Germany Diary: Leaving Berlin, New Year’s Day 2020
By: Liam Heitmann-Ryce
Tags: Berlin, Journey, 2020, Storytelling, Creative Non Fiction

Germany Diary: Leaving Berlin, New Year’s Day 2020

Train ride into the unexpected

Image courtesy of the author

Here I am again, sat at the same table in the same carriage of this Flixtrain, just over a day later. Sadly I haven’t been able to strike up conversation with anybody — though I have moved tables to be closer to the four isolated, silent men spread across the edges of this carriage. I may open conversation with the one beside me, who is reading China Miéville’s collection of short stories that we studied at uni earlier this year. That would be something to talk about.

However, I did manage to sleep for an hour in my original seat in the dark corner at the back. I have now ostensibly moved to the middle of the carriage to use the overhead light for the purposes of writing, but I am really here to be closer to those seated alone. I want to talk to someone again as I likely won’t get much more sleep until I get back home and crash into bed.

I’m thinking hard about Australia again, how I feel I would be a lot more comfortable, more socially at ease, when in an English-speaking territory. I was unhappy with how much of a burden I felt at the party last night in Ziggy’s apartment, being the sole non-native German speaker, and how much I felt excluded as a result of this…

The difficulty of navigating a room choked with cigarette smoke and densely packed with strangers is significantly worsened when all speak a language of which I have only the most cursory understanding. I felt as though they begrudgingly spoke to me in English in the same one way placates a lost child until they can be offloaded onto their parents.

Hm.

I do wish I would not always be the first (only?) person to open channels of communication in day-to-day life. I wish more strangers would come up to me for a change. I think I am tired of Germany now because I am often told its inhabitants are so closed-minded and unwilling to open themselves to strangers; that does bum me out. I look forward to returning to Australia as I will be able to converse with greater ease and I think I shan’t feel like such an outsider…

My lack of linguistic proficiency won’t be an obstacle there; I hope to revive my Australian accent as well. Gosh, I do feel lonely right now. I dislike sitting in the close vicinity of others and merely exchanging brief instances of hopeless eye contact. I wish I weren’t so involuntarily solitary right now — I am not shy but I am tongue-tied with the uncertainty of speaking in a foreign country.

I do not like that, I have decided. Perhaps this is my realisation (resolution?) of this new year, that I do not wish to live as an expat; that the unambitious desire to live within a comfort zone, after having experienced the alternative, is what may best suit me. Perhaps I belong in Australia more than Europe, because my need to communicate openly and without impediment is predicated upon a need to feel rhetorically secure. I need to know the language.

The ability to converse with strangers, and to erode barriers of Bluetooth headphones and the seclusions of smartphone usage, can be more easily achieved in a country with one shared language — I really am more comfortable in English-speaking territories. This is a fair assertion I personally make after living outside of my birthplace for such a long time.

I think now is the best time for me to have decided that I need to return home, to return to Australia…