What to do?

So I’m back. Last week was a tricky week for me. Earlier on in this blog I wrote about how liberating it felt to have so much time on my hands. Last week I experienced the flip-side of that.

I’m not used to doing so little, to being so free. For example: I haven’t organised an event since my farewell party. I went from working 50 hours a week to working none. This blog is my only extra-curricular activity. Studying is a leisurely pursuit, requiring a very minimum time commitment (unlike my Australian counterparts, who at this very moment in preparation for exams are cutting off all contact with the outside world and buying Red Bull in slabs).

But nature abhors a vaccum, and the void has quickly been filled by dancing, drinking, partying and general merriment. Which, of course, is lots of fun. But while it’s helped me to deprogram myself from the pace of life back home, I don’t think it’s enough to structure my life around. God forbid, I think I’m looking for a little more meaning in my exchange. I’ll let you know what I come up with.

In the meantime, I’ve decided that I should take my studies a little more seriously. And it doesn’t get much more serious than a meeting at the German Federal Foreign Office on the topic of „Committing to a New EU-Afghan Partnership – Review of the EU-Afghanistan Joint Declaration”.

I’m doing a subject called Model European Union. It’s also known (to exchange students) as a “jackpot” subject – it counts for a massive 10 ECTS, the equivalent of two and a half normal subjects. Model things have never been my thing, but this offer was hard to refuse. Also, as my knowledge of the EU is limited to the Euro, the Schengen Agreement and incomprehension regarding the legal ‚Pillars’ of the ‚Temple’ I thought it would be a great way to learn.

The dress code was “Business Style” and since the most businessy thing I own is a pair of skinny black jeans, an urgent shopping trip was required. An indecisive hour in H&M later I stepped out onto the street in corporate attire, not quite believing that I was wearing sheer stockings and a crisply ironed shirt a) in Berlin, capital city of casual comfort; and b) almost a full year before I actually get paid to wear anything as dour again.

A retired German diplomat, who looked like he was born to wear a safari suit and sip English Tea at some colonial outpost (AND had Baroque music as his ringtone!) chaired the session. Half of the attendees were students from F.U., the other half trainee diplomats from Afghanistan’s equivalent of DFAT. I ended up with Poland, and I’m working with an Afghani gentleman called Alibaba. My homework is to acquaint myself with Afghanistan’s history which is no easy task. I’m taking it slowly.

As my bike is now plumbing the depths of utter uselessness, I’m turning to other ways of fitness. Jogging is one of them. I live right across the road from Volkspark Hasenheide, one of Berlin’s phenomenal green spots. As well as containing fields and forests, lakes, a dog paddock, a petting zoo and, at present, a medium-sized fairground, it is also criss-crossed with running tracks. Most mornings I roll out of bed, tie on my runners and do a bleary-eyed lap before I wake up enough to protest.

Hasenheide is also full of drug dealers. From the break of day tracksuited men take up their positions around the park, whispering „Alles klar?“ to startled pink-faced joggers. If you wait long enough, you can watch straight-laced Germans walking determinedly off the path and into the shrubbery to meet their Man. A police wagon routinely does a crawl around the perimiter but I’ve yet to see them make any busts. I’ve never felt unsafe, but the contrast between the beauty of the park and the seediness of its internal commerce strikes me every time.