How to Hochschule VOICES - Tim Berger, Felix Florath and Johann Alexander Betker

How to Hochschule VOICES - Tim, Felix and Johann

00:00:00: Stephan Hanf: Welcome to How to Hochschule VOICES, the latest series from the How to Hochschule team. In this monthly bonus feature to the main podcast, you will find full length interviews, individual stories, and a collection of conversations with people from Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Kleve, Kamp-Lintfort, and the entire Lower Rhine region.

00:00:30: Stephan Hanf: In this episode of Voices, a companion piece to our last episode, How to Find Friends. We meet three students and talk about their experiences of finding a new home in a unique shared flat on the outskirts of Kleve.

00:00:48: Tim: I'm Tim. I am living in Cleaver since three and a half years, and I studied at Hochschule Rhein-Waal, Sustainable Tourism, and currently writing my Bachelor. Yeah. And living in Drususdeich.

00:01:03: Johann: I'm Johann. I'm studying psychology with a focus on cognitive neuroscience at Radboud University in Nijmegen, I'm doing a research master and I'm now about to finish my research project and I also live at Drususdeich.

00:01:17: Felix: And I'm Felix. I'm in Kleve since September, 2018. I'm studying biomaterials and um, I used to be the futsal coach in for the university Hochschulsport. Unfortunately, my season was not the most successful one, but nowadays they're very successful again. But I also live at Drususdeich, with the other two. We've got a little bit of our intake about how to find people in Kleve.

00:01:43: Stephan Hanf: Normally,

00:01:44: Stephan Hanf: you don't hear from living communities so much because there are a lot of them probably in Kleve, you never know, but we heard from you before. Not only because you live above a cheese museum, that's crazy enough. But the whole arrangement is interesting. So maybe one of you can say what this, and then we jump into how you met

00:02:02: Stephan Hanf: each other.

00:02:02: Felix: Alright. So the

00:02:03: Felix: house is a very special house. It's built in the 1860s, so it's an old castle. That's probably the best description for it. It's got an old tower. You've got, I think it's 12 to 14 rooms in total. And we've got 12 rooms occupied at the moment, so it's a big house, big front lawn with fruit trees, old big trees in the front yard, 150 horses, as you said, the cheese museum in the basement.

00:02:29: Tim: The horses

00:02:29: Tim: are a big part of it as

00:02:30: Tim: well.

00:02:31: Felix: Yeah, the horses are a big part. Even though we don't have any responsibilities for the horses, we're able to go up and cuddle with them, and we've got a lot of interactions with people, locals from Kleve who bring their horses

00:02:43: Felix: there.

00:02:43: Tim: It's a residence for horses.

00:02:45: Tim: So old and disabled horses come there and people bring their old and disabled horses or just in general their horse to stay on the ground around our house. And there are people coming from our landlord, which are taking care of them by feeding them and yeah,

00:03:02: Tim: a rehabilitation.

00:03:03: Tim: Yeah. And in away, but actually the whole area around the house is a natural reservoir.

00:03:09: Tim: And they're reserved. We are quite lucky that we have a lot of unoccupied lakes and fields and beautiful landscape and nature around our house, which we can basically just reach by via walking right by the, the Rhine River. Yeah, by the Rhine River. First hundred Warmth. Yeah.

00:03:26: Felix: Five kilometers from the border away, so Nijmegen is reachable by bike within 45 minutes to an

00:03:32: Felix: hour.

00:03:33: Tim: And we are still cycling like 10 minutes to uni.

00:03:36: Tim: Yeah. So we are also living central, but also really far away from normal society, I would say. Yeah. Yeah.

00:03:44: Tim: We've had a lot of people coming from the city, from Bochum, 'cause we've got a couple of people from Bochum living in our house and when they bring their friends, it's, they're opening up to nature and we're like, all right.

00:03:55: Tim: It's pure the farm. Pure vacation mode. Vacation mode. Yeah.

00:04:00: Stephan Hanf: I

00:04:00: Stephan Hanf: think that that's really interesting. 'cause normally when you think about, uh, student communities living in an apartment that's like, The opposite because I was there once. It was completely the opposite that you normally expect.

00:04:12: Tim: It was a hunting house.

00:04:13: Tim: I think the hunter used to live there and he shot deers and all other sorts of animals in the area and put them up on the wall. So we have huge heads of deers on the wall, close under big old pictures. Yeah. They are quite ancient. I would say three to five meters long and

00:04:33: Tim: really.

00:04:34: Felix: There was a guy the other four weeks

00:04:36: Felix: ago, a local from Kleve. He knew something about the artist. Apparently he's like a, an artist from Munich and this is the only painting he did, which is in NRW and saw it in a museum somewhere. Photo of the

00:04:49: Felix: painting.

00:04:50: Tim: And that's really interesting actually, also about the cheese museum.

00:04:53: Tim: Maybe an interesting fact is that the old people who lived there, they brought the recipe for gouda from Holland to this house and they started to produce the Dutch way of making gouda in our house. Like basically in the beginning they brought the recipe for gouda in the Niederrhein, and then also into Germany, which is also quite a interesting fact, origins of gouda, origins of German gouda is coming from our house.

00:05:22: Tim: Yeah. And there are still, sometimes in the summer there are old people who just come in the house 'cause they don't realize, ah, there's actually people living inside and then we are in the kitchen and making a coffee or whatever. And then they're just a bunch of old people who come in the kitchen and think it's a museum and they just walk around and they're like, oh, ah.

00:05:41: Tim: And then they realize, ah, there's actually people living here. And yeah, it's, there has been a couple of weird situations, especially for the older people around here. It's quite a. Monument to visit on the summer bike tour, I would say.

00:05:56: Johann: But to

00:05:56: Johann: be fair, it's not really clear from the website that you can only visit the cheese museum

00:06:00: Johann: with an appointment.

00:06:01: Tim: I mean,

00:06:02: Tim: everyone is welcome in our house. Exactly. Give us a look and you'll get a coffee. We, yeah, we are always very happy to see new faces around and that's also what we want to create in the future is like a place where also students can come by and start volunteering or just have a place to hang out to meet each other, have nice events together and just, yeah, have a nice student time in general.

00:06:24: Stephan Hanf: And I think

00:06:25: Stephan Hanf: what's really important to mention that it's completely private, so it's not from the university, it's not a fraternity. Some students live in old houses ah sounds like fraternity. No it isn't. It's completely private. So maybe you can tell me how you

00:06:37: Stephan Hanf: find each other.

00:06:38: Felix: It's quite a dynamic process.

00:06:39: Felix: I would describe it as, I think there was a big shift in the house when I think Tim and I. Uh, moved in about two years ago.

00:06:47: Tim: April, 2021.

00:06:48: Felix: Yeah, April 21 because we met with Andy, one of our housemates, Chris, one of the housemates who were living there for a longer term, and they had the vision of a living community

00:07:00: Felix: where you sort through the people, you have a kind of process to evaluate who fits the house, who doesn't, and then create projects where you enable people to come up with a vision. Let's say I want to plant a field in the garden. And we sorted people by criteria like that. There's a lot of rooms occupied and then they get free again, and then eventually people like it that

00:07:23: Felix: much that they stay longer.

00:07:24: Tim: Yeah, that's was what, when we entered the house, it was like not a shared flat. It was more like people are in their rooms separately and they don't even know the names of each other and they just use this beautiful house as just a living place. When we moved there, we said to Andy and the other guys, let's make something special out of this.

00:07:46: Tim: 'cause the potential is just so high. And since we moved there, we brought color in the house and we said, okay, let's choose the people who come here. Let's do some things together. I work at Tafel also Felix as well. Since three years. We get a lot of food by them. We also have Verteile or food sharing, which we use, and also the field in the garden provides us with, with vegetables and all sorts of things which we can share together.

00:08:13: Tim: That's like the whole idea that we have. A lot of things . Tools, kitchen, utensils anything which we everyone brings and we all use it together and share it and share the costs as well. And we have this vision of creating this community place for not only people who live there, also for people who come from the outside and meet there.

00:08:34: Tim: It became one of the biggest party locations in Kleve. Like when we make a party or we announce a party, we are sure there will be at least 100 people, 150 people who come there even when we don't send an invitation. 'cause it's just mouth. Mouth to mouth. Yeah. And you

00:08:50: Tim: can also accommodate the amount of people.

00:08:52: Tim: That's when you have a flat in the inside the Oberstadt, in 150 people in your flat, you're gonna have the cops there within. At 10 o'clock sharp, and that's something we can accommodate. We can have a party with 400 people over a whole weekend, where if we're in good contact with the landlords, there's no neighbors, and the next neighbors are two and a half kilometers away.

00:09:12: Tim: You have a chat with them. It might be more noisy this weekend or. Then we've never had big trouble with the police.

00:09:19: Tim: No. They came at some parties, of course, but they always come. They always come. But the reason by their rules, they, and it's all fine. Yeah.

00:09:26: Johann: And they're not always come. They came the last party, but the last

00:09:31: Tim: before that they went there, the two or three we

00:09:33: Johann: had before the.

00:09:35: Johann: Right. Any

00:09:35: Johann: police?

00:09:36: Tim: We still have one neighbor. It's the house. It's the big house where the tower as well is, it's the house where we live in and next to it's like a small farmhouse where there's currently a family living and yeah, we heard a miscommunication with them. Yeah. We had some sort of miscommunication and in the end they were the ones complaining about the noise, which is understandable.

00:09:55: Tim: Yeah. But yeah, the, the house is also being rented. Two families and they wanna move out now again, and we, it would be beautiful to get students as well in that house,

00:10:07: Felix: But it's a little different. It's 140 square meter and you can't really rent it out separately.

00:10:12: Tim: Yeah,

00:10:13: Tim: like a full house. Yeah. Yeah.

00:10:14: Stephan Hanf: Do you like

00:10:15: Stephan Hanf: announce that there's a free room?

00:10:16: Stephan Hanf: How does it work?

00:10:17: Tim: Yeah, can do you understand, since you were the last one

00:10:20: Tim: to

00:10:20: Tim: jump.

00:10:20: Johann: It was basically at the casting. In autumn 2021, I was searching for a new accomodation because I wanted to move out from the student dorm in Nijmegen, but I still had time and so I looked around quite calmly. Also in several cities in Germany, also in Goch and in

00:10:42: Johann: Kleve and via WG-Gesucht I came to this house and then I came by one evening with beer and we had dinner together, and afterwards we went to a house party and then I slept there and drove home at the next day, and one week later I moved in.

00:11:01: Felix: Yeah. That can turn

00:11:03: Felix: on very, that's when the WG

00:11:04: Felix: casting goes well fro. Right.

00:11:07: Felix: He fits.

00:11:08: Felix: Yeah, he

00:11:09: Felix: fits.

00:11:10: Johann: I brought beer. Yeah. There's always a good start.

00:11:14: Tim: Yeah. I wasn't even there when Johan came, but I knew he was the right fit for the house. Right fit for the house when I met him

00:11:21: Tim: first.

00:11:22: Felix: And for you, it was also quite funny because you were shifting rooms quite a bit

00:11:25: Felix: at the beginning.

00:11:26: Tim: Yes. Yeah, he was living in my room 'cause I was in Georgia last year and then I was just, yeah, there's this guy, he moves in and he's just living in your room now and I'm just, yeah.

00:11:35: Johann: No, first of all, I

00:11:36: Johann: lived in Andy's room.

00:11:37: Tim: True.

00:11:37: Johann: And then when you went to Georgia, I moved into your room.

00:11:40: Tim: Oh yeah. Yeah, I remember.

00:11:42: Johann: And then I moved into my room, which is now my final one. Yeah.

00:11:46: Stephan Hanf: Three rooms. Not bad.

00:11:47: Tim: Yeah, three rooms. Not bad at all. Yeah. And Felix, I was meeting in my first days in Kleve actually. And when I came here, I had no flat as well, and I didn't know anyone. I was just coming here. You just had a backpack? I just had a backpack basically, and I was rocking over campus and I just thought, okay, I might just camp in the forest tonight.

00:12:06: Tim: It was, yeah, I had everything from sleeping outside. It was the welcome week. I was also not quite sure if I should start studying here, and I was like, I got this vibe. I get out of the train, it's raining in Kleve and, you get this weird feeling inside of you. Maybe it's not the right decision I'm doing right now.

00:12:25: Tim: And then I was just walking over campus and there was some people playing football and one guy shot the ball in my direction and I was kicking it and the ball flew like straight into Spoy. And so the guy who shot the ball to me, And I am me who shot the ball in Spoy, we're responsible to get the ball back.

00:12:45: Tim: And the guy who shot the ball was Felix. And then I was, we tried to get this, catch this ball out of the Spoy, and I somehow just asked him if I could stay on his couch for the night. And he said, yeah, sure. And then I slept at his couch for one night. It. Should have been one night only, but it's in the end. It were like two months.

00:13:02: Felix: Yeah. Then he moved into our basement, 'cause that was free at some point.

00:13:06: Tim: We became really good friends since then. And then after two months I moved into my own flat here in Emmericher Straße, which was an experience, but I thought already when I moved in, it's not gonna be for long term. And I found out about the house after

00:13:23: Tim: I dunno. I think before we moved in I was already there once and it was a super funny day 'cause I learned about the house and then I moved there with Felix. Just, we went there with a bicycle to look at the place and then the landlord already came and contracts in his hand, but there was only one room, two

00:13:44: Tim: people moving, and we both signed our contracts, but there was only room, so we had to do rock, paper, scissors who gets the room.

00:13:50: Tim: Yeah, we

00:13:51: Tim: then I had the situation again where I was staying on Felix's couch for a month again. And the guys who were my

00:14:00: Johann: And you had the hope

00:14:01: Johann: that you would get rid of it. Yeah. Finally having a room for one's own.

00:14:05: Tim: And then, yeah, again, there's this guy on the couch. But yeah, I got my room and I got my contract and since then, yeah, we are living very happily in this place and I'm calling it already my home 'cause I'm not, I've come from quite far away and it's really nice to have a place where you can root.

00:14:25: Tim: Root

00:14:25: Tim: down.

00:14:26: Felix: We

00:14:26: Felix: even have people who are gone from Kleve now because they're doing separate things, but they like the house so much that they're keeping the room and sub renting it through us, that they don't lose the connection and that we have the freedom to not have to deal with the landlords who comes into the house, but that we can do it ourselves.

00:14:43: Felix: I think the ideal situation when you have people who want to stay connected, even though they do not have a connection physically anymore.

00:14:52: Tim: Yeah. The thing is, we. Have specific ideas of type of people that we want in the house. So we looking for people who are interested in the projects which we have already built or start building.

00:15:05: Tim: So we have this project going on with one of my roommates where we make fermented drinks called kombucha, and it's basically a fermentation process which takes 10 days and it's a mushroom fermenting in black tea and sugar. And we produce these drinks in quite a frequent time. So we have all 10 days we get 12 liters of fresh kombucha concentration, which we then put in a second fermentation with all sorts of fruits and tastes to make a drink out of it.

00:15:39: Tim: And the idea is also of the projects, which we want to start the summer with the movie nights, to also sell some of our homemade drinks, and maybe we also, we'll have food in that time. We have a lot of ideas of also creating and selling food, which we. Do it our own. We made chocolate one time. We created now this syrup out of flowers from the garden.

00:16:05: Tim: And we have amazing ideas. And if you are also in the summer, you know you will be in Kleve and you have nice ideas as well, feel free to come by and visit us and help us finalizing your project or help us finalizing one of our projects. 'cause we really need volunteers on people who are desperate and also willing to help.

00:16:27: Tim: It's.

00:16:28: Johann: Reframe the

00:16:29: Johann: desperate finalize our project. Yeah. Help us. It sounds a bit like, come by and do my

00:16:36: Johann: coating.

00:16:37: Tim: No, not in that way. We cannot pay you yet with money. We can pay you with hugs and uh, beer kombucha. Exactly. But yeah, that's one of the projects we are doing in the house and we also try to sell it, but it's quite hard to put it out, for example, in the supermarket chain.

00:16:54: Tim: It's more like that. Mostly for our own consumption. Yeah, it's own consumption. We bring it to friends and people who are interested in it, and if you are interested in starting a kombucha as well in Kleve, we are the right house. We can't got a whole lot of scoby. We got a whole lot of scoby, which is the fermentation starter, which you put in black tea.

00:17:15: Tim: sugar.

00:17:15: Felix: Should say

00:17:16: Felix: scoby. Symbiotic. Yeah. Culture of bacteria

00:17:19: Felix: at least.

00:17:20: Tim: Yeah. And

00:17:21: Tim: that's one of many projects which we are doing in the house right now. Uh, ideas like this, we want to create more and push, and if you have another idea or project in your mind, we can maybe help you with, um, and also come with an open mindset and think, okay, I want to have you guys with a garden, for example.

00:17:39: Tim: We have a big field in the garden, which needs some attention of people taking care of it. And we need also people who have a sense of also sharing things and cooking together, making music sessions. We have a lot of instruments in the house, which are quite interesting for musicians as well. And we have gaming sessions, board games, wood of course, woodworking, hardworking.

00:18:01: Tim: We have a big garden which we could use. We have a fire space, we have an idea. And now in the summer to make movie nights, open air movie nights. We want to buy a Beamer. That's also like, When it comes to things like buying things, we want to also share the costs around the house. So you should also be o open to giving some of your money.

00:18:20: Tim: We don't want you to pay a lot of things, but when we have big projects like movie night, open air, things, we want to. Creating it together also. Yeah.

00:18:31: Felix: And our sorting process then would be to invite you to a dinner. Yeah. That's our preferred way. We'll usually have a common dinner every evening and just whenever you have time you come by.

00:18:42: Felix: Yeah. And then we would have a chat with you, confront you with the ideas we have. If you've got any ideas yourself. You happy to?

00:18:50: Tim: We don't force anyone to live in our form of way. It's more, more just we want some. Open-minded people who bring some new ideas and who just not just come here, come in our place to consume and,

00:19:02: Felix: and have

00:19:03: Felix: a common energy, a, a drive to get the same projects done and be on eye level on what you want the place to go towards.

00:19:10: Felix: Because in the last couple of years before we took charge of the energy and where the house goes, it was mainly the situation as Tim said, that, People are living separately, and the common places were very neglected. You couldn't really live in the house. I would say it's got a lot of faults because it's an old house and it's so far away, and the way we made it livable was by taking charge of these faults ourselves and not just sit back and stick to our own room and leave the responsibility to the landlord that he has to fix this huge

00:19:43: Felix: project

00:19:44: Felix: by himself.

00:19:45: Tim: Which he's not doing. I think he would like to completely renovate it, but he cannot. And now we have an electricity problem since two months now, or I think three months, three or even three months, nearly beginning. 'cause the building is so old that the electricity cables are still like, really the old ones we made out of cotton?

00:20:04: Tim: Yeah, it's, it's, I'm not sure. Yeah. And it's cotton wrapped wire. Cotton wrapped wire. And you have the problem. That it starts at some point touching each other and then it starts burning. Yeah. And we had a sparkling night, three months, three months ago, a couple of smells, and then people woke up because of the smell.

00:20:22: Tim: And then it turned out that the whole upper floor had no more electricity. And now we. Took the electricity from downstairs and wired it up outside of the wall. And now the landlord as well, he's like kind of thinking, oh, maybe I should start renovating now. And he started now renovating the attic and putting new cables, which will take.

00:20:44: Tim: Like two more month in my opinion. Maybe more we don't know. Yeah.

00:20:48: Felix: So the house is a work in progress. Yeah. If you constantly evolving. Yeah. If you have

00:20:53: Felix: experience in any kind of craft, steel craft, you woodworking craft, whatever, you're definitely a welcome site at our house because we've

00:21:01: Felix: always got

00:21:02: Felix: projects.

00:21:04: Felix: It's, no, it never gets boring. We've got a guy from Cameroon, we've got a girl from Jamaica. We've got a girl. She's got Spanish and Panamanian

00:21:12: Felix: roots.

00:21:12: Tim: Yeah, a guy from Romania. One half Russian.

00:21:16: Felix: I

00:21:16: Felix: think the reason the house works is that there's not just students. You don't have one single dynamic in the house, I think the amount of students is like six students or something.

00:21:27: Felix: The rest is either working or doing something completely different, and that's why you don't get into the sluggish rhythm of everybody leaving the house at the same time. Everybody having the same rhythm. It's very broken up. We've got people leaving the house at 4:30. We've got people going to bed at 4:30.

00:21:45: Felix: So the house is always alive. Yeah, it's always about,

00:21:47: Johann: which is

00:21:48: Johann: a very handy thing if the electricity starts burning in the middle

00:21:52: Johann: of the

00:21:52: Johann: night.

00:21:52: Tim: Yeah. Yeah. Actually it is. We have all our secrets owls who take care that, uh, the house is not burning down.

00:22:02: Felix: And I think it's also because people who live in the house take responsibility for the place that it works out.

00:22:09: Felix: Because in in other places here in Kleve, the apartment might be up to the standard where you don't actively have to do something on the house, but in this place you have to work on it to make it livable. And the dynamic breaks down very quickly because people realize, does it fit or does it not?

00:22:27: Felix: Within the first couple of moments of you being in the house, we show you the problems straight up. For example, the burning wires in the wall, and then we've got your, some people react by just their eyes falling out of their head 'cause they've never seen something like that except on Youtube or something.

00:22:41: Felix: Yeah. Yeah. And then the people who stay, they really wanna make it work. Yeah. They're motivated. And I think that that's one of the main differences because. The house is extreme in a sense that only a certain kind of person wants to

00:22:55: Felix: stay there.

00:22:56: Tim: Yeah. You need to lower your comfort zone a hundred percent to when you move in our place.

00:23:01: Tim: Yeah.

00:23:03: Johann: But this is something you always have to do when you move out from your parents. In your first years at university, you will hardly have a high center of living. No. Mostly not,

00:23:13: Tim: and I don't think that depends where you come from.

00:23:15: Johann: I don't actually don't think that our house is so extreme compared to other flats I had during my

00:23:20: Johann: Bachelor.

00:23:21: Felix: We're asking a lot of you, if you move into the house, there's quite a few responsibilities you have. Because we are such a social community, we expect you to partake in the dinner sessions or in the food processions. It's always an option. It's never forced. But for example, we just had the conversations with one person in the house where we felt they were taking the advantage of it to, to a certain degree, and that then doesn't work where

00:23:50: Felix: I feel like we're also forced to have that open conversation very regularly for it

00:23:54: Felix: to be able to work.

00:23:55: Tim: It's very important that there's communication between everyone. That's why we have meetings, WG meetings where we sit down together and everyone can tell or say what they are thinking and what they wanna change, what they are not so happy with, what they're really happy with.

00:24:10: Tim: And we try to find like a balanced way through all of these problems or also good things to find the. Best way possible to live together for each one

00:24:21: Tim: of us.

00:24:21: Felix: And I would say it's a big learning curve because you get some real characters in that house. For example, we just had a person with manic depressions and alcoholism in the house.

00:24:31: Felix: And me personally, I've never lived with somebody in that extreme of a sit living situation. But I learned how do I deal with somebody in such a situation? Where's my space in that living area, and is it possible to be living next to somebody like that? In the end, it didn't work out because the person wasn't able to take the help that we provided and she needed.

00:24:56: Felix: But I think we all learned something about it, at least ourselves. Yeah. By having such a

00:25:02: Felix: roommate.

00:25:03: Tim: Quite a, when I think about the characters where that were in the house in the past two years since we lived there, it's really funny to think of all the different faces and like how crazy people actually can be.

00:25:16: Tim: And, uh, it's

00:25:17: Tim: not just a television, it's, it's definitely they don't just make it up for television. It's actually true. Yeah.

00:25:26: Felix: But that's, yeah. That's also the honesty.

00:25:29: Stephan Hanf: What's

00:25:29: Stephan Hanf: interesting is that 12 people is there, how does the cleaning works? Because 12 people living together. Yeah. But probably you have that figured out because not

00:25:39: Johann: I would answer the question with comme ci comme ca.

00:25:42: Tim: Yeah. You wanna say? Yeah, you tell us.

00:25:47: Johann: Yeah. In theory we have cleaning plans and schedules, but in practice this.

00:25:53: Johann: Hardly. Yeah. Works

00:25:54: Johann: out.

00:25:55: Tim: The problem is people have a different view on hygiene. They have, especially when we come out of different countries, if we have a different perception on what is clean and what is not clean.

00:26:06: Tim: So there are more people in the house that do more than others on a constant way. Just to keep some things clean. Like the guy from Cameroon, he calls our oven fireplace, and that's just one of many things. Why we have reasons to create lists, to check in on each other. If we actually do the um, mandatory work or not do it.

00:26:31: Tim: And then if it's not working, I'm just calling it all theoretically 'cause we already been at the point where it's not working and we already talked to each person who's responsible for it, but it's not really, there hasn't been a real big change in terms of getting a schedule and getting it really working.

00:26:53: Felix: But I think

00:26:54: Felix: also all of us, not the kind of persons who live by lists, we're not the kind of people who find the motivation to clean up, to partake and something social, because I have the responsibility because it's my day of the week or whatever. We were trying to implement the idea of, alright, it's dirty.

00:27:15: Felix: It's, it might not be my trash, but I'm part of the house, so it's part of my responsibility. If I want to feel good, I wanna be living in a kind of clean

00:27:23: Felix: place.

00:27:23: Tim: Yeah, that's, we're working on it and it got definitely better. When I think about how it was two years ago, we made some bigger renovations that changed a lot.

00:27:33: Tim: Still, depending on where you come from, you're used to some standards. When I look in my home place where my mom used to tell me what I should clean and what I should leave and not, I really come from a household where I really got forced to clean and I learned how to clean, but we should still look forward to get the place clean and also not leave it the responsibility on just two or three persons, like try to balance it throughout the house.

00:28:02: Tim: We're getting better at that. We're getting better at that point, but it's also if the listeners here have a solution for us or to get 12 people individually all active. On the same hygiene level, on the same hygiene level, and cleaning, you can write us your ideas or just come by and start cleaning yourself.

00:28:19: Tim: If you like com, infer tools.com. Yeah. We have no email yet. No, but maybe in the upcoming future, who knows?

00:28:28: Johann: But

00:28:29: Johann: also, none of us belongs to these people who, for which everything being tidy and clean is extremely important.

00:28:36: Felix: Yes, yes.

00:28:37: Felix: Yeah. There is the

00:28:38: Felix: standards. For example, one of the roommates does not want to use fridges.

00:28:43: Felix: He's only got a freezer and his freshly cooked food always in the pots covered on the counter. And we've had a lot of conversations about how do we keep these public spaces for everybody to be able to use them. And I think in the end we just managed by him keeping his food in the pots and him doing his thing.

00:29:04: Felix: But managing in a way that we are able to cook at the same time that we are able to do our stuff and clean up in our way without having the feeling right, he's being too dirty for us to feel comfortable in place. And that's something that developed over the last two years. It's an education curve for some people.

00:29:24: Tim: Yeah. I think we showed a lot of people how. To clean, right? Or I don't know how to use a freezer or just basic basics.

00:29:33: Johann: Basically

00:29:34: Johann: education institutions.

00:29:35: Tim: Yeah. For some things. Yeah, sure.

00:29:37: Stephan Hanf: But in your situation, you're

00:29:39: Stephan Hanf: more or less living with people you want to live together, right? Yeah. But also there's like sometimes the, I wouldn't say struggle, but.

00:29:46: Stephan Hanf: You live with your friends, but you also

00:29:48: Stephan Hanf: live with your friends.

00:29:50: Felix: Yeah, a hundred percent. Don't shit. Don't shit where you eat. That's my first

00:29:55: Felix: rule with living together with people. Don't start a relationship in

00:29:58: Felix: the house you live in and if

00:30:00: Felix: you are really good buddies,

00:30:01: Felix: don't move in together. Keep the room separate.

00:30:04: Felix: The, with Tim and I, it worked out because the house is so busy, you can still do your separate stuff. You don't get on each other's nerves so much. But I think that's what you're getting at. Where, right? Yeah. Where the connection you have to somebody becomes so intense that it's too much. And I feel like we're at the point where you have your common spaces where if I come downstairs into the kitchen, there's.

00:30:27: Felix: Probably somebody gonna be downstairs and I'll have a chat with whomever is there right now.

00:30:31: Tim: That's really beautiful as well. Yeah, because as a social person, for me, for example, I really don't like to be alone. I, I have my times alone, but I'm talking about living alone and it's su such a nice feeling to just be together in the evening.

00:30:46: Tim: And I don't know, you share food together and stories and it's just a beautiful vibe, which we share. But then we also have the privacy part that when I go in my room and I close the door. I can be on my own and I can be as long as I want to. Of course, if I would stay one week inside, there would be someone coming in and thinking, oh, is he all right?

00:31:04: Tim: Uh, but that's what we are really, what I'm really happy about the house that we all get along super nicely. Um, that's what we also try to not only share the flat, also to be friends and do activities outside of the house like we travel. Yeah. Last year we went to Sweden with the whole house. And had one week of vacation

00:31:25: Tim: together.

00:31:25: Felix: Went to Florence for, with a couple of people from the house. You guys went skiing

00:31:30: Felix: this year already?

00:31:30: Tim: Yeah. It's just. I would say we are all, we all become good friends from just also being together for such a long time. Of course, we, if you live with a person or with many people together, you should also get along with them because you are spending so much time together.

00:31:47: Felix: I think

00:31:47: Felix: you

00:31:47: Felix: all know the feeling when you live with somebody that you do not wanna live together with. Where it becomes that dynamic of living next to each other. You actively try to avoid the other person, and you spend your whole day around when is the other person in the public spaces, and I've been there.

00:32:03: Felix: It's not nice, and I'm really happy that has never happened in this place, to the point where I would say, I do not wanna look into this person's face anymore. Which I guess with 12 people it should be quite a common thing that you've got some people who do not wanna deal with each other, but even we've got one roommate who doesn't get along with the other one, where it's gotten to that point, but even they can spend time together in the kitchen and not get at at each other's throats because they know everybody else around them is part of the conflict as well then.

00:32:35: Felix: And it's not just the two of them and they respect the house so much that they keep it to themselves, which is really nice.

00:32:43: Johann: But so far I personally had very good times with living together with friends of mine. I had this in several living communities and it worked

00:32:51: Johann: out quite well.

00:32:53: Felix: Did you start off being friends or did you start off being roommates?

00:32:56: Johann: Well, no, when

00:32:57: Johann: I moved out from my home, I moved together with my best friend from school.

00:33:02: Felix: Oh, okay.

00:33:02: Johann: Yeah, and we had a lot of fighting in the first weeks, which we never had before, but then he moved again together with me years later again. Yeah.

00:33:12: Stephan Hanf: Of course it's not black and white. It can go both ways. I guess.

00:33:15: Stephan Hanf: Nobody grew up in this area, right?

00:33:18: Felix: No.

00:33:18: Tim: You from Karlsruhe, from Düsseldorf and from

00:33:21: Tim: Cologne. Yeah. It's different to Kleve. Sure. Kleve has, its like charm and also it's bad sides. We're talking about it when the microphone was off, but yeah, the amount of activities students can do here is pretty low, especially in winter time.

00:33:36: Tim: If you don't have good friends in Kleve or like nice places, no one to run to go to. You can fall into a deep depression here because it's just like nothing is open. Especially in Corona times. It was like this, it was like this everywhere, but in Kleve it was like more of a deeper and darker hole in my opinion.

00:33:58: Tim: And even now, it's. Not much activity. So we try to change that by having such an open house with creative minds inside.

00:34:08: Felix: I

00:34:08: Felix: think the way you survive a winter in Kleve is by having an attitude of wanting to do it yourself if you want to have an activity, social activity going to the pubs. For me personally, it was the futsal at some point.

00:34:22: Felix: Where during Corona, Andre, Brendan, and me were the coaches of the futsal team at the time, and we wanted to make it happen and that's why it, it was happening. Here in Kleve you cannot wait for somebody else to do the project that you wanna participate in. If you wanna participate in a project, go make it happen.

00:34:41: Felix: And that's also the beauty about the place because you do not have that high boundaries of making things happen. For example, in within the first three months of me moving into the place into Drususdeich, we had a festival of a whole weekend with 400 people in our front lawn with 50 or 60 people camping outside just because we wanted to make it happen.

00:35:00: Felix: And. That's something I learned in Kleve, which I think is a great life lesson, and that got me through a lot of winters here.

00:35:08: Tim: If you want it, you can do it. Especially in Kleve. There's a lot of people who just sit on their asses here and have nothing to do. If you motivate them good enough, you can come up with really nice projects and ideas.

00:35:20: Felix: And I think if you

00:35:20: Felix: can make it happen here, you can make it happen anywhere.

00:35:23: Stephan Hanf: Activities

00:35:23: Stephan Hanf: outside of what the university is offering, because you just

00:35:26: Stephan Hanf: mentioned the sports program,

00:35:28: Felix: Futsal, and that was through University Sports. I passed the team onto Jan. He is coaching them at the moment. They just got promoted again.

00:35:35: Tim: We

00:35:36: Tim: have some activities. There's the Kleve Boulder gym, which is opened like two years ago already now.

00:35:43: Tim: Yeah. Where you can go climbing indoors. 7 euros 50 on a we, yeah, on a Wednesday it's 7.50 for students, which is quite a good deal. There's also, and I do parkour also since now 10 years, and there's a Kleve has a community for parkour people and we also have a gym here. Which is an on the other side of E O C, which where you can go for free on Wednesdays and Fridays.

00:36:09: Tim: Yeah, we have, there's free training and people are quite friendly to new faces and if you wanna learn anything of breakdance, slack lining, acrobatics, parkour, free running, dancing in general, hip hop dancing, there's free courses for everyone. All age, I think starting from 14 .

00:36:28: Felix: There's a couple of yoga schools.

00:36:30: Tim: Yeah, yoga. Yoga schools and other activities. We always go on bike rides. That's been like the one thing we always did here. You can easily go to Netherlands or lakes, lakes around the area. There's a beautiful big national park next to Milingen between park, Reichswald. That's big thing. It has a big, has a big, beautiful potential for bikes bike.

00:36:51: Tim: That's a pretty

00:36:52: Tim: nice spot

00:36:52: Tim: for some downhill. You have to definitely go outdoors to have a good time here, I would say, and we are not the pub

00:36:58: Tim: crawlers.

00:37:00: Felix: I think our activities evolve around us being active and not going indoors to, to get entertained in a way. If your entertainment involves being active and doing your entertainment for yourself, I think Kleve is a great place for you.

00:37:14: Felix: Yeah. Otherwise, you're gonna find it very tiresome

00:37:18: Felix: here, and yeah.

00:37:19: Tim: There's not that many like public places where you could go

00:37:21: Tim: to just, you can go and sit in Cafe Solo and look at the public area and just get the city

00:37:26: Tim: vibe, you know? But it's more like in place for all older people, in my opinion. It's not my vibe. In Kleve

00:37:31: Tim: there's also one street where the pubs are, but that's basically where all the pubs are. We have three pubs and that's the Zentrale, which has, I think, On Wednesday, my part of the uni is meeting there in the evening and also everyone can go there. But like I said, I'm normally not the person who goes into pubs and spends five euros for a beer.

00:37:52: Tim: 'cause I can also buy five beers for five euro in the supermarket and drink them with my friends outside.

00:37:57: Felix: Zentrale is quite nice.

00:37:58: Felix: Früh is quite nice. There's a couple of pubs around, but. I don't think there's like this one student bar where you would say, all right, this is the meeting point for life science people or whatever.

00:38:09: Felix: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:38:09: Stephan Hanf: How would you describe like student culture here in Kleve?

00:38:12: Tim: Mm-hmm. Self-made. Self-made. Yeah. A hundred percent self-made. There are a lot of community houses. We are not the only one I know already. Villa Kuntebunt the crack house, tribe house. Yeah.

00:38:26: Stephan Hanf: Crack

00:38:26: Stephan Hanf: house?

00:38:27: Felix: Crack house. There's a

00:38:28: Felix: couple

00:38:29: Felix: of names which are the questionable.

00:38:31: Tim: Yeah, the crack house is in Emmericher Straße and I think there used to be like crack addicts living there, or they found some crack pipes. That's why it's called crack house. But yeah, we have the communities completely self-made and I think you meet some of the people who are living here for long time on parties or just also at uni.

00:38:49: Tim: They walk around. Some faces are like, A bit older than the others and he must live here for a longer time. And yeah, I think the idea is also of the communities that to create kind of parties or projects where people can come and share or do activities

00:39:09: Tim: together.

00:39:09: Felix: I think the special thing about Kleve is the international base where you've.

00:39:15: Felix: You're always not split, hard split, but where you've got the people from your area. Let's say you're from Malaysia, you're instantly connected with a lot of Malaysians because it's just your first impression or probably the easiest contact you can have. Same with your roommates, your housemates. If you find a good place a part of that, it's a little difficult to get connected to people.

00:39:38: Felix: And I found the best connections through parties and music in Kleve, where we have a very nice techno community in Kleve, and it's people from Kleve. It's international students, it's local students. It's heck, it's even Dutch guys. They come over just for the music in Kleve, and then we have, each party is mainly house that says, all right, come by

00:40:01: Felix: this weekend we organized our local DJs again. Yeah, I think you pay maximum seven euros with the entrance. It's a donation just to cover the costs. Yeah, and you meet the regular faces there. It's a great community.

00:40:14: Tim: Yeah. That's also, I think, when you are coming from an international country as well, there's.

00:40:20: Tim: I think every country has their WhatsApp group. I was meeting one guy from Albania and he said, yeah, I'm just in this Albanian WhatsApp group. And they are like all Albanian people from Kleve in that WhatsApp group. And I think a lot of foreigners do that here. So they are already in their small community from their country, but what really brings them together is.

00:40:41: Tim: Like Felix said, parties, events like from the techno scene around here that really brings all countries, all nations together for one evening to connect each other. And then whatever evolves out of this. But yeah, it's all pretty self-made. I think from the uni.

00:40:59: Felix: There

00:40:59: Felix: used

00:41:00: Felix: to be, I know back in the day, my favorite thing was the international food days where you'd have, I think 6, 7, 8 wagons and each nationality or group of people went to, got together, they were cooking one national dish or something.

00:41:15: Felix: And you would stand in queue. You'd have this small little slider basically. And by the time you were standing in queue, you'd eat your slider and then you get the next food and go and stand in the next queue. And it was just a big mix up. Big melting pot of cultures, which for me was one of the greatest moments ever.

00:41:31: Felix: Same with the futsal, because. Sports connect people all around the world and we cannot come up with a team to play in every kind of sport competitively. But having one team for that represents uni in a competitive league that connects a lot of people to come and support that university. And I know before Corona, we have 50 to 60 people in all.

00:41:54: Felix: And now the last time they were there, I think it was 20, 30, 40. So we're getting back to that level where we've got a lot of supporters.

00:42:02: Johann: Does

00:42:03: Johann: the international

00:42:03: Johann: food day still exist?

00:42:05: Felix: I haven't heard about it. I think it was Asta who was doing it, but I heard the Ramadan break that they had in university was a big success.

00:42:14: Felix: I think it was called Eid. I can't remember the proper name for it.

00:42:17: Tim: I heard

00:42:17: Tim: as well that it's a lot of food,

00:42:20: Felix: probably, so all the little subcultures here in Kleve, they're very connected with each other. If you've got a public holiday that you celebrate at home, you're definitely gonna find people who celebrate it here with you if you want to.

00:42:32: Felix: No need to stay by yourself.

00:42:33: Stephan Hanf: When you draw from your experience until now, Each one of you, what did you learn mostly about how

00:42:40: Stephan Hanf: to make friends here?

00:42:42: Tim: Just go out. Don't stay in your room. The people or friends you meet in public places, even if there are not many public places, you will always find a place to meet people somewhere.

00:42:53: Tim: There's, for example, the Tafel in Kleve, which is providing food for not only homeless people, also for students in need. And you can go there to volunteer Tuesdays and Thursdays in the morning. And they are quite welcoming to all faces who want to help. And that was also for me in the beginning, a place where I just had

00:43:15: Tim: a schedule in my week where I would go to frequently and then you start meeting people there and

00:43:22: Tim: you,

00:43:22: Felix: which was also happening during Corona. Yeah. There was also like a big change in the last two years that happened here where everything just the whole social part and shut down and you had to do something to still

00:43:34: Felix: get out.

00:43:34: Tim: Yeah. Yeah. It was. Quite hard in Corona. I was not here for all the time, but we were lucky. We had some nice connections to the Gruft, which is also big WG house in Kleve. When you live here for a longer time, you start some the, some names stick. Some names. Yes. Some names stick to you. And we are, I think, looking back on the past three years, the castle.

00:43:58: Tim: Yeah, the castle. Yeah. We are in the castle. Yeah. I feel proud of also very. Yeah. Yeah.

00:44:05: Felix: Stick to

00:44:06: Felix: your study course. That's always a good address. You, you, because the connection you forge there is not only social connection, but you might end up being in the same field in the end after you finish your studies.

00:44:18: Felix: So it's also networking. But then also take advantage of the activities university offers, go to your clubs, your music clubs, go to your sports clubs. An activity that you could do that I don't think I'd be able to do in a similar manner somewhere else outside of a university context. Take advantage of these opportunities.

00:44:37: Tim: Yeah, there's a lot of activities also rowing.

00:44:40: Felix: Rowing, yeah. You can go rowing. You can go bouldering through university if you don't want to go by yourself, and that's always in a group setting, even if it's just one or two people and you and the coach or whatever. Our roommate Yudit, she was saying about some yoga sessions where she was sitting there with one person.

00:44:55: Felix: I remember having futsal sessions with just one guy showing up. But even then you have a chat. You get out and about and have some community connection. For me personally, I think the biggest thing to have a good time in Kleve is to have a decent transport system. For me personally, it was the bicycle. I know a lot of students who've got a electric scooter.

00:45:18: Felix: I would not trust just on public transport in here because you're gonna get stuck. You're not gonna have a good time. Get a good bicycle or an electric scooter or something to get around because the distances they are quite far. For example, our house is five kilometers outside of Kleve, so we have to cycle minimum 15 minutes, 10 minutes each time.

00:45:38: Felix: And also I didn't want to live inside of a city, which is in the countryside, coming from a city. If I move to the countryside, I wanna live in the green area. I want to experience the good quality of nature around me, and then I need some sort of transport. And the bicycle here is more than convenient.

00:45:58: Felix: That solves all the problems you have. What about you for somebody who doesn't have the biggest university connection to HSRW.

00:46:05: Johann: Yeah, I would give more kind of a general advice, behave in your everyday life more often as you would do on a festival. And I do not mean downing several beers, but more at a festival

00:46:18: Johann: you're walking around and always talking to strangers and this is what you can easily do in your everyday life as well. And it's also a very good measure to

00:46:26: Johann: socialize.

00:46:28: Tim: Yeah, true. Get out of your comfort zone. Start talking to people. If there's someone you think, oh man, he looks pretty cool, I did that as well.

00:46:34: Tim: I walked over campus and that's all how I met Felix as well. Or also other friends I found. I was just like, man, you look like a nice guy or a girl. Let's just hang out. Or let's Philip, for example. Yeah.

00:46:46: Felix: Philip, you remember when you came back and you were Yeah. I

00:46:48: Tim: met this amazing

00:46:49: Johann: guy at campus. Yeah, we,

00:46:50: Tim: yeah, we were the basketball team.

00:46:53: Tim: A lot of people I met in Kleve was just randomly on the street where I was like thinking, man, this guy looks like an interesting dude, and I just, why should I, shouldn't I just start talking? In Kleve You can approach them. Yeah. In Kleve just talk to anybody. You've, it's super international. Most people are really friendly.

00:47:08: Tim: Yeah. Get out of your comfort zone and start trying to find the people you like or that give you the right energy and feeling and yeah. It work out a hundred percent. Especially now in summer, people are in a better mood Yeah. Than in winter and, yeah.

00:47:24: Johann: But honestly, shutting up was never part of my comfort zone.

00:47:28: Johann: So the

00:47:28: Johann: opposite is the case.

00:47:29: Tim: And also the Goch Lake we can mention. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. There's a quite big lake in Goch. Goch Ness, and in the summer it's packed of students or young people around the area. And if you just go there with a volleyball or whatever, you will for sure find someone who, I think the easiest way to play

00:47:46: Felix: some games socialize at uni would be to just sits with the six at campus on the evening and.

00:47:52: Felix: Just have an open beer next to you and an inviting beer next to you and wait for somebody to sit down.

00:47:56: Johann: I

00:47:56: Johann: had exactly the situation at the very start of my bachelor studies. That was the introduction week, and everyone else in my group was so drunk that they went home. Well, I was going to Edeka and buying new beer, and I came back with all the beer and everybody was gone because they were too drunk.

00:48:14: Johann: And then I just said to next people, Hey, do you want a beer? Let's meet. Yeah.

00:48:20: Tim: Get simple as it. Yeah, sure. You never say no to a free, find a connection and socialize with people. Yeah, sure. That's maybe the sentence to close it down. Yeah.

00:48:41: Stephan Hanf: This was the fourth episode of How to Hochschule VOICES. We welcome all feedback and are always looking for ways to improve. You can reach us directly at podcast@hsrw.Eu and see the show notes for links and more information about today's topics and guests. My name is Stephan Hanf. Thank you for listening.

00:49:01: Stephan Hanf: Tschüß.