For some, the best Christmas gift is a long-awaited meeting with loved ones. For the other — a well-deserved rest and the opportunity to recover. And for our heroine, they turned out to be snow-capped mountains. We share her story.
“I studied German at school, and I was lucky with the teacher: she not only knew the language, but also once lived in Germany. She talked about it, and I imagined tiled roofs, street fairs, dense forests, mountains … When I learned about the educational program at the university, according to which you can go there, I immediately caught fire. And they answered my question!
I had to work as a nanny and first I had to talk on the phone with a German family. How worried I was! Will they like me? But everything went well, and in August I flew to Munich. I was met by a German dad in a car.
We drove for an hour and a half along the autobahn to the small town of Wangen, where he lived with his wife and one-year-old son. All the way he was saying something, and I really liked listening to him, I liked the sound of German speech. But I almost didn’t understand anything, I didn’t have enough conversational practice.
“My” family had a very small apartment, so I was rented a room nearby. I sat with the baby and helped around the house — and intensively learned the language. The whole day I wrote down new words on colored sheets, and in the evening I hung them on my walls.
On the eve of Christmas, I decided to go to Munich, admire the old city in festive decoration
I went alone, by train, and was also going to return to celebrate Christmas with my host family. Munich is truly amazing! I walked all day and only in the evening got on the return train. I dozed off from exhaustion. And suddenly — the final station, completely unfamiliar! I missed mine.
It was already completely dark, around waist-deep snowdrifts and not a soul. My train was the last. I found a bus stop, but there were no buses either. There was a map hanging there, and I realized that I had almost reached the border with Austria. Christmas Eve, everything is closed, everyone goes home. What to do? In a panic, she called her Germans. It was too late and too far to follow me by car, so they could not pick me up, but they arranged an overnight stay.
The father of the family found an acquaintance in this place — the owner of the hotel. It was he who sheltered me and even offered dinner: Christmas after all! But I was worried, I felt overwhelmed and dreamed of only one thing — to be in bed as soon as possible.
At seven in the morning I was awakened by the bright sun. I looked out the window and froze: the mountains towered right above me — incredible, white-white against the bright blue sky. It turned out like in the song: “Do you want Alps outside the window?” I really wanted. And that was them. The best Christmas present!”
Margarita, 40 years old