I could become friends with Nicole, but I didn't dislike her at all, the only thing was that she was close to Kirsten and as I didn't like Kirsten and I didn't want to say anything to affect their 'friendship', I kept myself also at a distance from Nicole in the beginning. But I was interested in her life and her well-being as she seemed to be a 'true' nice person. Maybe due to the 'face off'-incident with Kirsten, or maybe because Nicole gradually noticed that I was sincerely interested and not only being interested because I 'should' be for politeness, our band grew and we shared a lot of things, we talked about a lot of personal things and we went to visit different places together. A real friendship grew and until today we are still friends. She met my friends when they came to visit me for my birthday, I met her friends and family when they came and she knows Andreu as well.
I was sad that she had to go back to Switzerland, because not only would I miss her around, it also meant that I would be left with Kirsten and Kati again, not knowing who will be next to occupy the empty room... Nicole really suffered bad times in Barcelona, which was also the reason that she wanted to leave. She always told me that I was the one who had given her some good memories of Barcelona, otherwise she would only look back in tears, that was really sweet. We took a lot of pictures together because we would go around here and there. I put all these nice memories in a picture book as a farewell present. She was really happy with it and I truly hoped that these pictures would bring a smile on her face instead of tears when she thinks back of Barcelona. Although she left before I left Barcelona, we have always kept contact and I have visited her in Zurich a few times as well. I am happy to have built a lasting friendship, although we can't be so close anymore now we have been living separated for a while already.
Visiting Andreu and Nicole in Zurich last month. We still keep contact after being separated for more than half a year.Kati left from one day to another. She just packed and left. Kirsten was the happiest person on earth. Now we suddenly had 2 empty rooms, but unfortunately the person I disliked the most was the one who hadn't left. Two girls from Argentina moved in. They seemed to be nice, I had to get used to their strange accent in Spanish. In the beginning everything was neutral again, with one of the girls I even went to work at the Grand Prix. But maybe because of my lower level of Spanish, or because I wasn't really the type to be a dramatic speaker, because for sure they were (could be the South American 'blood'), they fit more to Kirsten. Anyway, they moved in when I almost left Barcelona, so I didn't really got involved with them anyway.
The result of my Barcelona adventure was a turbulent life in a house where the composition was constantly changing. At the EduP our composition was constant during all the years, that's also why we could grow as a group. Now I was in a situation that everything was really dynamic and all the personalities were totally different. It was a strange period, and I wasn't too sure how to fit in there. On the other hand, I also had my turbulent life outside and I wasn't really living a life at home. I was frequently out to see things, to hang around with other international people, having a lot of dinners, going out frequently, or I was at the university.
During the last months I had a lot of visitors, friends and family, but I also made trips to Valencia, Sevilla and Granada. In the second semester, when I finally obtained an acceptable fluency in Spanish, I also got more involved with Spanish students while in the beginning I only hung around with international students. The most important friendship that I developed was with Andreu, we saw each other very frequently and we talked about a lot of different, serious and personal topics. We joined a salsa course together and in the end we decided to go on a trip together to his hometown in the province of Valencia, a town called Oliva. This all turned out to be a strong basis for a strong and deep relationship. From the beginning I already told myself that I was really lucky having met a person like him. From the beginning I knew that he could become a really good friend of mine, if not one of my best friends.
I kept postponing the day that I would book my flight back to Holland. I felt really sad having to leave the city that I really disliked in the beginning, but which beauty I had gradually discovered, and in the end I really loved it. It felt like my home, although I had only lived there for 1 year. It felt like I knew this city better than any other city where I had lived, maybe even better than Delft. I loved the way of living there, but at the same time I realized that the life that I had been living was only temporary, because it was the life of an international student and not as a real local. Anyway, one day I decided I had to book the ticket and I booked it with 'pain in my heart'.
After having fixed my return date to Holland, every time when I woke up in my room, or just when I entered my room, the room that I really loved a lot (despite the other people who lived in the same flat), I would feel a little bit sad because I knew that one day I would have to leave it behind. I would wander around and look out of my balcony, enjoy seeing the blue sky and the many balconies with laundry hanging out, sit down on my balcony and enjoy the silence, sit down on my 'bedcouch', look around and think of everything I added to the room to make it more 'mine', see the pictures I stuck to the wall and think back of all the events of the past year. In my mind I would return to the day that I entered this room, empty and cold, but also I recalled how happy I was to have found a room. And now I was about to leave it again. I would once again leave 'my home'. I wondered where my home was anyway... and that's also the question that I still have in mind today.
I came back from Oliva and soon it was time to pack all my things. I looked around and I felt really sad when I started to rip all my photos from the wall, I could clearly recall the day that I was putting them up there. The room I left behind was empty like before. I closed off my balcony doors for the last time. I would never return to sit down there and look up at the stars in the dark sky. I went down the flat with all my stuff, took a last photo of the door at Gran Via 487, and we drove off.
Where is my home?
I came back to Holland, but I wondered where my home was. I returned to my parent's house, where I still had my room, although a lot of stuff had been put inside that weren't mine and I hadn't lived there for the past 5 years. It didn't feel really like home but actually it was the place 'most at home' of all the other places that I could have gone to. I returned shortly to the EduP, but my room there was totally empty, it was strange to be there again. Now some of the people had left, and it was strange to see new faces in the house. So it didn't really feel like home either. I was confused, I felt 'homeless'. I told this to some friends and actually their reactions were more or less the same: that's how it is if you choose to live a life all over the world. You gain some, but you also loose some. It's up to you how to decide on your life.
I had always had a wish to live a while in Asia. Actually I would have gone to China for 6 months after coming back from Barcelona if I wouldn't have started a relationship with Andreu. Wherever I would go to, I would leave Holland for another 6 months anyway because I had to do my internship for Unitech. In the period that I came back from Barcelona but before I went away again for my internship, I was constantly on the road. I went to Zurich, Milano, Barcelona and I did a 3 week tour through China. At the end of all these trips, and realizing that I would be leaving again for 6 months, I felt tired of always changing locations. I really love travelling a lot, but at the speed that I was doing it, it was killing me. And moreover, I really lost all the sense of 'home'.
I decided to end my contract at the EduP, I was going to move out forever. So this wasn't a 'home location' anymore. The moment I realized it, I felt really homeless. So where would I go now? I would go to another new place, but only for 6 months. That wasn't going to be really a home anyway. And after those 6 months, where would I be? And for how long? When would have a 'home' again? I was the one who had to decide on all that, I was the one who should give answers to those questions. But I simply didn't have the answers. The only thing I knew was that I felt sad, really sad when I stood in my room at the EduP, ready to bring down the final things that were left. I made a video of the environment and the house where I had felt really at home for at least 3 years of my life. Today only 2 persons are left from the original steady composition of the EduPhuis. My 'home' wouldn't be my home again anyway if I would have continued living there. Life goes on.
Loewenichstrasse, Erlangen, Germany
I decided to go to Germany for my Unitech internship. The only problem was that I had to start my internship just 2 weeks after I would have returned from my China trip. The question was how I would find a room in such a short time. From my experience I already knew that I couldn't get a room from distance, I really needed to be there on the spot to visit rooms, talk to people etc. A big problem was that there weren't many rooms offered, while there were a lot of people searching for a room because of the huge university which is located in Erlangen and the huge number of interns at Siemens, as it is the hometown of the headquarters of Siemens Medical Solutions. The advantage was that at least I could communicate with the people, as they all spoke English and I understood German anyway.
I was lucky again I have to say. Via Andreu I could stay in somebody's house for a few days so that I could search for a room without having to pay for a hotel or whatsoever. It was a student house with really nice people, I felt welcome but also a stranger in this temporary new house. Again via Andreu I was offered a room in a very nice flat shared with the sister of one of Andreu's new acquired friends in Zürich. As the number of rooms offered was extremely low, the chance that I would find a room within one week was also really low. The problem was that I didn't really want to live with only 1 person (because of my experience!), you really need to like this person in order to live a peaceful life and I didn't know her at all. Also, it was really really expensive.
From the first moment that I met my new roommate, I knew that I would never become real friends with her. It was just an instinct, but this instinct had shown to be correct many many times. That was also the reason that I really had my doubts if I really wanted to live with her. I could visit other flats, I actually did, but the problem was that there wasn't much choice, or better said, none. So I had no choice but to move in, because at least I had a place to start from and I needed to focus on my internship anyway. I had lived in 3 other student housed before and although it hadn´t always been perfect, it always had worked out somehow. I had developed to be a flexible person and when there would appear problems, I had learnt to solve them in an adult way I´d say.
The result of my Barcelona adventure was a turbulent life in a house where the composition was constantly changing. At the EduP our composition was constant during all the years, that's also why we could grow as a group. Now I was in a situation that everything was really dynamic and all the personalities were totally different. It was a strange period, and I wasn't too sure how to fit in there. On the other hand, I also had my turbulent life outside and I wasn't really living a life at home. I was frequently out to see things, to hang around with other international people, having a lot of dinners, going out frequently, or I was at the university.
During the last months I had a lot of visitors, friends and family, but I also made trips to Valencia, Sevilla and Granada. In the second semester, when I finally obtained an acceptable fluency in Spanish, I also got more involved with Spanish students while in the beginning I only hung around with international students. The most important friendship that I developed was with Andreu, we saw each other very frequently and we talked about a lot of different, serious and personal topics. We joined a salsa course together and in the end we decided to go on a trip together to his hometown in the province of Valencia, a town called Oliva. This all turned out to be a strong basis for a strong and deep relationship. From the beginning I already told myself that I was really lucky having met a person like him. From the beginning I knew that he could become a really good friend of mine, if not one of my best friends.
I kept postponing the day that I would book my flight back to Holland. I felt really sad having to leave the city that I really disliked in the beginning, but which beauty I had gradually discovered, and in the end I really loved it. It felt like my home, although I had only lived there for 1 year. It felt like I knew this city better than any other city where I had lived, maybe even better than Delft. I loved the way of living there, but at the same time I realized that the life that I had been living was only temporary, because it was the life of an international student and not as a real local. Anyway, one day I decided I had to book the ticket and I booked it with 'pain in my heart'.
After having fixed my return date to Holland, every time when I woke up in my room, or just when I entered my room, the room that I really loved a lot (despite the other people who lived in the same flat), I would feel a little bit sad because I knew that one day I would have to leave it behind. I would wander around and look out of my balcony, enjoy seeing the blue sky and the many balconies with laundry hanging out, sit down on my balcony and enjoy the silence, sit down on my 'bedcouch', look around and think of everything I added to the room to make it more 'mine', see the pictures I stuck to the wall and think back of all the events of the past year. In my mind I would return to the day that I entered this room, empty and cold, but also I recalled how happy I was to have found a room. And now I was about to leave it again. I would once again leave 'my home'. I wondered where my home was anyway... and that's also the question that I still have in mind today.
I came back from Oliva and soon it was time to pack all my things. I looked around and I felt really sad when I started to rip all my photos from the wall, I could clearly recall the day that I was putting them up there. The room I left behind was empty like before. I closed off my balcony doors for the last time. I would never return to sit down there and look up at the stars in the dark sky. I went down the flat with all my stuff, took a last photo of the door at Gran Via 487, and we drove off.
Where is my home?
I came back to Holland, but I wondered where my home was. I returned to my parent's house, where I still had my room, although a lot of stuff had been put inside that weren't mine and I hadn't lived there for the past 5 years. It didn't feel really like home but actually it was the place 'most at home' of all the other places that I could have gone to. I returned shortly to the EduP, but my room there was totally empty, it was strange to be there again. Now some of the people had left, and it was strange to see new faces in the house. So it didn't really feel like home either. I was confused, I felt 'homeless'. I told this to some friends and actually their reactions were more or less the same: that's how it is if you choose to live a life all over the world. You gain some, but you also loose some. It's up to you how to decide on your life.
I had always had a wish to live a while in Asia. Actually I would have gone to China for 6 months after coming back from Barcelona if I wouldn't have started a relationship with Andreu. Wherever I would go to, I would leave Holland for another 6 months anyway because I had to do my internship for Unitech. In the period that I came back from Barcelona but before I went away again for my internship, I was constantly on the road. I went to Zurich, Milano, Barcelona and I did a 3 week tour through China. At the end of all these trips, and realizing that I would be leaving again for 6 months, I felt tired of always changing locations. I really love travelling a lot, but at the speed that I was doing it, it was killing me. And moreover, I really lost all the sense of 'home'.
I decided to end my contract at the EduP, I was going to move out forever. So this wasn't a 'home location' anymore. The moment I realized it, I felt really homeless. So where would I go now? I would go to another new place, but only for 6 months. That wasn't going to be really a home anyway. And after those 6 months, where would I be? And for how long? When would have a 'home' again? I was the one who had to decide on all that, I was the one who should give answers to those questions. But I simply didn't have the answers. The only thing I knew was that I felt sad, really sad when I stood in my room at the EduP, ready to bring down the final things that were left. I made a video of the environment and the house where I had felt really at home for at least 3 years of my life. Today only 2 persons are left from the original steady composition of the EduPhuis. My 'home' wouldn't be my home again anyway if I would have continued living there. Life goes on.
Loewenichstrasse, Erlangen, Germany
I decided to go to Germany for my Unitech internship. The only problem was that I had to start my internship just 2 weeks after I would have returned from my China trip. The question was how I would find a room in such a short time. From my experience I already knew that I couldn't get a room from distance, I really needed to be there on the spot to visit rooms, talk to people etc. A big problem was that there weren't many rooms offered, while there were a lot of people searching for a room because of the huge university which is located in Erlangen and the huge number of interns at Siemens, as it is the hometown of the headquarters of Siemens Medical Solutions. The advantage was that at least I could communicate with the people, as they all spoke English and I understood German anyway.
I was lucky again I have to say. Via Andreu I could stay in somebody's house for a few days so that I could search for a room without having to pay for a hotel or whatsoever. It was a student house with really nice people, I felt welcome but also a stranger in this temporary new house. Again via Andreu I was offered a room in a very nice flat shared with the sister of one of Andreu's new acquired friends in Zürich. As the number of rooms offered was extremely low, the chance that I would find a room within one week was also really low. The problem was that I didn't really want to live with only 1 person (because of my experience!), you really need to like this person in order to live a peaceful life and I didn't know her at all. Also, it was really really expensive.
From the first moment that I met my new roommate, I knew that I would never become real friends with her. It was just an instinct, but this instinct had shown to be correct many many times. That was also the reason that I really had my doubts if I really wanted to live with her. I could visit other flats, I actually did, but the problem was that there wasn't much choice, or better said, none. So I had no choice but to move in, because at least I had a place to start from and I needed to focus on my internship anyway. I had lived in 3 other student housed before and although it hadn´t always been perfect, it always had worked out somehow. I had developed to be a flexible person and when there would appear problems, I had learnt to solve them in an adult way I´d say.
However, things turned out to be worse than I could imagine. In all my former houses, I always had the idea that I had to be the one to become more flexible. The others where usually more messy, more lazy and less disciplinary than me. What happens now is that I am the one who is the ´messy´ and ´not disciplinary´ person in comparison with my new roommate. She comes from a rich family where everything has rules and manners. She´s young and has no experience in living with other people who might be different than she is used to. In other words, she needs to learn to be flexible, because she can´t expect other people to behave just as she wishes. It is a matter of respect for others.
The funny thing is that she believes she is a tolerant person. Her definition of this is that she waits a few days until I would ´correct´ my, in her eyes, ´error´, but she doesn´t tell me that something is bothering her. After a few days of being ´tolerant´ she can´t bear it anymore and starts to complain angrily in a way that shows no respect towards me. She doesn´t understand that if she doesn´t SAY what´s bothering her, nobody is able to read her mind, not today, not tomorrow and also not in a few days´ time. The ironic thing is that I used to think like that as well, trying to be nice and ´tolerant´, but meanwhile accumulating irritation.
The things that bother her often seem really odd to me, but as I would respect that she doesn´t like something, I would adapt and try not to bother her again. But if she doesn´t say anything, how can I know how to adapt to her? She doesn´t understand that she has been suffering days of annoyment which didn´t need to be suffered if she would have said something right away´. Everything can be discussed and agreed upon if we just talk in a normal adult way. She also doesn´t understand the definition of the word ´tolerance´. Tolerance means that there is something that you don´t like, but you will accept it and live with it. It´s NOT seeing there is something that you don´t like and getting more and more annoyed by it until you explode. Waiting a few days doesn´t mean tolerance, it means stupidity because nothing will change as long you don´t say something.
I have the feeling that I am really annoyed by her and therefore I told her I would like to have a talk. I talked with her in a very quiet and paient way, letting her express everything that she wanted to complain about without interrupting her. However, when she was finished, she wasn´t able to do the same. I talked in a normal neutal voice, emphasizing the ´I´-person as I didn´t want her to feel attacked by pointing a finger at her using ´you´, but she never let me speak out my sentence. She reacted to every half a sentence that I produced. In the end I asked her in a polite way if she could let me finish my story without interruption, and that she could react to it later if she wanted. She agreed but she wasn´t able to comply with it. Then I knew that I was really dealing with a kid. She wasn´t able to talk in an adult way and to respect others when they speak. She just wanted to say what she wanted to say, express what she thought and defend herself while it wasn´t necessary as I wasn´t attacking her. She couldn´t switch to an abstract level, because she was always talking about the details while I was talking about the whole principle behind it.
I have 2 choices: accept that she is a kid that still needs to grow and learn, or move out. On the one hand I am really annoyed by her, but on the other hand I know that growing up needs time. When I was 19 years old I also didn´t understand any of the things that I have just explained. I also needed years and experience to learn everything and to develop. So I couldn´t expect her to do that ´lap´ suddenly. In the future, she will discover it. But does this mean that I have to swallow everything and live an unsatisfying life for 6 months? I wouldn´t want to. I am not her mom, I have no responsibility to ´teach´ her and I also don´t want to do it because she wouldn´t listen anyway. So I guess the only way out is to move out. I have lived with a lot of people, but this is the first time that I seriously think I can´t live with someone. And my patience has already gone within 1,5 months.
But it has been interesting anyway, because it´s like I am looking back at my own development by looking at her. Due to this experience I have started to think about my past, about all the things that I learnt in all the years that I lived independently. She is still at the beginning of the whole process and has a long long way to go. Hopefully one day, she will look back at this period of her life and understand what was the problem...
Looking outside the window @ Erlangen
Rose, Kwok, Me & WingLam @ Hong Kong Parc, summer 2006
Rose, Me & WingLam @ Macau Fisherman´s Warf, summer 2006
Crazy young people @ Hong Kong Parc Olympic Stadium, summer 2006
