By The Hunger
Foreign Housemates
In an ideal world, everyone would have their own castle. But whether your abode is a tin shed or Buckingham Palace, everyone needs to be a king or queen somewhere. Everyone needs to have a place where they can chill and be an asshole. However, this sometimes isn’t the case; whether it’s money, convenience, circumstance, or even choice, many of us will endure housemates in a “share house” experience
A share-house is a microcosm of society, and it’s the cast not the set that makes or breaks the experience. So choose wisely because if home ain’t sweet, you won’t wanna be there.
When we had to find a new housemate recently, I thought, which are the best nationalities to live with? Do the same countries you love to visit necessarily equate to the best nationalities to share living space with? Exoticism seems to have a use-by date, like using chopsticks or drinking absinthe. People are no different; choose your brand of unfamiliarity carefully.
Some countries are great to live in; other countries are better to just visit. When you live in a new location, you experience the best and worst of a place, just as you would at home. The longer you stay in one place, the more you’ll understand the people and be able to connect more of that nation’s dots. You find out a lot of info that you would never find in a Lonely Planet.
L’Auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment) is about a French exchange student who shares an apartment in Barcelona with six other nationalities. Cedric Klapisch’s famous film teaches us that we can have a lot of fun living together with many different nationalities. Though not problem free, they can be overcome with an open mind
In the film, Tobias, the German housemate is portrayed as stereotypically organized whilst the brother of the English share-mate, William, is depicted as being an ignorant yob that drinks too much. Should stereotypes be the rule of thumb when deciding on future flat mates? I’ve met Germans who are late to appointments, but I’ve met a lot more that haven’t been. Stereotypes are there for a reason: but they should only be considered a guide, not a rule. I’ve lived with many different nationalities, and whilst it’s easy to see patterns in how they do things, there can still be surprises.
Travelling Without Moving
Who’s the best to live with? It depends on which part of your lifestyle is most important to you. Is it food, privacy, cleanliness, punctuality, noise or some other quality that you won’t budge on? All countries do the same things, they just do them differently.
Living with people from the same country might be easier. But I recommend living with someone from a different country at least once. You might not get another chance to travel without leaving your front door – travelling without moving.
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[...] and serial killer scenarios of potential roommates (similar to living with flatmates, see Travelling Without Moving post); comparable to how I fantasize in an airport lounge about sitting next to Scarlett Johansson [...]