Online story: Meet Your Neighbour – Young European Adults

German contribution: It’s a rainy day in the south of in the city of gold, . It's the beginning of July. As a German student you don`t know what to do in a weather like this - especially two weeks before the long summer holiday of six weeks - because usually at this time of the year the weather is quite good. Sarah has to get up early at 6am, five days a week. The 17-years-old girl eats her sausages, leaves the house at 7 am, like every morning. She is walking along the biggest river of Pforzheim, the Enz, like every morning. While she is looking at the running water, she is thinking about how to escape from her daily life into an exciting adventure. Suddenly, when she sees a poster of “The Economist” she is jerked out of her thoughts: “Oh…, my English homework, I wanted to reread my summary!” During her walk to school she takes out her homework and reads through it.

It reads like this: ”The article is about the migration of workers from Romania and Bulgaria to rich countries in the EU after restrictions on the free movement of workers were lifted on January 1st 2014. Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Austria are afraid of the consequences of unrestricted migration. The press and the public worry how many migrants will come. Will they take away low skill jobs? Will this create tensions? Will begging and sleeping rough shoot up, especially in big or industrial cities? Will the immigrants live off the black market, begging and petty crime? Will they be a burden on the welfare state by demanding access to social benefits? For the first time there is a mixture of anti-EU feelings and anti-immigration feelings. Politicians reacted too late to the public´s worries.”

“Sounds all right to me!” Sarah thinks and sincerely hopes her teacher thinks the same. All of a sudden, a huge black German sausage dog with hungry eyes appears. With a big jump he snaps at the yummy sausage-smelling homework. Sarah is so startled that she lets the homework fall down. In this moment the wind blows it far away, into the Enz. She asks herself: “What has just happened? Nobody will believe my absurd excuse of losing my homework. My teacher is so strict that I might have to do it again, argh.” Now she has to hurry up because she has to search for the room in which she has her last Religious Education lesson. Before the lesson starts Sarah talks to her friend Claudia, who has just come back from a Comenius trip to Leiden in the Netherlands. Claudia is really enthusiastic about it and she is going to give a presentation about the whole trip in the English lesson later. Sarah can't even tell her how she lost her homework. But before Claudia can even start talking about her exciting week their teacher Mrs Fischer enters the room. After a hurried “Good Morning”, she wants to get to work immediately and doesn't leave any time for exchanging pleasantries or “any of that nonsense”, as she calls it. Claudia is rolling her eyes to Sarah, meaning: “She is so German!” Of course, Mrs Fischer doesn't believe Sarah's silly excuse of losing her homework, naturally. Claudia on the other hand can't stop giggeling until finally she is put out of the lesson to calm down. After about five minutes she returns grinning and whispering something about watering the horses. The lesson is about social justice and continues with a discussion about the meaning of the word. Both girls enjoy that part of the lesson, nearly as much as when Mrs Fischer is telling stories about her life. Despite her very German work attitude, Mrs Fischer is distracted easily and Sarah remembers a particular story about Mrs Fischer getting her church approval to teach Religious Education. Weird story. People from the church had to examine her in her lesson and only then she could continue teaching!

After that, the girls think: “What you should know about Germany is that German people are mostly focused on work. So it’s normal that a teacher wants to immediately start with the lessons. Maybe the teachers back in the Netherlands weren’t that focused.”

The lesson ends and Claudia starts to tell Sarah stories about Leiden, how her guest family lives, how teenagers spend their money. They come to the conclusion that it is quite similar to Germany. The most surprising topic was school. Claudia says that it is very modern and that pupils don't have Religious Education! Sarah wants to know which differences and similarities are the most important between Netherlands and Germany. Claudia tells her two main differences; the first one would be the “Abitur”. She tells her that pupils in Netherlands have the same just called with a different name “VWO eindexamen”. And the second difference, it is like in Netherlands everything is close to their neighborhood, instead of that in Germany some pupils have to take trains, busses or cars to go their school. In Netherlands they just go their schools by their bikes. She shows Sarah the pictures on her phone, iPear's latest model, of course! Claudia promises to show Sarah some more pictures after their Maths lesson. Together with the pictures Claudia shows Sarah a small Dutch-German dictionary that she had made with the help of Tim and Tessa, two Dutch friends. If you go to a foreign country, it is not that easy to communicate with each other. So Claudia did this to learn the basics of the language, so she is able to introduce herself in Dutch to more people than Tim and Tessa. And we can assume that it had to be fun to make this dictionary because they had to chat about the sentences in a different language and translate them.

Dutch-German Ik ben Claudia Ich heiße Claudia Ik ben zestien jaar oud Ich bin 16 Jahre alt Ik woon in Pforzheim Ich wohne in Pforzheim Ik ga naar school Ich gehe noch zur Schule Ik hou van jou Ich liebe dich Hoe gaat het? Wie geht es dir? Het gaat goed Mir geht es gut Gefeliciteerd Alles Gute zum Geburtstag Het eten is lekker Das Essen schmeckt gut Ik heb lekker geslapen Ich hab gut geschlafen

Claudia tells Sarah that she already misses her new friends in Leiden: ”The trip to Leiden was very cool and I really enjoyed it. I know now that some prejudice against Dutch aren’t right, for example that the Dutch only smoke weed and always ride the bike . It is a very interesting country with lovely houses, the nearby, interesting cities, a rich cultural life and a kingdom accepted by all its citizens – imagine we even saw the King racing past us in a car in Amsterdam. I especially liked the world famous paintings of Rembrandt. I saw in the original for the first time in my life.”

Claudia remembers that the trip to Leiden and back was rather chaotic. “Imagine there was an accident that had something to do with the train tracks but our teacher did not really get what exactly was wrong. Naturally, because the message was in Dutch! So tour teacher made me ask a friendly – really cute-looking – young man to translate it. Embarrassing, really. Because of this accident we arrived at Leiden really late but were immediately welcomed by our host families who took us home.”

“Hey, Sarah, what do you think about leaving all this school stuff behind us, we don't do anything anyway just now! Let's hop on a train and go to Leiden!” The two girls make the decision instantly and run out of school and along the Enz to a few days with their Dutch friends. Little do they know...

But there is always a problem with Deutsche Bahn. There were two trains but for unknown reasons they made all the passengers come together in one train, and the train was really crowded. The girls paid for their seats but there are other people sitting on them who just don't leave, so they just look for room somewhere on the floor. Typically unfriendly Germans! Later it turns out, the people are Portuguese and didn't understand a word. Well...

Dutch contribution: After a long trip, Sarah and Claudia finally arrive in Amsterdam. Just as they expected, it is raining. Back home, it was at least 20 degrees. The Netherlands look nothing like the pictures they saw on the internet. No tulips, just fog. Trying to see through the fog, Claudia sees the train station coming closer. Seeing their destination after a trip of 6 hours, they feel pretty relieved. Stepping on to platform 6, they see a vague silhouette of their friend Jan. He is jumping around until the train stops. ‘It has almost stopped raining, so just leave your coat in your suitcase. Let’s go see Jan!’ Sarah is yelling. They run off the train, into Jan’s direction, and tackle him onto the wet floor. ‘Guys, stop! Let’s stop hugging and just visit the centre.’ They agree and the three of them take off to the bus station to catch a bus to the centre.

Looking out of the bus windows, they realize there is too much going on. No room to walk, no room to have fun, no room to do anything. Tired from the trip they decide to go visit a dike to relax. The final destination of the bus they are on is close to a beach. It starts getting darker as they are walking towards the first dike they see. The sun is setting and the sea is glittering in the last rays of the sunlight. All is good until they hear two strange voices whispering obscenities at the Germans. They turn around and see a big cloud of smoke and two men. They are laughing and pointing at Sarah and Claudia. Jan comes and asks: “Why are you laughing at my friends?”. The two guys, who are obviously under the influence of various illegal substances, presumably marijuana as one of them, start ranting about how annoying immigrants are. They say things like “You are taking our jobs and are littering our streets. You don’t even speak our language; go back to your own country.” Sarah and Claudia become angry because of the things these two men are saying, and tell them they are not immigrants but their neighbors. “Look at the beer you’re drinking, it’s called Paulana. It’s ours, a German brand. Without those ‘immigrants’ you wouldn’t be drinking it.” Claudia starts getting mad. “Think of all the things we have in common. We all like soccer, we’re both proud of our national team. You probably drive an Opel or BMW, which are made in German factories.” The older of the two men has realized that immigrants can’t be that bad and stopped swearing. The other man is still not convinced. Jan notices that Sarah is furious, and before the situation gets out of control he pulls both girls away and takes them back to the bus station.

As soon as Jan puts back his OV Chip card, which is used to pay for your bus trips, Sarah asks what Leiden is renowned for. “We have one festival, on October 3rd. Every year there is a big fair in town and we even have the day off at school. “Wow. So what do you celebrate, what does it mean?” Jan smiles: “It`s a pretty cool story. Like, the Spanish had surrounded Leiden and they had already invaded the rest of the country many years ago. But Leiden said “No!” to them. The Spanish didn`t want to just leave, though, so they camped outside. The people inside Leiden couldn`t get out to get supplies. So after a while, they were starving. However, they could call for help and then other people helped them by flooding the place where the Spanish were and they fled, the cowards. Afraid of a bit of water. Couldn't stay in the Netherlands, obviously. Then Leiden was freed, just in time for the people to not starve to death. This happened on October 3rd. “

“And this church has something to do with the celebrations as well. But I'm not religious at all, so I wouldn't know”, he adds apologetically.

So yeah, that`s what we celebrate every year,” he laughs. “Also, something funny happened last year. I`ll tell you the story: “My friends and I went out on October 3rd, 2013. We found a fairly calm place just outside of the centre where we sat down and could still hear the music clearly. We had a lot of beer, we got tipsy, and invited some strangers over to come join us. I don’t remember much, but what I do remember, is that when I came back from the closest convenience store, my friend Robin was gone. After two hours looking through the city, we still hadn’t found him. We knew he would be able to save himself so we left it like that and went home… the next day Robin called us. It turned out he woke up in a Dixi toilet covered in mud. By the way, you guys will meet Robin. He is such a globetrotter, we could ask him to accompany us because he knows the best places to be, especially in Europe. Since we are European Union members, we do not need any visa to travel within the European Union, so Robin has been in many European cities so far, though he still is the first to buy a ticket. He never gets enough. I`ll ask him whether he is interested. I bet he is but you never know, don’t you think so?”

Then they arrive in Leiden. They have much fun together, but Jan also has to go to his lessons. Wednesday he tells Sarah about the German lesson. “We`re reading this book in class, but I don`t understand a thing. It takes place in 1930s and then suddenly in the 1960s…. It is such a weird novel. My German teacher explains everything though, but she only talks German during lessons. It`s so annoying because half of the time I just can`t understand what she`s saying, you know.” Hearing that, Sarah frowns. “That sounds pretty hard. What`s the name of the book again?” she wonders. “Something like …. Homo Faber I think.” Jan looks at Sarah, seeing her being shocked. “What is it?” “Just ….we read that book for our A-levels, our final exams in Germany and you just read it in class. It is such a difficult novel, I know! But why are you reading it already? It is so hard!” Jan shrugs. “I don`t know. My German teacher likes the book and so she picked it, I didn`t really have a choice, you know” he says. “Wow, that is weird….How much did you understand?” “Well, I know there was a this plane crash…Planes are scary, aren`t they? They could crash anytime. I mean in the novel there was no real reason for the engines to fail, right?” Sarah shivers “Yeah, I remember that. To be honest, I don`t really like planes. Trains are better” she agrees. “Or ships. Ohh, I know what we can do! We can go to Bristol to visit more people of our Comenius group but certainly not by plane, right. We could also take the boat to Harwich instead. That`s exactly what the main character did. He travelled by ship after his plane crash,” Jan offers. “Good idea! And then we get the train to London and to Bristol from there. That`s way better than the plane.” After a week full of fun, parties and sightseeing they start their journey to Bristol with Robin to see their other friends. From the view of the Dutch people that was not so funny because they had to sit in class all day long while the visitors were having fun. And one time they went to play bowling and some of them were clueless on the other hand others behaved like real professionals.

British contribution: After all this adventure, they are excited about what’s going to happen in Bristol because this is the first time and it’s not easy to get used to a different culture. When they got off the boat the first thing that they think is “Great weather, sunshine and warm, not like what we expected!” As soon as Claudia has said this, it starts dripping from the sky and Robin says: “If the rain gets stronger we can’t go out and travel the city.” After a long train ride, Claudia, Sarah, Jan, Robin and William meet Josh outside of the station and they all think Josh is friendly except Claudia - for now. Claudia is prejudiced about the British boy, because she is not a type of person who trusts people easily. They take the bus and reach the hostel safely. Before finally reach the hostel, Josh invites them to a concert of Oasis, a famous Brit-Pop band, which will be held tomorrow night. When they arrive they see their hostel for the first time and they are extremely disappointed at first, because all the six teenagers are crowded in one tiny room. They go upstairs to the second floor and have to carry their heavy luggage because there is no elevator. Every step of the staircase they walk on makes sounds like they are part of a horror movie. “Listen to those squeaky stairs,” Josh says.

“This hostel is said to be haunted by a ghost named Mary. Many years ago a young woman, Mary, and her fiancé bought that place as their future home. They started to decorate the place and Mary couldn`t wait for the wedding day so she could finally move in with her beloved husband-to.be. Finally on their big day, they were supposed to marry at St. Paul`s Church. However, her fiancé never showed up neither in the church nor in town from that day on. She had no clue; her father had just started to walk her down the aisle when they realized that the groom was missing.” Claudia feels sorry for Mary: “Poor Mary, how did she take it?” Josh continues: “It is said that she panicked first and after a while of just starring she lost is. She had a nervous breakdown and ran back and forth the aisle. The wedding guests couldn`t take that squeaking sound anymore and brought her to her house. When they arrived in her future home she was completely out of control and started to run the whole staircase up and down, up and down and again you could hear that same squeaking sound as in the church. She did not marry someone else and lived a long life. She never stopped running up and down hoping to find her fiancé. Her neighbors got used to the squeaky staircase. That squeak was part of the house that they were not bewildered when they still heard that noise even long after her death.” “Oh, come on, that`s a lame story.” Jan teases. Josh, who is ahead, stops to go upstairs. Everyone waits for him.“Listen. Have you guys noticed …? That sound?” he asks. The girls start trembling and they all are pale – even the boys. They can hear that same squeak. All of them have the same idea at the same time, they start running up the stairs with their heavy luggage. Josh opens the door and takes care that the girls get in first. Inside of their tiny room they burst out laughing for believing Josh`s story and forgetting about the lack of space. Quite the contrary, everyone is secretly thankful that they share one room so they do not have to be alone in one of those haunted rooms. Seriously, they haven`t got enough private space but that`s exactly the reason why they are closely connected with each other and are close friends in such a short time. Especially Claudia can’t stop thinking about Josh after she really saw him and spend time with him. She is attracted to him because he is friendly, a gentleman, kind and caring. She has finally really started to like Josh when he opened the door for her and it is obvious that Josh is as handsome as David Beckham. The next day they go out to meet Josh but suddenly it starts to rain heavily, again. So Josh says “Forget about the concert we need to shelter in a pub as soon as possible.“

The pub is freaky, very small, tiny even and dirty. On the other hand the people inside seem to be nice, the bartender and the workers are friendly and polite to costumers. The chairs are creaking when you sit on them and the tables are dusty. “Hey, I think Mary is here.” Josh teases the girls. The Comenius guys sit around a rickety table and enjoy their time. Meanwhile two old, dirty-looking men talk about Europe. These old men look grumpy and they are drinking ale all the time. They are wearing old fashioned clothes and they look scruffy.

The blonde one yells to the brunette one: “These bloody bastards are trying to ruin England with their stupid European rules. There is nothing good about Europe, there is nothing useful, and they he just playing with us like puppets.“ “The others countries want to press down the English power and they want to make us forget our patriotic feelings.“ Jon, Robin, Josh, Sarah, Claudia just look at each other knowingly. But Josh can’t stop himself saying something. Josh directly stands up and goes to their table. He wants to change their ideas immediately. He starts talking: “Your ideas are completely wrong. You need to listen to me. What you said is not right.“ Then he points to his friends' table, and says: “The European Union is the reason that we can come together here in England in this pub. And no matter which country we are from, no matter what nationality we are, we still can understand and respect each other. No differences are visilbe. The EU is a perfect foundation which gets people together and makes them break down their walls. It’s easier to learn about the other cultures, languages and we have fun sometimes about different languages. Let us show how wonderful working together can be!” In order to cook them a nice international meal, the students all head off to the kitchen. The landlord is rather surprised, but as Josh looks a bit like David Beckham and the landlord naturally is a football fan, he just sits there and smiles. They are working really hard when suddenly a person enters the room. He has red hair, is really tall and has a bunch of freckles. “What in the world is going on?” The group of young people looks at each other and suddenly they notice what a mess they leave in the kitchen. Kind of ashamed Josh takes charge of the situation. “I´m really sorry”, he says, “we just wanted to show these people how great it is to be in the European Union. How great it can be to work together. So we thought of doing an intercultural meal. We´re really sorry for that mess! We will clean it up immediately!” As for agreement, the pupils around him nod. On the top of that, Claudia has an idea. “Sorry, but in order to make things up with you. Can we invite you for a trip to France?” He doesn´t seem pleased. “I will report you to my father and to the police. You cannot ease me by suggesting a trip! This mess will have consequences!” With shock they look at each other. Report them? Even to the police! “Please!”, is begging Jan now. “We can assure you that a trip to Port de Bouc will calm you down! Other than here, it´s all quiet. A small pretty town with almost always good weather! Different to here!” “No! Why would I do that? The political system is nothing good over there! Even French people say that the politics are bad! It´s very racist and they are not nice. Why would you travel there anyways? You will be bullied by them. That won´t be a nice trip at all!” It seems that the kitchen has been forgotten. And Josh is grabbing on that topic. He looks a little bit angry. “You know…” - “William” – “You know, William, there are some racist parties in our system too! Did you see the election last year? Do you know who got the highest rates? It´s been UKIP! The party that is most against the European mainstream. They are racist as well! Why don’t you give it a try?” Josh seems to think about something, but before he or William can say anything, Sarah opens her mouth: “We would make sure you have transport. Just come to the station tomorrow morning at 12. We will be waiting for you. So come on guys: Let´s clean up our mess.” While they are cleaning up, William is watching them carefully, but they figure he was thinking about something. Could it be, that they convinced him? When they finish, they were all dirty. Jan shakes hands with William when William suddenly says: “You are all students? How come, that you are able to make such a trip around Europe?” Josh smiles. “Our schools gave us the option. Are you still at school? Maybe you can ask your head teacher to take part in such a program too!” William nods then he shakes his head. “I don´t think that will be possible. My school is too small to attend in such a huge project”, he says. Josh laughs. “That doesn´t matter! If you really want, you can attend. You don´t even have to have good grades.” “Well… I will talk with the people on a higher level. It would be interesting to see whether the people around the world have the same small rooms to learn and the people are as noisy as us… Well now go home, it´s already late.” Seeing him smiling in the doorway, not angry at all, made all of them happy. They know then, he will come the next day.

French Contribution Heading to south of France is such an exciting journey. When Claudia and Sarah think about France, the warm Mediterranean Sea water, the sun immediately comes to their mind and the student's fantasies were unstoppable! Traditional French men with berets and baguettes, fashionable girls, handsome boys and delicious French recipes for every meal. Claudia, Sarah, Jan, Robin, William, Josh are all bursting with impatience to arrive in Marseille station. A bus from the French school is waiting for the group and drives them right to the front door of the hotel which was larger and much more comfy than the one in Bristol, as Sarah mentions. Holly is already waiting for them in front of the hotel. Josh, the gentleman, still had her number from the trip to Port de Bouc. What a pleasure it is to glimpse the glittering waves of the Mediterranean sea again under a bright and hot sunny afternoon from the reception hall. As soon as the rooms are opened, Sarah and Claudia unpack their cases, put the swimsuit on and a towel on their shoulder and dash to the seaside to dive into the “Grande Bleue”! In no time at all, Holly has organised the perfect very first evening: cocktail evening! The group of French students were very multicultural and varied to begin with, some students were Algerian, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish origin and all of them come again to welcome their Comenius friends again. “Living together” has always been very natural among them, clearly overstepping the borders of the European Union. Yet when our European students read the papers the following morning, they are shocked by the election results: the far- right FN had done far better than it had ever expected, polling a historic 25% of votes in the European elections and becoming France's top party on the European stage. Is this, really a massive rejection of the European Union? That's what our group of students want to discover in Port de Bouc. So they start to conduct a survey in the city and visit the Mayor and the inhabitants. They come to the conclusion that people are disillusioned not only in France but across Europe and people seem to claim a cutting back in the EU powers. Claudia and Sarah update their statuses on their Facebook page and write: "Dear Europe, we are sorry!"

“But shouldn't we also do something?”, the German girls ask themselves. Sarah, Claudia, Jan, Robin and William decide to act and plan to do something very French: take part in the demonstration in Marseille to show their commitment for the European idea and of course posting it on Facebook for everyone to see. Holly really wants to take part as well and she helps them buying the tickets. Nobody in Port de Bouc train station speaks English but with Holly's help everything goes smooth. They arrive at Port de Bouc station to get the train but it is delayed by 1 hour and 30 minutes. So Holly looks so annoyed that Josh tried to make her feel happy again by telling her some stupid jokes. It really helps and even William grins a little at Josh's jokes. Moreover the weather was the worst, windy, no sun peeking out and only 20°. Josh and William are soaked when they finally enter the train. The journey takes one and a half hour and it was too late for the demonstration because in addition the train broke down. The group starts paniking as no one really knows what is going on, but Holly has everything under control. With her unresistable charm she talks to the conductor. “Hey guys” she is chirping as she is coming back from the front of the train. “Originally this train should have taken us straight to the MUCEM, the place where the demonstration was supposed to start. But as another train broke down, we should have taken a different route. Now, thanks to me, we are back on the original route, directly to the MUCEM!” “But what about the demonstration? It must be over by now!” Claudia is asking worriedly. “What about going to this museum, now that we are here?” Holly suggests. Not too happy about the alternative to a nice juicy demonstration, the group agrees, as the weather is getting worse. The museum is about the Mediterranean and its importance for the development of Europe. The building is really nice and very modern and has a kind of spiderweb structure around it. Of course, Robin is taking photos:

Not sure what to make of this, they enter the exhibition and race through it, as it is not really something for teenagers. The only thing all of them find fascinating is how the Mediterranean Sea has always been a connection between the people living at its shores rather than a thing that separates. Sitting on top of the museum, they start talking about the idea. “Building these ships, just to be in touch with the world around you, that seems so modern.”, Josh says. “Yes and what do people do today? They vote for right wing parties and want to keep our nations apart from each other.”, Robin adds. “And think about all the positive effects of trade connections we have in the EU, and people in the past also had here in the Mediterranean, this is something we should explore further!”, Jan suggests. Claudia suddenly has an idea: “Why not continuing what we began?” Everybody looks at her gaping, with open mouths. “What exactly are you saying?” Sarah asks. “What have we begun?” “Well, we haven't traveled the Mediterranean but almost all the rest of Europe, so we should continue exploring! Let's catch one of those huge ships here in Marseille and see were it takes us!” “I even have a better idea!” Jan suddenly exclaims. “Let's catch a ship to Istanbul. You have Comenius friends there, haven't you? And the video we saw in the exhibition was so promising... ” “And you already have experience in cooking, which should help you to get a job on one of those boats to get us all across.” William adds with a grin. Holly is sent to explore and to find a ship willing to accept them. As usual, she is lucky with her charm and character and soon enough they are on board of the Blue Star, a container ship under Dutch flag with a German motor and an English captain, anchoring in a French harbour. But William wishes to phone his mother to tell that he is leaving immediately and as he dials his number on Josh’s phone, he reads a terrible piece of news on her smartphone appearing: there were killings in Paris in a newspaper agency, a cold-blooded assault, a terror attack on the French Satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo” which left 12 people dead in Paris! All of our your travellers are shocked and hurt. They‘ve lost their enthusiasm for today, they write on their Facebook page “Je suis Charlie “ on their way to Turkey.

Turkish contribution The trip with the boat over the Mediterranean Sea takes them a while. It is interesting to see all those people on the boat praying every day. They are all friendly to them, but as they only speak a language from the Phillipines, it is difficult to communicate. But when they arrive in the Turkish harbor, they are welcomed by a shining sun but it was freezing cold for the Turkish autumn. Holly, who is used to the nice weather in France, suddenly wishes she had brought a warmer jacket. As they are heading to their hostel they realize that Robin lost his mobile phone. “Wait guys!”, he screams. They stop and look at him with asking looks. “What it is?”, Robin searches through his pockets again. “I think I lost my phone!” They are talking a while until they decide that it would be best to split up. Sarah, Robin and Holly go searching for the phone and the rest of them go to the hostel in order to settle down. So the three of them start to walk back the way they came. But it is no use. “Okay”, Sarah suggests, “just call your number and we will see if someone found it!” And they get lucky, someone picks up the phone. With relief Robin starts to talk immediately: “Hi, I´m Robin and I think you have my phone. You think we could meet somewhere so you can give it back to me?” “Sure…” The voice is really calm, it is hard to understand it with all the noisy sounds in the huge city. “I´m Atilla. We could meet at Taksim at the church? I will be wearing a blue shirt with stripes.” Robin agrees and they go off to meet Atilla. Robin gets his phone back and as a thank you Holly suggests to buy Atilla a coffee. He only nodds. But as they don´t know any places, Atilla is the one who brings them to a nice café. Atilla asks them where they came from and they tell him about their travel around Europe and that their origin is from Germany, the Netherlands and France. Atilla seems impressed and admitts, that his parents emigrated from Germany. Curious about his story they ask about more detail. So he tells them: “My parents are from Germany. They separately migrated to Turkey in 1989. First it was difficult for my mother’s family. They couldn’t find a job, the only house they could find to settle was little, tarnished and one side was ruined. But my father’s family was more comfortable because they had money, also they could find a job easily. Of course the immigration was difficult for them, too. But not as tough as it was on my mother’s family. Both of the families could speak Turkish fluently, that was a chance for them.” Sarah is really surprised, because she only knows of Turkish people coming to Germany. She tells that to Atilla and he says that it is almost the same. But with the difference that you usually get help from the state. After a nice chat about their families, Robin suggests for Atilla to come to their hostel to meet the rest of the international group. He agrees again with a silent nod and they make their way back. Josh welcomes them with relief. He has been worrying about them. Claudia, bored of the hostel, asks if they could do some sightseeing. But because it is too late already they just go off for a drink. After a long night, they head off to see some sights of course without catching any sleep. Atilla meets them again and shows them the way to the Blue Mosque. “Do we have to wear head scarfs?”, asks Holly suddenly. Atilla nods: “ Yes, of course!” The intererior of the mosque is overwhelming. And it is warmer than outside because it has started to snow, in autumn that is. As it is such bad weather they don´t go to the market and talk a bit more instead. “You´re still at school?”, Josh asks Atilla and he nods. “What is it like?”, Claudia asks. Atilla is thinking a moment. “It is just like the regular schools that you guys have in Germany.” Then Claudia nods. After that Atilla keeps talking, “We do wear school uniforms, though.” “Okay, but what exactly is your school like. Is it big?” Atilla is thinking a while, again, then he says that it looked like a prison. “But if you say it the nicer way, it´s a box.” They all laugh at that comment.

At the end of their trip, Atilla gives all of them a bunch of Turkish sweets and decides to come with them to their last stop. And being a resident in Istanbul, he knows two or three people who could help them. All of them are terribly short on money, so Atilla has a wonderful idea. His father's cousin has a friend who works in the harbour. So he knows which ships are going up the Danube to Vienna transporting coal or gravel. So with Atilla's help they find themselves yet again on a ship, but this time they are travelling up the longest European river, back on the way to Pforzheim. It is a hard trip, virtually no sleep, long-night talks and hard work, but it was cosy again in close quarters and Josh and Claudia found time to talk to each other for hours on end.

Last stay As soon as they arrive in after having taken the train from Vienna, they sit down on their suitcases because Claudia informs them that trains are always late in Germany. They all sigh. Sarah says it would most likely take about an hour for the train to arrive, so Josh and Holly decide it would be a good plan to have a nice walk through the center of Stuttgart to get some kebab. Sarah knows a good place to get it, but it suddenly takes a little longer than expected. The walk to the shop is about 30 minutes, but at least the kebab was amazing. Josh has a look at his watch and shouts: “Our train!!” They pack up and run but only have 20 minutes left to go back and catch the train. Jan and Robin have trouble catching up with the rest, so they are running really hard. They are approaching the Stuttgart train station and start running harder, puffing, leaving screaming people behind they have accidentally pushed over. They rush up and down the stairs until suddenly they hear a familiar voice moaning in pain. Atilla turns around and sees that William has fallen from the stairs. He helps him up and they start running again to catch up with the others. As they arrive to the platform, the last thing they see are the red lights at the end of the train.

It took them quite a while, but they finally make it to Pforzheim. Three hours late, though. Anything bad that could’ve happened, really happened on this whole trip. They hope for some good luck, but as they leave the train station, they are overwhelmed by the ugliness of the city. “I don’t know what happened here, but it wasn’t good for sure.” Holly says. Claudia laughs, but pulls a serious face quickly afterwards. “Pforzheim was actually bombed during the Second World War. It took us a long time to rebuild everything. They had to build a lot of houses for the people who had lost their homes and it didn’t matter whether they were pretty or not.” Holly feel ashamed after her comment but Claudia just waves it away. “You know, this bombing happened during the last war and Germany certainly did its best to be the 'bad guy'.“ “Do you learn anything about that time in school?” Atilla asks. “I can tell you, loads and loads. In almost every subject. With the Comenius project we even went to a concentration camp close to Pforzheim, to Vaihingen. Do you remember?” “Yes, I do.” Robin said. “I thought we would be seeing the buildings and maybe a graveyard but it think the visit was much more than that. The video that was shown to us had a big impact, just like the things the guide told and showed us. Even though it’s not a ‘fun’ thing to do I think it’s cool that it was in the program. It reminds me to value the little things in life.” They all look a bit downcast so Claudia again takes the initative: “Let’s do something fun to cheer all of you up.” “What about a campfire? We’ve gone through so much together, why not give it a nice ending?” Robin suggests. Everyone nods in agreement. “I’ll bring the marshmallows!” Atilla laughs, finally. That night, they all get together in a park besides the Enz. The fire is bright in front of them so they can see each other as the shadows from the trees around flickered over their faces. “You remember that stupid Dixi toilet?”, Jan suddenly asks looking at Robin. They barely could see him turning red. “Yeah! It was almost as dark in there as here!”, he answers and the whole group is laughing. During their time at the camp fire, not only memories of Robin come up again. They tell Atilla how they almost ruined the kitchen of Williams pub, who still is making jokes about reporting them. Then they repeat the story of the scary hostel even though Sarah and Claudia don´t want to hear it again. Doing some sausages and marshmallows that they had bought earlier on the day, they are really having a great day. And as it is so warm, which is not very usual for Germany, that Josh, Robin and Jan decide to walk in the water of the Enz. They have a lot of fun and were able to forget all the troubles they had. Sarah even suggests to sleep on the meadow but they decide a Hostel would be better. The next day they had to go home again. Even if it was hard to say goodbye, they remembera wonderful time together and agree to stay in touch.

And here we leave our group of friends to avoid teary goodbyes and dramatic scenes at train stations. After their trip around Europe they surely experienced national identities, a great variety of history and culture and but most and for all European friendship.