It is true, when people say that exchange is the best time of your life. I mean, when else can you study and live in a foreign country for 6 months, without the stress of achieving As for your modules? When else can you make friends with people all over the world, party with them, travel the whole of Europe together?
I was looking forward to exchange even before I entered NUS. I even worked to save up for exchange. This is how much I wanted to experience SEP, and I am thankful that my not-so-great CAP in Sem 1 and my dad's finances gave me the opportunity to have this once-in-a-lifetime experience of travelling to countless cities in 14 countries.
Here are the different stages of exchange for me:
1. Euphoria- whereby every single thing is so pretty and cool and wow you can't believe you're finally in Europe
2. Nice- Getting used to the buildings but still in awe
3. Meh- Museums and cathedrals again?
4. Saturation- Let's just skip the museums and go for sightseeing
5. Deja Vu - Basically everything looks the same everywhere. This looks familiar... we teleported!
6. Shagged - Omg I wish I'm lying on my bed with my laptop now
To others who have yet to experience exchange, exchange may seem so wow and all but it really isn't as great as it seems. Yes I got to travel to many different countries and experience awesome views but sometimes I feel like I'm trying to complete an amazing race in some of the trips whereby you have to complete all the different attractions within that short few days. Maybe others want to experience as much as possible within the short period, but really, what's the point of seeing everything when you don't take time to appreciate each one of them? It's almost like, " Ok took photo of this cathedral. Checked. Next!" It's literally an amazing race where you just have to get to each station and do a task of taking photo to show that you've been there.
Budget is a really important factor in your travel experience. In order to save money on hostels and flights etc, often we have to hobo, take overnight trains, buses, ferries and flights to our destinations. I think I broke my own record in the number of days where I have a good night sleep within the past 6 months. Many a time we choose cheap hostels to stay at and the cheapest I have stayed at was the one in Budapest at only 3 euros per night. Dirt cheap I would say, although the conditions were not that great but it was value-for-money with free breakfast. The worst hostel/campsite I stayed at was the one in Rome. It was so bad we couldn't take it on the first night and started looking for other hostels to stay for the next two nights immediately. It was cold and the toilets were far, beds with only spring and air you can feel it when you sleep on it and also insect eggs-like black dirt on the bed and wifi that is at least 5min walk away from the room in the cold. I feel proud of myself that I actually stayed there for a night. (It was a blessing in disguise though cause we changed to Mr. Rome and it was awesome.) Of course, all these are good stories to tell and good experience that I think everyone should try at least once. Hobo-ing with friends can be quite fun if you have fun friends, which leads me to my next point about travelling buddies.
Budget is a really important factor in your travel experience. In order to save money on hostels and flights etc, often we have to hobo, take overnight trains, buses, ferries and flights to our destinations. I think I broke my own record in the number of days where I have a good night sleep within the past 6 months. Many a time we choose cheap hostels to stay at and the cheapest I have stayed at was the one in Budapest at only 3 euros per night. Dirt cheap I would say, although the conditions were not that great but it was value-for-money with free breakfast. The worst hostel/campsite I stayed at was the one in Rome. It was so bad we couldn't take it on the first night and started looking for other hostels to stay for the next two nights immediately. It was cold and the toilets were far, beds with only spring and air you can feel it when you sleep on it and also insect eggs-like black dirt on the bed and wifi that is at least 5min walk away from the room in the cold. I feel proud of myself that I actually stayed there for a night. (It was a blessing in disguise though cause we changed to Mr. Rome and it was awesome.) Of course, all these are good stories to tell and good experience that I think everyone should try at least once. Hobo-ing with friends can be quite fun if you have fun friends, which leads me to my next point about travelling buddies.
Travelling Buddies. You better choose them wisely. Trust me on that. When you travel, you see the worst in people. Literally. Sometimes it's so bad that you wished you traveled alone instead. So to play it safe, travel with people whom you can really click well with, especially if it's within a small group as you'll have a lot of interactions with them which can make you go crazy. My advice? Go for short trial trips. A few days of travelling should be enough to reveal a bit of who they are. ;) Tip: travel with people who shower quick as the last thing you want to do after a long day of travelling is wait for hours to queue for showers.
I think I am lucky to travel with people with good sense of directions, eg. Jiarong and Bogyeong. Jiarong is officially my best travel buddy because of his good organisation skills and easy going character. He is also very helpful and takes good care of me. As for Bogyeong, I think she is really a genius in terms of street-smartness. Her brain is full of ideas to circumvent any problem and with her you can really sit back and relax as you can count on her to give the best solution.
Due to my laziness and REALLY bad sense of direction, I always over-rely on friends to lead the way to the extent that I have no idea what the attraction is called and where it is, what it is about. I guess it's the thing I regret while travelling- just follow. I should have at least downloaded an offline guide or something to give me a brief description of the attraction which I did only on my 10th trip in Italy. The offline guide was very useful, for it's the first time I know what I am seeing instead of just "wow, nice." #okcan
Lastly, roommates. Frankly speaking, if given another chance I would have chosen to stay alone instead of a shared apartment. Yes it may be lonely at times, but you have the freedom to do whatever you want and have everything to yourself. Most importantly, you do not have to clean up after others. Trust me, you wouldn't want to stay in a shared apartment with a rooftop where everyone go to for parties. The mess that resulted had costed each of us more than 100 euros by the end of the semester. However, if you can choose, opt for roommates from a similar culture so that there would be less conflicts. 相见好，同住难。
Lastly, roommates. Frankly speaking, if given another chance I would have chosen to stay alone instead of a shared apartment. Yes it may be lonely at times, but you have the freedom to do whatever you want and have everything to yourself. Most importantly, you do not have to clean up after others. Trust me, you wouldn't want to stay in a shared apartment with a rooftop where everyone go to for parties. The mess that resulted had costed each of us more than 100 euros by the end of the semester. However, if you can choose, opt for roommates from a similar culture so that there would be less conflicts. 相见好，同住难。
Although there were some "down" parts of exchange, I am really thankful for choosing WHU School of Management in Germany because:
1. Germany has very low cost of living as compared to other European countries with the same standard of living and economy (with ridiculously cheap alcohol)
2. It is really accessible to many different countries i.e. cheap flights to everywhere as it is in the middle of Europe.
3. Germans are friendly. Contrary to popular beliefs, I have met many friendly Germans who enhanced the exchange experience.
4. Most of them speak English. Ok I am not too sure about this, at least 50% I think?
5. WHU is the most happening business school in Germany and they really take good care of the exchange students. The Orientation was the bomb! So many different events organised just to help us get to know each other and have fun. I think almost everyone knows everyone. And there is "Tauschie Tuesday" every week where different countries will prepare their local delights and sell them at the student bar on different weeks to raise funds for the end-of-year Tauschie Party. (Tauschies is the nickname for exchange students in WHU) The Tauschies and some German students would gather for a short chillout session with each other every Tuesday night. And then there's Palais! WHU is so cool they book a club called Palais every Thursday night just for WHU students. Palais is the best club I have ever been. Love the songs, love the people. It's the club where I can get high without alcohol. The best part of it all is the chant, " U-H-WHU say U-H-WHU say H!" in German which is pronounced as " Wu-ha-veh-ha-wu say wu-ha-veh-ha-wu say Ha!" which all WHU students will chant together when a song with a certain rhythm is played. It's so addictive. However, it was a pity that they closed it for 3 months for renovations.
6. WHU is the best business school in Germany, literally.
7. Free access to it's almost 24h well-equipped gym with the best sparkling water dispenser ever. I swear they have the most delicious sparkling water I love it so much I think I'm missing it now. Didn't know that the free access to the gym was such a privilege until my friend in another school told me they have to pay a huge sum for the gym membership which is much pricier than that of Singapore.
8. Vallendar is a really lovely and quaint small student-cum-elderly town. Its residents are all either WHU students or cute elderlys. You see people you know all the time.
9. There are many supermarkets. Rewe, Lidl, Aldi, Netto. You name it, they have it. In a small town where there is nothing much to do, grocery shopping is my favourite source of entertainment. You just can't stop buying all the cheap food! Ja!, a housebrand of Rewe is my favourite.
10. It is only 15min bus ride away from Koblenz, a place to shop for everything you need! I go there to shop for clothes, travel essentials and Asian supermarket and withdraw money from Deutsche Bank mostly. The bus ride is not cheap though. (2.75 euros after a 25% off from Bahn card for one way)
11. Last but not least, I really love all the friends I made there. It is them that make me not feel lonely while I was 100000 miles away from home. All the dinner parties that we had, all the crazy nights drinking insane number of shots and getting high and drunk together and all the heart-to-heart talks and gossip sessions. It is really the best memory and experience of exchange.
Many people think that the best part of exchange is to travel to many different places, but once you've experienced it, you'll realise that it is the exchange itself, going to school, spending time with friends that makes it memorable. You can travel to Europe anytime on your own, but exchange is only this once. So treasure your exchange, spend time in your exchange school with friends and really, make the best out of your exchange life. Bon Voyage! :)
#Ja!Genau!
#Ja!Genau!
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