Yours truly walks into the offices of the University Observer and chats with the editors and assorted hacks and eventually the subject of the upcoming year is broached: “So, Gav, looking forward to Erasmus?”

Of course, you’d think that learning the language since age 11 would have meant I’d have a reasonable proficiency in the language. You might even think that I’d have gone to Germany, or a German-speaking county, or even just to a German language college for a couple of weeks. Well, guess again.

But back to the office, where yours truly sat gulping. “Er, yeah, looking forward to it. Should be good craic.” Which, I suppose, isn’t far from the truth. I am, genuinely, looking forward to the experience, but I won’t dwell too much on the artsy-fartsy “Oh, isn’t Europe great? Isn’t academia wonderful?” blarb.

So there I am, half-lying, half-imagining about how fearless I am, when the editorial types ask if I’d like to do a column from Germany for o2, generally themed “teenager has never been to Germany before, now there’s there for a year; hilarity and observations ensue”. I contemplate the question for a moment. To be perfectly honest, were I to head to Bavaria without some ties back to Belfield, I’d be prone to waking up in a cold sweat and groggily reading Annabel Field’s social musings to fill the Water Tower-shaped void in my being. In short, then, my answer was (obviously) yes.

So this is where you’ll find me every fortnight: where I’ll be musing, whinging, observing (hey, this is the University Observer after all) and generally reporting from the German-Austro border town of Passau, wondering where it all went wrong (or right!) and where I go from here. Kiddies, watch this space, and see you in a fortnight, from sunny Passau. Well, I hope sunny Passau. I’ll keep you posted!

Tschuss,
Gav