Exile abroad in Bavaria

She drove 500 kilometres in her little black Nissan Micra, packed full to bursting. Her journey took her from Berlin to the Upper Palatinate, from a megalopolis to the more medium-sized city of Regensburg. From the university to a tradition-steeped company in Neutraubling, and from the austere north to the fun-loving south, from the Protestant work ethic to the famed Bavarian conviviality. And it all began with a click on Facebook and a YouTube video.

Because that’s how our Ngoc came to be an intern in our Social Media Department: one of her lecturers was so taken with Krones’ profile on Facebook that she used it as an example in her lecture, and thus ensured that Ngoc clicked “Like”. And due to this click she then, months later, saw the video in which Lea and Elli, who back then were our Social Media interns, were looking for their successors. They spoke of “your own small projects” and an “exciting internship in a friendly team”; that sounded like a good opportunity to Ngoc for gaining career experience, and at the same time to get around a bit. So she applied for the internship directly on Facebook, and after a telephone interview she was accepted. And shortly afterwards she was already behind the wheel of her car, heading south.

Meanwhile, Ngoc has been with us for almost six months, and her internship is approaching its end. So it’s the ideal time to take stock. And I, as a Regensburger born and bred, of course want to know one thing above all: has she had a good time? Despite (or perhaps because of) all the differences. “Definitely,” she says with a laugh, “and the differences don’t worry me. They just make things nicer. After six months, for example, she still get a kick out of the ubiquitous greeting of “Mahlzeit” (“mealtime”) – for Ngoc that’s the first thing she associates with Bavaria, closely followed by beer and linguistic idiosyncrasies. The language turned out to be one of those things: before she came here, she was more or less expecting she wouldn’t understand anything at all. It proved to be not quite that bad, though, despite various initially incomprehensible expressions. And when there are occasional difficulties in communication, that at least that has quite a high entertainment value for the whole department.

In a few weeks, she’ll be returning to Berlin, much as she liked it here as well. And she’s surely going to miss Regensburg a little bit. Not least the city’s “sweet, relaxed atmosphere”, the friendly people, and Bismarckplatz Square. That, in fact, is what she’ll miss most, as she repeatedly emphasises: all the students, convivial get-togethers and these gorgeous summer evenings in Regensburg’s city centre. And all of it so close to the shops, the open-air swimming pool, Jahn Island, pubs, restaurants and her own apartment. Can’t be bad.

Do you have any questions for Ngoc? Then on Friday, 31 July, from 11 a.m. to 12 noon, you will have an opportunity to get some answers live. On our Periscope channel “kronesag”, you can ask her everything you want to know about her internship here with us. And perhaps she’ll also tell us what her experiences were at the Regensburg fair, and what she remembers from her crash course in Bavarian apart from “obacht” (“be careful”).