Home sweet home

It really feels great to be back home! As much as I love to travel and explore the world, as much as I can't stand to live in the same place too long, it is just so great to come home to your family! I spent some really nice time with my family, cooking together, playing board games, enjoying a walk outside and going to the restaurant. Unfortunately I was sick so I couldn't celebrate Karneval at all, but I enjoyed catching up with my family and now it is time to get back to the routine and start university in Germany again.
But back to Life as a "tourist". We already covered me moving to England and the experiences I made at Boarding. This time I want to tell you about my next step of becoming a "tourist" and my favourite movies.

In June 2012 I finished school and with this had to make further decisions. So first of all I moved back to Germany. That wasn't really a decision, at least not a conscious one, because for some reason I never seriously considered going to university somewhere else. Since I moved to England being only 16 years old, I thought this was a little bit too young to leave my home forever. So I moved back home to my Mum and stepdad and went to a business school in Cologne. Where I chose to study International Tourism Management. In English. I don't know, I'm just really attracted to everything that's presenting this international, touristy, multilingual, cultural, making new experiences atmosphere. I think the word that describes it the most is wanderlust. Basically the English language uses German words to have an English expression for the German word "Fernweh" which is the opposite of being homesick. Walt Disney once said: "I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment."* I feel like this describes me pretty well. I love travelling, getting to know new places, cultures, cuisines. I love learning languages. So far I speak German, obviously, English, Spanish, French at an intermediate level, and I started Russian and really want to get back to it as soon as I find the time. So I really understand this wanderlust. But, as Jodi Picoult points out in her novel Mercy: "Travelling is all very well and good as long as you knew there was a place or person you can call home."*
But back to the topic. I obviously learned a lot about tourism, but I also made some practical experiences. Last year in January my friend Patty and I - actually let me tell you a funny fact first: On the very first day at my university I overheard this girl talking about her Boarding School experiences in England. So I entered the conversation and it sounded a bit like this:

Where?

In the North West.

 Cool, where?

In the Lake District.

 What was the school called?

Uhm why do you ask so many questions? You're not gonna know it anyway. Dallam School. Aaaah, me too!!

And that's how our friendship began. Where was I? Oh yes, one year ago we went on a study trip to Dubai that our uni had organised. It was sooo interesting! I will tell you more about this little trip next time, but here's a first impression.

 

At my uni our little course didn't always get taken very serious compared to all those International Business students with their career promising specialisations in finance or trade, so we often got nicknamed "the tourists". But who cares? I quite like to identify myself as a tourist. I made so many experiences travelling around the world. Exploring Hungary, Serbia and Macedonia as an 18 year old girl, trekking through Cuba, going on a safari in Kenya... This summer I will actually make a completely new experience! My boyfriend and I are going on a cloister retreat. We will spend three weeks in an ashram in Nepal, taking part in the meditation and yoga sessions, finding our inner balance. Doesn't that sound exciting?! I am really excited!!! And don't worry, of course I will tell you all about it when the time comes.

 

Let's have a look at my favourite movies. Apart from my absolute favourite movie, it is really hard to pick for me. There are so many movies I really love. Some I have watched a million times, some I purposely only watched two or three times so that they wouldn't become boring. So really hard to say. But let's see.

Movies

1.    Mulan clearly

2.    Dirty Dancing I went through a phase in which I watched it weekly, although I don't know if I still love it

3.    Remember me I love it so much that I only watched it a couple of times

4.    Bridget Jones's Diary

5.    Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

Series

1.    Türkisch für Anfänger (It's a German series and only got translated into a couple of languages, for example in Italian it's called Kebab for breakfast. I actually watched the complete series FOURTEEN times. I know every joke and laugh about them before they're even told.)

2.    Grey's Anatomy

3.    Gossip Girl

4.    Desperate Housewives

5.    Doctor's Diary (Another German series)

I probably forgot half of the films I really like. It's just so hard to pick. What are your favourite movies? At home I have a big collection of movies starring Johnny Depp. I really like those. Generally I have a lot of DVDs. I don't really like watching movies online. I prefer to own them. I like really serious and maybe even sad or depressing movies. Like I already mentioned in the post about my favourite books. But I also love thrillers, rom-coms (I think the ones with Jennifer Aniston or Hugh Grant are the best) and those 90ies - 2000s teenage love stories. So you can see, I either like it very deep and heavy, or really trashy. I absolutely do not like anything really unrealistic, so I don't like fantasy, science fiction or comedy. But wait, there's one genre I didn't mention. Of course I adore Disney movies. I could even make a list of my most favourite Disney movies. Let's talk a bit more about Disney next time.

I'll see you then. Bye bye.

Jen

* I got those from the Disney Interns' facebook page and Jodi Picoult's facebook page.