Looking back on my semester in Sheffield in the winter of 1999/2000, my memories are very specific and at the same time ephemeral, a collage of vividly remembered dreams. I still see the long sloping street leading from the upper part of town to the entrance of the Crewe Flats estate, where I lived in Flat S, for short-stay students, together with nine other international students. I am still in touch with most of them (well, our social platforms are linked and we exchange the odd greeting and birthday wish, but we still know each other). I also still see the sandwich place (Scott’s pantry?) offering freshly baked rolls with a filling of bacon, egg and brown sauce. I remember slipping quickly into a daily routine of attending classes (for example those with Professor Anne Monaghan, which I enjoyed tremendously), grocery-shopping, going to the weekly social of the Walking Club and spending time with my flatmates. On the weekends, I would regularly go on a walk with the walking club people (Oh how I loved this! I asked them to be put back on the email list some years ago just to get a weekly reminder of how glorious such a university walking club is.). Or there would be a party at our flat.
But as vivid and concrete as these memories are, I also find it hard to reconnect to the boyish and rather nerdy German student I was then, because the experience changed me completely. Now I guess a year abroad always has something of a rite-of-passage aura to it, and most people will say that the experience had some impact on their development as a person. But for me, there is also a bit of sadness mixed into my very fond memories of Sheffield, a bit of melancholy in my nostalgia, because I cannot but feel the experience should have been more intense, more thorough, and that it would have been, had I been a bit more mature than I was. I should have explored the city more. I should have met more people, spent more time doing things I hadn’t yet done at home (I had already been a keen hiker when I came to Britain), and generally go beyond my own comfort zone more. But then again, the way I experienced Sheffield was as my home, be it only for a short time. I wandered through its streets as if I had done this for years, I went to the pub not as a tourist but as a member of the hiking club, I experienced joy, heartbreak, inebriation and sobering up, getting my class work done and having a good time, being liked for the person I am and sometimes envying others for what they are. Just like everyday life. And this might be why my time in Sheffield is so firmly imprinted on my memory. And on my heart.
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