After leaving Germany without a return date, she quickly found work and began building a different routine. The city’s international character and stronger earning prospects have reinforced a decision driven by growth and learning..
Javier Duque
After spending last summer in her country, Eva Weber* felt the moment had come to move on, so at the beginning of October she took an open-dated ticket from Cologne to London. There were various reasons that brought her to the British capital: to broaden her view of the world, to improve her English, and to be with her boyfriend Charles.
“The fact that my boyfriend was here made a difference, of course. But I also knew it was going to be very good for my personal experience, and to improve my English”.
She works in the hospitality sector, in a bar in South-East London, and says it wasn’t difficult to find work as she already had 3 years experience.
“In Cologne I also worked as a waitress in a family restaurant. Here shortly after I arrived they gave me a one-day trial, and saw that I knew what I was doing, so they took me on”.
Eva enjoys her work, but thinks that the English become a bit tedious when they drink too much, “which they usually do”, she says laughing.
Although Germany is a country where they love their beer, she thinks it is different: “It’s true that you can see a lot of people with a beer in their hand at 9 in the morning, in the street or in the metro. And although they also drink a lot, I think that at least they do it more slowly.”
Fitting in
Weber thinks she is finally adapting to the city, although she didn’t have much free time: “I used to work in the morning, finished at 6 and got home almost an hour and a half later”. She says that the days were going by very fast, and realized that she wasn’t taking advantage of them. It was a routine every day: tube, work, tube and home.
After moving less than a month ago, she lives only 4 tube stops from work, and also closer to her boyfriend who she sees more often: “Before it was as if we lived in different cities. Now, finally, I can do more during the week than just go to work”.
“Eva is fascinated by London, as she loves the mixture of people: “In Cologne the great majority of immigrants are Turks. Here they come from everywhere and it is a marvellous mixture of cultures”.
As for the future, she hasn’t thought much about it. “I am young and I wasn’t escaping from Germany: I left to look for new experiences. I live from day to day. There will be time to think about what comes next”.
But she finds that a lot of people ask her why she left her country, now that it is probably in the best economic situation in Europe. “I feel a lot safer knowing that things are going well in Germany. So in case I feel I have to go home I will do it with optimism”.
But it isn’t the perfect country it appears in the media, although the unemployment rate is low many people work in what they call minijobs where they earn no more than €400 a month.
“Here in London the cost of living is higher than in Cologne, but working as a waitress I earn 3 times asmuch as in a minijob in Germany”, she says in summary.
*Fictitious name, true story
(Translated Graham Douglas – Email: ondastropicais@yahoo.co.uk) – Photos: Pixabay
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