British enthusiasm

Personally, I love me a good oxymoron, but saying that the title was one would be mean.

Because if there's one thing in the world I for some reason hold very dear to my heart, it's britishness.

I do realise that this doesn't really make much sense for the next person, and especially when looking at the foregone by-election I understand why people would start to question if "britishness" is such a good thing after all, but... If you look at how one of the most powerful countries in the world - well, the empire, really - could become such a lovely, quirky nation, that is most well-known for its fictional characters and knitting patterns, then sorry, I can't really find it in me not to love it.

And all of this, although I'm very rarely exposed to Brits in action. Which is why it is a little hard for me to describe what it is about Britain in detail, but bare with me, I'll try.

My exposures to 'proper Brits':

My flatmate. There's the one who is just it. The one who cherishes tea like ambrosia and raises her eyebrows at my "caffeine addiction". (One cup of coffee a day is not the end of the world. I think.)

The one you can have chats about Remembrance and how cute the Queen is with. (The Queen is pretty cute though.) The one you'd always turn to if you just don' understand how something works in this country.

The old gent on the tube. There is literally always this one guy who reads the evening standard like it's the bible, or holds like it's his shield that will eventually prevent him from forming any kind of relation to anyone around him. This guy is usually around 50 and wears "the British cap". (Like the cabbie in the first Sherlock episode does. You know the likes. Just google British cap. Trust me.)

This one guy from my seminar who complains about everything. And the funny thing is, there's one in all of my seminars, although they're not the same person. I always thought Germans were bad when it came to complaining, and that a German person couldn't be happy until there was something off they could complain about. Now this is probably true - but this kind of British person can't exist without anything to complain about. I just dropped in a conversation once that I would consider working as a barista - and I got to hear the most hilarious 15 minute rant about snotty coffee drinkers.

Which is why the certain characteristics I listed above are the only 'typically British things' I can think of at the moment, and probably the only ones you'll encounter when you choose to study here. I mean, sometimes you sense the much-rumoured traditionalism, but then again... isn't everyone at least a bit proud of where they came from?

And to come back to British enthusiasm - I always thought this to be an oxymoron.

That was clearly before I was introduced to the Great British Bake-Off.

Flatmates.

Sunday morning, 14/09/14

I walk into the kitchen, having just bought a bunch of bananas and hoummous from the local Sainsbury's. There is someone in the kitchen. A girl on her phone.

Because I didn't plan on vegetation lonely in my room, I walk in and start filling whatever little space is left in the fridge.

"Oh hi! Are you the new girl?"

I smile introducing myself, sliding in the seat opposite her while she finishes her lunch. Although anything with beans might be a British breakfast. Let's just say brunch.

"So when did you get here? I didn't see you all day yesterday!"

"Well...", I start, "that's probably because I arrived literally in the middle of the night. The people at the reception desk down there were nearly asleep, just handing me my keys and shoving a 'college survival box' into my hands and that was it."

"Why would you come in the middle of the night?", she asks.

"Booked the Eurostar three months in advance?"

At least she seems excited at the prospect of living together with someone from Germany. And is apparently not a football fan. Which is a big plus this year.

Soon enough I get dragged to another one of my flatmates' room, where we talk about all the things easy to talk about - school, food, movies.

It's not hard. And I strangely feel like being in boarding school again.

Later that day, my final flatmate arrives, making the artsy feeling of our flat complete:

There is a fashion design, advertising, radio production and now a photography student starting uni this year, although there are also to girls from China studying Business at a different campus, who were assigned a room on ours.

Thanks to shops being open on Sunday ("Wait, shops aren't open on Sunday in Germany? When do you guys go shopping?"), my flatmates and I soon hit the local mall, exploring this weird adulty feeling of being able to buy whatever we want to, but on the other hand having to budget with however much money we brought with us.

There's more to come, I can feel it, I feel comfortable with these people, but in the evening I still go to bed early. Whoever has once gone abroad and switched their minds to a different language might know the feeling of exhaustion that creeps in after a few hours.

It's like wanting to say: "Hey! I know English! I can understand everything perfectly fine!" but you just grow tired far too early, because your brain just isn't adjusted to it and wants to rest now, please.

So rest I did.