“Bremen is the first city in Germany I’ve ever known,” my friend said when I told him I was going there for my volunteering project with NaturKultur. “Because of the Bremen musicians.”
I laughed when he said that, but after living there for months, I think this will always be the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear Bremen too.
I remember arriving there and realizing very quickly that moving abroad sounds much more romantic before you actually do it. The first days felt awkward. I was tired all the time, confused by the transport system, trying to understand how everything worked while also pretending I was relaxed about it.
Then slowly life became normal there: attending different activities, waiting for trams in cold weather, buying the same discounted snacks all the time, hearing four different languages in one kitchen or hearing more just by taking a walk around Gröpelingen, attending my first cleanup with BUND and unexpectedly witnessing the Bremen Weser football fanatics nearby: a whole different world from mine, sitting in meetings where German was spoken most of the time and trying to follow along somehow, organising my first event for the European Week of Waste Reduction and realizing how much work happens behind the scenes, meeting volunteers from completely different backgrounds.
I think what I will remember the most is not the big events but the random details that somehow became part of everyday life. Sitting near the river when the weather was good (that happened 2 times 🙂 ), conversations at midnight in the apartment kitchen, cooking together with my flatmates, those moments after activities when nobody wanted to go home yet… and much more. When I left Bremen, it felt strange how quickly a place can become familiar without you noticing it, while in the beginning I counted the months left until I would go back home, and at the end, I was already feeling nostalgic before even leaving.
—
Rinesa was hosted by NaturKultur e.v on our project financed by the European Solidarity Corps and Jugend für Europa.
If you want to experience something similar to what Rinesa did, check out our open calls here.
