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鈥淏eauty Is in the Eyes of the Beholder!鈥� -- Margaret Wolfe Hungerford. - These are the lines I would say to express the beauty of Bielefeld. Before coming to Bielefeld, I had heard about the Bielefeld conspiracy that it does not exist, but I would say it exists and it exists beautifully and gracefully. Bielefeld is a great combination of arts, museums, forest, academics, and leisure.

I started my secondment at University of Bielefeld on March 1, 2022. It was my first visit to Germany, and I was curious and at the same time anxious. My journey started from Oulu via flight and then I boarded a train from D眉sseldorf to Bielefeld. I must say the train journey gave me the glimpse of German people in terms of their house design, their farmlands, and their life among others. It was a peaceful journey, and I was helped during my journey by strangers. One of the incidences was a traveler helped me figure out where my coach would come on a platform in D眉sseldorf. I remember I reached Bielefeld at noon and took a taxi from Bielefeld to my Airbnb host. The next favor I received was from the lady who was driving the taxi, when I reached my host place and started to pay my bill via card the taxi lady smilingly told me that in Germany it is better to have cash because generally people like to accept cash. But I was unaware of this, then she told I have a card machine and you can pay by card. That was my first lesson to be remembered during my stay in Germany.

The Airbnb host were aware of my time of the visit, and she was very welcoming. She showed me the house and other necessary things. I found a box of German chocolate with a beer in my room that was a great start of the first day of Bielefeld secondment. The next day I visited Bielefeld university and met Veronica Horbach and Prof. Ziegler. Veronica gave me the keys and showed me the office and Prof. Ziegler was kind enough to take me around the campus and told me about the libraries, gym, restaurants, and told that Prof. Martha Nussbaum is closely affiliated with the University. I must say Veronica is a gracious and resourceful woman and she made my stay in the office smooth. I would also like to mention here Eva Lange who was of great help with how to access the library, academic login, student card and all the university related stuff. I remember we agreed on a particular time that she could come and help me with all the university related stuff but when she arrived, I was busy with some work, and she politely agreed to wait until I finished my work.

One of the important contributions to my project came when Holger and I talked about my research and had a long discussion on the first day. During this discussion about my project, he talked about the alienation scale. This was something new to me and I became curious and wanted to explore it further and Prof. Ziegler also encouraged me to study the alienation scale. The alienation scale comes from the writings of Karl Marx about alienation from nature. Karl Marx is someone whose works I have read during my early academic career and was fascinated about his writings but at the same time afraid of its implementation in the real world. This was a great addition to my academic learning, and I have tried to use some elements of alienation scale in my project. This is the beauty of ASTRA project which offers transdisciplinary research and mobility to different academic institutions. My supervisors have background in ecology and social science, and this excites me the most because they have different perspectives and approaches towards a problem.

During my stay in Bielefeld, I visited places in Bielefeld such as the castle, museums, parks and nearby suburban areas and my most frequently visited area was the forest beside the university. I loved walking in the forest beside the university and drinking a beer from a Bavarian beer stein. During my stay I also visited other cities such as Frankfurt, Hamburg, Trier (particularly to visit Karl Marx house), Bonn and Berlin. One of the contrasts I found in Germany to Finland is that people do say 鈥榟ello鈥� or 鈥榟i鈥� to a stranger a lot in Germany compared to Finland.

In Bielefeld there are lot of Turkish and Kurdish people and whenever I took taxi most of them opened quiet easily. I remember taking a taxi and one Kurdish person told me about his whole life story in a 10-minute ride. He told me that he is the third generation, and his family came to Bielefeld due to the Kurdish and Turkey conflicts. Later, I wondered why anyone would tell his personal story to a stranger like me but then I realized it may be because it may be great way of releasing your burden because you may not meet them again.

Last but not the least, in April, I got the opportunity to present in the European Social Work Research Conference (ESWRA) 2022 in Amsterdam. It was a nice experience and helped me in networking with well-known professors and practitioners in the social work field. I am an introvert and public speaking takes a lot of energy for me but my two presentations in the ESWRA 2022 conference were great boosters for my self-confidence. One of my presentations was for Work Package 2 i.e., environment sustainability transition, and the other was a 3-minute PhD challenge. Although I did not win at the 3-minute PhD challenge, it was a learning experience. I enjoyed my time in Amsterdam and especially with my fellow ESRs. Now I appreciate more the importance of travelling and how it adds significance to your research.

Lastly, I am thankful to everyone who made my stay at Bielefeld safe, smooth, peaceful, and loving. There are more lovely things which I would like to share but I know this blog is not only for strangers so I would like to keep some things close to me.

Thank You Bielefeld