Seventeen, alone and ready for an adventure

I moved to Germany when I was seventeen

and it was the best decision of my life

I’ll never forget that day, October 5th, 2003. On that day at 7:00 am I landed in Germany for the very first time. I originally came to Germany to pursue a university degree but ended up having a new home.

I grew up in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Yes, the city which all Instagram models want to visit and all influencers want to be in. Pre 2003 Dubai was an awesome city, but it looked nothing like the Dubai you know now.

After I graduated high school, I wanted to have my own adventure, my own mistakes, and make my own decisions away from the comfortable parents’ home. That’s why I had a deal with my parents to leave once I’ve finished high school and they agreed to that. They thought that I would go to the States, where most of my extended family lives. But, I guess it was a surprise for them when I decided to go to Germany instead (I didn’t know a single word German at that time).

They were very supportive, got me all what I needed. They even bought me my first winter coat ever (Dubai’s winter is like summer in the midwest) and got me on a plane to leave for Germany on October 5th, 2003.

I landed here in Cologne/Bonn airport on a Sunday, went to the passport control officer, and being friendly as such I told him proudly Guten Tag, he replied with a full German sentence and I had to stop him there, I was just being friendly. Everything was perfect, the baggage claim, the train station and the bus to Bad Godesberg near Bonn, and there it hit me for the first time; It was a ghost town!

Dubai is always busy and lively, it doesn’t matter whether it is Friday 8:00 am or Sunday past midnight. There is always something happening and there are always cars and people on the streets. 8:00 am on a Sunday in Bad Godesberg reminded me of a ghost town, no one was on the streets, almost no cars. I was shocked! I went for a walk, enjoyed the nature, tried to explore the city, I was really afraid to get lost (no Google maps and no roaming data plans yet), so I kept to the maps I had pre-printed back home.

On the next day, I started my language school and I was faced with what is still a challenge for me until today:

Du, Sie, ihr → all of those mean you in German, You need to know the difference.

Der, die, das → those are equivalent to the in English.

17 years later I still need to ask my colleagues sometimes if is it der, die, or das when I’m answering E-mails.

It started great, everything was fine, everyone was super friendly and on the contrary to everyone’s common belief back home, everybody spoke English in Bad Godesberg and in Bonn.

My first interaction with racism

Fast-forward couple of weeks later, I met some very interesting people from all over the world in my language school. I started to have a social life and my circle of friends in this new country. One day we were all in a bar and I was talking to a friend of mine, who happened to be Arab as well. All of a sudden this old man came to our table, sat down, asked us to have a toast with him and then very calmly whispered to us: “I can teach you how to fly a plane if you are interested. You’ll be able to fly into any target you want”. I still remember these words 17 years later, I’ve never forgotten them. I’m still not able to decide if the man was a jerk and was being extremely racist to us, or if he was an ignorant racist who was trying to be friendly and this was his way of breaking the ice.

My friend and I got very furious, we were new in Germany, and we didn’t want to cause any trouble, so we just left. Other than this situation in my 17 years in Germany, I haven’t experienced any mention-worthy racism towards me. People here are generally friendly.

Learning how to cook

When you finally live alone there will come a day, in which you need to cook for yourself for the first time. I was able to prepare simple stuff, scrambled eggs, sandwiches, ramens, etc. Remember, this was before YouTube. I tried cooking spaghetti. I cooked the spaghetti in water and tomato sauce and thought I had to wait for the water to evaporate to have it cooked perfectly. That night I ate the best-burned spaghetti ever!

After that hilarious experiment, I asked my mom to email me a couple of easy to cook recipes and it helped a lot and every time I went back home, I let her teach me something new.

Nudity is normal

A month after I had arrived here, I decided to go to Cologne with a group of friends. Leaving the train station in Cologne was jaw-dropping: You exit the train station and you are welcomed to Cologne by the magnificent cathedral (Kölner Dom). I stood there for 2–3 minutes just looking at it. An ad for a beauty product was hanging on one of the buildings in front of the cathedral. The model in the ad was completely nude, which was shocking at first.

A couple of days later after class, I was in the common room in the dormitory and turned the TV on. It was around 5:00 pm. A show called “taff” was on and the episode was about plastic surgeries and breast implants. Once again, the display of breasts on public TV at that time of the day (late afternoon) was strange to me and I wasn’t used to it.

Now, you should’ve already figured out that in a country this comfortable with nudity Saunas are mixed and everybody is naked inside. It took some time before I started seeing nudity as a normal thing and honestly, I like it this way, it promotes body positivity.

I’m sorry that I’m German

There is a great museum in Bonn called “Haus der Geschichte” (Eng: house of history). In it, the German history from 1945 (After WWII) till the current day is on display. A day before going to the museum our German teacher was told us about it and what we would see when we go there. All of a sudden and out of nowhere she said: “I’m sorry that I’m German”. Everybody in the class was shocked, why would you say such a thing? and we asked her about it.

She started rambling about the war and the bad things the Nazis did during the war. We tried to explain to her that these horrendous acts were done by the Nazis more than 50 years ago, we all as humans have to feel sorry that we allowed such thing to happen, but for her to feel sorry for being German because of it, is a little bit extreme. She wasn’t ready to discuss the issue with us, she made up her mind, but neither could I nor the other students in the class understand that.

I noticed later on and I still notice it today that you don’t see the German flag as often here, as you would see an American flag in the States, the Swiss flag in Switzerland or the French flag in France. People do not show their national pride here at all. The German flags will only come out during football tournaments (Soccer for the American readers) and after Germany is out of the competition or Germany wins it, the flags would simply disappear.

In the end, living here changed a lot in me. It taught me to respect time, the environment, and most importantly to respect other people’s opinions. It was not easy at the beginning but now I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else. After I obtained my college degree, I went back to Dubai, but I immediately noticed that I was accustomed to life in Germany. A couple of months later I was offered a job in Germany and I took it without hesitation and moved back here. That was most probably the second best decision in my life. The first was deciding to study here in the first place and take that brave step at the age of 17.

Going out of your comfort zone might seem hard or impossible in the beginning. However, the things that you will learn and the experience you will gain will shape your life forever. If you are faced with such a decision, take that step even if it seems hard at the start. The journey is worth it.