Am I A Journalist Now?

I came back from Dresden last week and since then it's been complete chaos as I've been trying to sort accomodation and other things out. It seems like the to-do list never gets any shorter- and no sooner have I checked one item off the list, than I find another ten that I need to add to it. If only I'd known how much work was involved in planning a year abroad...

Good news though- my trip to Dresden was a success. Trying to fit everything I needed- and wanted- to do into just four days was a difficult task, but somehow I managed to combine flat viewings with meeting editors and even found some time to slot in some sightseeing. I saw three flats while I was over there, and the thing that struck me about all of them was how nice they were, and really spacious. All of the rooms I saw were the size of an average living room. In the end I decided on a nice flat right next to a tram stop. I'll be renting a room of the second floor of an apartment building and living with other students from Dresden, though unfortunately they were all out when I went to view the flat. The girl whose room I'm having is going to France for a semester as part of her degree in Art and French, and she was really nice.

The room itself is pretty big, and very light. This was important to me, as I'd spent my first year in uni accomodation with an awful skylight window thing in the roof, and it was always dark in there because it was an attic room. I like to people watch out of the window with a cup of tea- a hard task when the only thing you can see are tree branches and clouds, if you were lucky. Plus I used to get loads of woodlice crawling in through the cracks around the window, which I had to fill in with Blu-tack. Having a skylight was definitley a no-no for me.

But back to the flat. Melanie said that she would leave the furniture for me while she went away, which was good. Most flats in Germany are unfurnished, and my finances wouldn't be able to stretch to buying a new bed. Luckily I've got one of those, plus a futon for guests, and I even have a table and chairs in there. It's a bit out of my price range at 244 euros a month without bills and extras, but as I only have it until March, I can always find somewhere cheaper when I move out.

The deposit was initially set at 150 euros, which was fine. But when I arrived home Melanie said that she'd had to recalculate and the deposit would now be 300 euros, given that I would be keeping the furniture. This worried me a bit, because my finances aren't that great at the moment and I wasn't sure if I could stretch to it. But I wasn't in a position to argue, and although I know I get the money back at the end of the tenancy, I've had to cut right back to afford it. I've managed to scrape the money together, but it's worked out a lot more expensive than I expected, since the bank charged me nearly £30 because I had to pay the deposit into Melanie's German bank account by bank transfer. The whole process takes 7-10 days and took ages to sort out, because Melanie had to get loads of ID numbers and codes from her bank so I could fill out the forms. This is no simple account number and sort code job, oh no. If England had the euro, it would definitely make my life a lot easier for sure. But I have my housing contract now though, which is good news, and I'm moving in on the 1st October.

But as usual, for every good piece of information, there's bad news too. The first being that a few days before I left for Dresden, my boss at Skunk emailed me a press release from Dresden airport saying that as of October this year, they were not going to be runnning the British Airways London Gatwick to Dresden flights anymore. Though this doesn't affect me directly, I was pretty annoyed at the losing the option of flying from Gatwick as it's a direct flight. I flew from Birmingham and changed at Düsseldorf this time, which wasn't too bad, but the problem with connecting flights is you either end up spending hours being bored in an airport waiting for the next flight, or you end up legging it, trying to get to the next departure gate in time. I'm not a fan of either, but now I have no choice. Still, it's better than nothing.

The second piece of bad news is that I got an email from the university this week about my Erasmus grant. Last year, students working abroad received 490 euros a month, and predictions for this year's amount were based on that figure and it was estimated that it may even rise. Did it hell. Turns out that we get half of that this year- I'll be getting 250 euros a month. I was definitely gutted. I know it sounds selfish, but given that my placement is unpaid, I desperately needed the money. It could be worse, and apparently the reason that it's so low is because there has been an increase in the number of students on the Erasmus scheme. Not that this has made me feel any better. I'm just crossing my fingers that it'll all workout- and moving into a cheaper flat in March is something that I'll definitely have to give some thought to. I do get my student loan, but it probably won't cover everything.

But when I met up with my editor at Skunk, I was reminded of why I'm doing all of this. Luckily my work contract surfaced a few days before I left for Dresden, and I'll be working from 10am-4pm each day in the office, but afterwards will be expected to attend events like press conferences, film screenings, concerts, etc. As well as writing for Skunk, we also contribute to the Dresdner Pressepost (a newspaper focussed on the developments and happenings in the media in Desden) and Die Schwarzen Seiten, another magazine aimed at young people, so it's not like I'll be bored. My travel is free, as I'll be expected to cover events from all over Saxony as the magazine is available all over- places like Leipzig, Chemnitz, Halle and so on- so I'll have to cover events everywhere. He also explained that they run a Christmas market in Freiburg, which I'll have to help with, and they run concerts once a year for students.

It sounded so much more interesting than anything any of my friends were doing. Because as much as I envied my coursemates who were earning real salaries at places like Siemens or Daimler Chrysler, I could think of nothing worse than sitting in front of a computer all day, entering figures into spreadsheets and talking about car parts. And when my editor told me to make sure I had an up-to-date passport because the Skunk staff often got expenses-paid holidays abroad for travel features, I knew I was doing something that other people can only dream of.

I also had a meeting with the deputy editor of the Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten that week. I got in contact with the newspaper, which has the biggest circulation of all the regionals in Dresden, just before I came to Dresden to look into doing some freelance work. We discussed some feature ideas and I was happy to find that I would be paid for my contributions. It's per word, so it probably won't work out to be very much, but it's a start. I took my portfolio, which he appeared to be impressed by, and he seemed quite keen to get me on board, suggesting I write about how I'm finding life in Dresden. I agreed to get in contact when I move to Dresden to start writing properly for them.

I've found it quite odd that, after applying for hundreds of work experience placements in the UK and relentlessly trying to sell freelance articles without much success, I've found it so easy to get work in Germany. I think the novelty of being English has definitely worked in my favour. Both of the editors didn't seem too worried that my German is far from perfect either. In England, you wouldn't even stand a chance if you didn't speak and write like a native speaker. But on the plus side, at least I'll be keeping their proofreaders in a job...

There's just one thing I've been wondering.

Does this all mean I can class myself as a journalist now?!