More German than many Germans

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In 2017, after I finished the third year of my Computer Science studies, I decided to do an internship in Europe. So while I was applying for the Erasmus Scholarship, I also started looking for internships. In the end I got the scholarship, which helped a lot with the visa process, and I also found an internship at a company in Hamburg.<br>I had never been outside of Turkey before. So I had also never really talked to people from other countries. What I knew about Germans came mostly from the Turkish people who moved to Germany in the 60s for work. Those people came back to Turkey almost every summer and told us about their life there. Most of what they said was the same as what you can read on the internet, the stereotypical German.<br>People who don't laugh, who are cold and unfriendly, who always follow the rules, who speak a language that sounds too harsh, and so on. And of course, someone always brings up the Nazis.<br>Apart from the people I talked to in the interviews, my first real contact was my German flatmate. Before I arrived he showed me the room on Skype and we agreed on it. When I landed in Hamburg, he picked me up from the airport. That was a great start, and during my three months there we chatted in the kitchen almost every evening for half an hour.<br>I had a lot of questions for him and he always answered them properly. On the weekends he picked up his girlfriend and they either stayed home or went rowing. Their relationship looked very healthy to me. She was studying medicine, so sometimes she was working at her desk on a Saturday while my flatmate played Witcher 3 right next to her. I never heard them argue about anything.<br>Near the end of my internship he told me that he and his girlfriend were going to Africa, so I would be alone in the flat for a week. When I asked him what I should do with the keys, he just said to drop them in the mailbox. That much trust after such a short time really surprised me.<br>We had a last dinner together and I told him things were going well at the company and there was a chance I could come back to Hamburg.<br>I was lucky with my flatmate and I was also lucky at work. I had a great team. They taught me new things, gave me responsibilities the other summer interns didn't get, and included me in all the team events. The offsite we had outside the city is something I still remember today. And I was getting all of this while earning minimum wage.<br>My first offsite eventI was really surprised by how friendly everyone was. We weren't just working, we were having fun. Everything I had heard about Germans until that point was gone. It was the best summer of my life.<br>My lead was happy with my work and offered me a job right away. I could work as a freelancer from Turkey while finishing my studies, and if they were happy with my performance I would get a full-time contract. That is what happened.<br>Coming back<br>In April 2018 I got my contract, even before I finished my studies. The next month something nice happened. My German flatmate emailed me and asked when I was coming back, because he already had a room for me for the summer. The company was going to give me a place to stay, but I couldn't say no to him. Right after my last exam, before I even had my diploma, I moved to Hamburg at the end of June and started working full time with the same team, living with the same flatmate.<br>On my first day there were candies and balloons on my desk. Everybody was happy to see me again. One colleague who knew my interest in Apple gave me a German flag pin he got at WWDC18. He said he tried to swap it for a Turkish flag but couldn't manage it. I was already happy with the gift, because it meant he was thinking about me while he was in California.<br>My deskWhen you start living in Germany you have to register your address. When I went to the public office, the clerk told me I had already lived in Hamburg before. I said I had done a summer internship a year earlier. He just said: Welcome back!<br>That was the moment I felt like I was coming home, not moving to a new country.<br>The first years<br>My first months were mostly about finding a flat and figuring out how things work here. Since my German wasn't good enough, my colleagues came with me to flat viewings after work. When I had a problem with my electricity provider, a colleague came along and did all the talking. When I moved to a different place a year later, a German colleague rented a van and helped me carry everything.<br>At the time, the company was one of the biggest internet companies here, with around 2.000 people. Sometimes I saw the C-level in the kitchen getting their own coffee or even washing their own glasses. They had assistants, but the assistants helped with work instead of acting like servants. We also had a CFO who rode a very old bike to the office.<br>Whenever we had a team event or an offsite, the organisers made sure they knew everyone's dietary needs. Vegan, vegetarian, halal, no alcohol,...