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#6 Dennis

Meet Dennis, another of the founding members of the Nippes WG. As you might have already guessed, yes, he comes from Düren as well, and he recently moved out with his best friend Niko (for more info about him, check post number 3). Now,in his new WG,he has a higher standard of tidiness and a technique that they use whenever they have a big argument. “You have to sit down, write what you think you did wrong and what the other did wrong, so he or she realizes that you’re being empathetic and that you know you’ve also done a mistake”. Despite the occasional bad internet connection (we’re doing the interview via Skype), the conversation is pretty fluid, and he doesn’t hesitate much when answering my questions. “So far, so good?” (I’m definitely curious whether this magic technique works) “Fortunately, we haven't had the need to use it again. I know Niko since 15-16 years ago. At some point, it’s more important that you know each other for a long time. When I tell him something about my life, he understands, because he was there, with me." Dennis works in a design agency, as a frontend developer. He tells me this as he sends me a link to his agency’s webpage. “I wouldn’t trust myself though, have you seen my smile in this picture? It’s kind of mischievous.” Where do you see yourself in 5 years? “Honestly, I have no idea. I’ve realized so many things these past two years about myself. You think you know yourself, when then you realize that’s not true. I thought I needed a sort of security in my life, in terms of job and money, but now I’ve realized that I’m not so scared to mess up my life a little bit. I want to get more into coding and programming and with that, you could work in any industry. Maybe one day I’ll work in the NASA, why not? You need to have those megalomaniac/hard to achieve goals, because they keep you pushing. I think it’s a good think to set unrealistic goals, because even if you don’t get there, you achieve more than if you had set a realistic goal. It’s okay to exaggerate. I won’t be down for it if it’s not a challenge”. What would you recommend to someone who is new in the city? “Connect with Cologne people. Those guys from the USA, Beau and Tom, they just posted this thing on Reddit and we were down. They came this year again and we hang out again and now we’re kind of friends. Definitely hang out at the Mäuerchen, especially in summer. Ask for a lighter. I don’t know, Tinder?”

[daswgprojekt-blog]

#5 Freddy

This story also starts with wg-gesucht.de, and it's starting to feel like I'm promoting the webpage, which is not. Really. Frederike (Freddy for the ones who can't pronounce her name properly, eg: Me), a 20 year old from Rheine, was also looking for a place to stay during her university years (she's currently studying Special Education) in Cologne, and she found a couple of interesting shared flats. "The first one was actually really nice, but the two brothers who lived there showed me around like they were doing a university presentation. I knew right away I wasn't going to stay there. This one was completely the opposite. Dennis and Niko told me a lot of anecdotes, like the robbery of the jewelry store which is downstairs, random fights and so on. In perspective, it wasn't the best way to sell something, but I liked it". Before moving to Cologne, Freddy was part of a volunteering programme called Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ARSP),in Norway. The organization behind the programme was founded after World War II, to help the countries affected by the German occupation. Nowadays, its aim has broadened and it's present in more locations. This experience was definitely a turning point for Freddy, and if you hang out with her, you'll probably hear some references. "It wasn't for such a long time, but so much stuffed happened. I wanted to go abroad and Norway was a sort of accident, but I'm so glad I got to be there". Due to this experience, she speaks fluent Norwegian and is able to communicate with Lina, since Swedish and Norwegian come from the same linguistic family. Pretty cool, huh? After being so far away from her family, she wanted to study somewhere closer, and after checking the different options, she decided that she wanted to move to Cologne. "I feel like I was living inside a bubble. Rheine is a small, residential town, really quiet, where nothing extraordinary happens. Here everything is much more diverse, you just need to look around when you're on the subway to see different kinds of people". I think it's safe to say that we've been good friends for a while now, probably because we have a similar sense of humour and we both get excited when we see unattended chocolate bars on the train.

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#4 Alberto

Born and raised in Mexico city, he was been in more countries that I'll probably ever visit. The ones who've heard "La historia" know what I'm talking about (it includes sharing an apartment with Diego Luna, having a one hour conversation with Obama, being in the Donald Trump Tower with Donald Trump himself and other situations which remind of a thriller movie more than of your salsa-dancing, Juan Gabriel fanatic flatmate's life). After a couple of years filled with plane tickets, a job in the UN and surrealism, he ended up in Germany to study a master and learn German "I already speak Spanish, English and French, so German sounded like a good idea. I wanted to learn a useful language". "How did you find this WG?" - I ask him while he points out that our kitchen lightbulb is again, kaputt. "I saw it on WGgesucht and brought beers to the interview. We talked for an hour or so". This way, the Nippes WG welcomed its second generation, with Phillip, Dennis, Niko, Patrick and Alberto living together. Apart from cleaning when hungover, Alberto is well known for inserting a swear word anytime the circumstances allow him to, releasing good vibes, being "responsibly irresponsible" (Phillip dixit) and thinking he's a good lip sync singer when he clearly isn't (you try, though). This year, it's time for us to say goodbye and wish him the best in his new WG with older (48 and 52 years old) flatmates. "I think it'll help me concentrate. I know it's very drastic, but right now, it's the only way I have to actually finish my master's thesis". While he snaps his fingers to the rythm of a 90's playlist and Phillip smokes a cigarrette, I wonder who'll come next, and if this person will also enjoy listening to guilty pleasure music and talking about the mice that live in our basement.

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#3 Niko

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Niko. He's definitely a key character of the story, since I wouldn't be here if he hadn't move out of his room (now mine, thanks dude). Being one of "the originals", Niko has experienced the four generations of Mitbewohner (people you live with aka flatmates) before changing locations and going to Kalk with his best friend Dennis, who also lived in the Nippes WG. "We were stupid back then. We still are." After pointing out that nobody will feel offended about this, he proceeds to explain why: "We were rookies. We didn't pay the electric bill for one whole year because we thought it was included in the contract. When they finally cut the power off, we used candles, even in the toilet. It was kind of romantic, actually". He studies design in the University of Cologne and has always had a passion for drawing. "I liked drawing the cartoons I saw on TV (btw, his favourite show was the Teenage Ninja Turtles), but I think it came from my mother and my grandfather, who was the artist of the family". Niko has an interesting background: he's Finnish-Swede and has lived in three countries throughout his life, Finland, England and Germany. He speaks Swedish with his mother and brother and Finish with his father, but he personally thinks that German is the language that he speaks the best, despite the accent. "It's not a Finnish accent, but it's not Swedish either. It's not English. It's just fucked up. People in Finland say that I'm German, although here I'm the foreigner. I'm neither of that". When I was talking to Niko in the kitchen, Lina told me that I should ask him about music and skateboarding, so I did. The Beatles and The Beach Boys were brought up in the conversation as his main musical references, but it's the relationship between music and skateboarding what completes the blank spaces. "Skateboarding has given me some of the most important things in my life. My friends, who I am today, and an interest for good music. Everytime I watched a skateboarding video, I would listen to the band that was featured there. Even now, I still discover cool new songs from those videos".

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#2 Lina

This is Lina. She's 20 years old and comes from Sweden. Lina studies German in a Swedish school, and the story behind why she is here, living in the Nippes WG, is a bit surreal. When she first moved to Cologne, she used to share a flat with a really sketchy guy in Mülheim. He got so obsessed with her (spoiler: the feeling wasn't mutual), that he was jealous everytime a male specimen visited her, since he thought they were her dates. It got to a point where he would hide all the kitchenware in his room, in a sort of revenge . Fortunately, Lina was good friends with Patrick, whom she met through Tinder, and he told her that she could move in his room, since he was already thinking of moving out with his friend Max. Patrick was her first dot, so to say. The first time Lina was in the flat was in Halloween last year. Niko was the first person she met, and he happens to speak Swedish as well (he comes from the Swedish speaking part of Finland). I think it's important to say that, back in September, when Niko and Denis still lived in the flat, four languages were spoken: German, English, Swedish and Spanish. In terms of interests, she's definitely an interesting mix. She loves German scripted reality shows, like Hilf mir, Jung, pleite, verzweilt ("the shittiest TV I've ever seen") and Paradise Hotel (The Swedish version) but also enjoys Netflix shows like Black mirror, Stranger Things, How to Get Away with Murder and Orange Is the New Black. Her music taste is quite diverse as well: you can find her listening to Björk (it took me a while to know that the tattoo of her arm was her), but also to Young Thug, Dungen, or Pink Floyd. Last week we also spoke a little bit about cultural differences between Sweden and Germany. "The Swedes have a very cool style (in terms of fashion), but Germans tend to wear more normy and boring clothes, although it's great because there's less judgement, no one really cares about what you're wearing". When I asked her about differences in social interaction, she told me that "Germans talk a lot, with a lot of detail. In Sweden it's very normal to hang out and not talk. And it's perfectly fine".

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#1 Phillip

Meet Phillip, AKA the first dot of the people map. He turned 25 yesterday and he's one of the Germans of the flat (Freddy is the other one). Back in August, when I was struggling to find a place to live, I came across a friendly post on WGgesucht (a popular German website where people look for flatmates/rooms in shared flats) . Phillip was the author of this post, so I sent him an e-mail saying that I was interested in the room. The day of the interview it was so hot and I was so shy that, even if everyone (Niko, Lina, Alberto & Phillip) was being super nice to me, I wasn't having the greatest of times. I was literally melting on the wooden chair, and having a crooked German wasn't helping either. But Phillip was there, sitting at the left side of the table, and since he was the person who I contacted with, I decided to narrow my attention to him in a faint attempt to hide my awkwardness. I'm not sure it worked, but somehow they liked me and here I am now (yay!). Phillip watches a lot of movies and series, and that's actually how he learnt fluent English. He also has a very distinctive style in terms of clothes, it follows the neutral + practical northern European fashion priciples, but it has a twist to it. E.g. Plain white shirt and jeans, but with a cool second hand jacket and trendy sneakers. Having him as a flatmate is pretty great, since he's a really good cook and is always down to watch a Simpsons episode in the kitchen or help you if you're ever in trouble. He comes from Düren, and this is very important because a lot of the other dots come from his group of friends there. PS: This photo might have been or might have been not an excuse to take him out of the kitchen so the rest could take the birthday cake out of the fridge #sneakyskills

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#0 Freddy & Alberto doing a "Creation of Adam" remake 1. Who are you? Hey, I'm Marina. Who are you? 2. What is this? This is a photo project featuring the people I know here in Cologne, how I got to know them and the stories they're willing to tell me. 3. What's the point of it? As someone who's obsessed with the idea that everything (and everyone) is connected , creating a space where I could draw a map of the casualties that led me to where I am today, was the natural response. That and the insane amount of free time that I currently have, something that I would have appreciate back then when I was a stressed college student, but not necessarily nowadays. 4. Can I be part of this project as well? Sure! Just make sure you use the hashtag #daswgprojekt. 5. Btw, why is the name in German if you write in English? There are two reasons: first of all, WG is an acronym of the word "Wohngemeinschaft", which refers to the concept of sharing a flat, especially during your college years. My people map starts here, this is where the first "dots" are .Second of all, I personally think that it sounds really cool.