Trine blogs: moving to Tilburg

Moving to another country isn’t just stressful emotionally, it’s also stressful physically. Especially if you, like me, are of the stubborn persuasion and insist on bringing your own body weight’s worth of luggage to avoid having to send for things once you’re settled. (I still had to leave behind 5 pairs of shoes, all my books and a little brother, but let’s not talk about that). As if that wasn’t enough, I also decided to take a 4-hour train ride to the most remote airport in order to get a cheaper ticket – because aside from being stubborn, I’m also one of the worst penny-pinchers I know.

My mum put me on the train Monday afternoon, both of us trying not to make a scene as we practically fell into the train with all my bags and my suitcase; sniffling and making those “brave faces” that more resemble constipation than sadness. She kept saying that I should ask someone to help me with my bags if I couldn’t handle it myself, and to let her know as soon as I’d gotten to the airport, gotten on the plane, gotten off the plane, and arrived at my boyfriend’s house to make sure that I hadn’t fallen and died under my mountain of luggage. I promised, waved goodbye as the doors beeped and closed, and stuffed my belongings between every available seat I could find. I waved to my mum once more before the train and I set off, with me not really paying attention to the fact that (gasp!) I was emmigrating to another country. All I was thinking about at the moment was whether the two girls across from me were siblings, and if the old lady next to me would be angry if I finished her crossword puzzle.

(I later learned mum was so upset she’d tried paying at the grocery store by attempting to swipe her cell phone through the credit card reader. Are these things hereditary?)

As it turned out, my parents needn’t have worried about me. Being a stick figure with spaghetti arms finally paid off for me! See, I’m what you’d call “petite” (if you were being nice). I’m not exactly short, but I’m slight of build and to say I had more muscle than what was absolutely necessary to keep my limbs attached and functioning would be a joke, which is why my parents worried about my journey to the airport in the first place. But my appearance must trigger some sort of “me man, you small female” gene in the male half of the population – the only time I actually carried anything myself was when I had to drag it from one terminal to another. And I didn’t even have to ask!

A gentleman helped me get my bags down from the overhead bins in the train*. A young man lifted my suitcase and my biggest bag onto the platform. A host of Belgian guys helped me assemble everything so I could get it from one terminal to another (they even offered to take it for me, but my pride put its foot down on that one. Also, sheer paranoia that they might run off with all my earthly belongings). And at the end, my boyfriend got it all to the car – and later drove everything to Tilburg to help me move in. The only person in this scenario that I actually asked for help was my boyfriend, the rest was sheer luck and kindness from strangers. So the trip I had expected to be hellish, sweaty and long turned out only to be sweaty and long. And really, when people offer to help, its better to go with it rather than be stubborn and insist on doing everything yourself. It makes life a lot simpler.

Now, I’m not lazy, I’m really not. Had no one offered to help me, I would’ve figured it out myself; I’m not completely helpless (and I had kind of taken it upon myself, deciding to bring bags big enough for me to live in). And I’ll admit there are times when I get annoyed when people assume that I can barely carry my purse because of my small size. But that day, already slightly shaky by the prospect of starting my life over in a strange country, without my family and my friends, away from everything safe and well-known, I wasn’t about to refuse the help of stunning young men who possibly got an ego-boost from helping out a (sweaty) damsel in distress.

*(Bonus info: him and his wife spent part of the trip talking about how to prepare sweetcorn. They settled on steaming it as the best method. I count that as one of those nuggets o’ wisdom. Now you know too.)

Trine Larsen (22) from Denmark studies Management of Cultural Diversity at Tilburg University and blogs for Univers.

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