You would think that after 20 years of constant travelling, I’d be ready to move to a new country. That would be an incorrect thought.
I just recently returned from a backpacking trip in Vietnam; it was the most stunning, fulfilling yet terrifying thing I have ever done in my life (see pictures below). Yet here I am now, sitting in my room, trying to figure out if I have everything sorted to move to the country next door.
Between the paperwork, the packing, the procrastinating and the subsequent stressing I think it’s safe to say my plate has been full this summer. (more on the application process in my next post)
This might all seem completely out of context to you, so I think it’s time I gave a bit of information regarding the brain behind these words:
My name is Alex(andre) Laval and I am a 20-year-old Business & Management student. I was born in Watford, UK but did not stay long enough to consider myself British by any means. In fact, I spent most of my life travelling through France, Australia and the United States before coming back to the UK for university. Officially (as in according to my passports), I am French and Dutch. Weird, I know. And in about 6 days, I will be flipping the page again and moving to Cologne, Germany.
That aside, I am very much into anything that has to do with distraction and entertainment. I love photography, I love watching / making movies and I strongly believe music and books give you something that nothing else in this world can. I guess we could also say I love travelling seeing how often I find myself on a plane or on a train, in a car or more recently on a motorbike; maybe I’m just addicted to the adrenaline of adventure?
Regardless, I am officially moving to Deutschland as they say, and I have no doubt that it will be exactly that: an adventure.
You can count on me to express down to the most minute details the best and worst moments, touching on a whole range of themes from the application process / arrival to actually being in the country as well as whatever I find myself getting into once there. If you have any special requests or specific questions you would like me to answer, feel free to email me at ‘alexandre.laval@durham.ac.uk’ or contact me through my Instagram which is @alex_laval (expect many many pictures there as well!)
My next post will most likely cover the application process / packing and arrival in Germany – tune in for that, it’ll totally be worth it.
On that note, I bid you all farewell and look forward to writing you all for the coming year! Bis Bald! (that’s ‘see you later’ in German)
Durham Students Abroad 