Munich! (Fulbright Alumni Welcome Meeting)
This past weekend the German Fulbright Alumni Association held their opening event in Munich. The conference was an opportunity for fellow German AND American Fulbrighters to come together over a weekend and network in a fun and sociable way. No brainer - I signed up as soon as I could.
Getting there was quite the adventure. I traveled from Bonn with another Fulbrighter to Munich via train, which was risky enough (see my previous posts re Germany’s public transport system), but this time also meant we were traveling on a Friday the 13th. Since I’ve always considered 13 to be a lucky number to me, however, I tried to refrain from delving into superstition...until the first train was delayed by several minutes. We checked our route and noticed we had to transfer to several other trains to get to Munich, meaning if we missed our first connection the whole itinerary would be doomed. As luck would have it, however, all of our connections were delayed that day, so we made it to Munich without missing a single train (though 35 minutes later than we’d hoped - you can’t win em all I guess).
The welcome meeting/wine reception was held that night. It was great opportunity to relax and meet new people, as well as to hear interesting stories from the leaders of the Fulbright program. The president of the German Fulbright Commission, as well as a member of the U.S. Consulate in Munich were there to welcome us and remind us of our roles in helping to maintain the strong German-American relationship. Pizza was also served towards the end of the night, which was a massive hit.
The next day featured the main events of the weekend: a keynote speech by the same officer from the U.S. Consulate (who had some really amazing stories to share regarding his travels), several short talks from former Fulbrighters (including two Germans who interned at Google), workshops and, crucially, a party in downtown Munich. I’m normally not one to enjoy conferences with hundreds attendees, but it quickly became clear that this was no ordinary conference. Rather, it was more of a gathering of people across nations who shared something very special and relatable. Between the ice breaker games, entertaining workshops and amazing people present at the conference, I hardly noticed the time flying by. It was a fantastic experience, and I made connections and friends that day with whom I hope to stay in contact with for the duration of my time in Germany.
Because of a combination of early trains and hardcore partying, many of the attendees were absent during the Sunday portion of the conference. They missed out, however, as the day was devoted to holding an incredibly fun and informative “Un-Conference.” A normal conference entails a crowd of people listening to a select number of speakers for hours at a time - frankly, a horrible way to intake new information (as scientific research has historically indicated). An Un-Conference, however, does the opposite: anyone in the audience can come up with a topic, propose it to the audience, and, if accepted, will be discussed in a group by those interested in the topic. In total, nine Fulbrighters proposed and moderated discussions about everything from language-learning to politics to national identity. Though it was the first Un-Conference in the history of the German Fulbright Alumni Association, it was ultimately a major success, and in my opinion was the single most fun event of the entire weekend.
And with that, the conference was over! I took a tour of the city of Munich with some other Fulbrighters afterwards, hopped on a train headed back to Bonn and am now resuming my life as an ETA. I had an amazing time getting to know so many new people, reuniting with old friends and just having a fun and memorable weekend in Munich in general, and I can’t wait to go to the next GFAA conference next year.
If you’d like to see pictures from that weekend and/or hear my most epic train story to date, please consult my previous posts below. Until next time!
