I was an undergraduate student majoring in German linguistics, and I had a close friend in East Germany who I'd known for years through writing letters. A bunch of things intervened, and we ended up having no contact for a while. Then I got a scholarship to go study over there for a little while at a university there, she and I took up contact and became very close again, and then all of the big changes started when I was there. By the time my uni course came to an end and my visa ran out, things were unruly enough that nobody was really in charge, and nobody cared whether there were people there without permission to be there, so instead of going home, I went and lived with my friend and her family for a while. I ended up staying until just after unification and then headed back.
I learned so much that year. It ended up steering the start of my research career, actually, and of course it was terribly meaningful for me personally. I'm so glad I had that opportunity.
Of course, if no one knows, no one can be sure I just made it all up...
Ha! Yeah, that's true. That's kind of where I am with my own story, too. I've done a lot of reading about the KGB and the illegals program, but it's pretty clear from what I've learned that while the show is very well researched, they didn't just transpose real life to the screen--they took liberties with a few things. Strangely, this doesn't make things easier, it makes things harder, because I have to research the real-life instituation and then guess at what slight changes in that institution would have produced the version of it that we know from the show, and write based on those guesses. It's incredibly challenging, but totally fun, too. :)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-06-07 01:29 am (UTC)I was an undergraduate student majoring in German linguistics, and I had a close friend in East Germany who I'd known for years through writing letters. A bunch of things intervened, and we ended up having no contact for a while. Then I got a scholarship to go study over there for a little while at a university there, she and I took up contact and became very close again, and then all of the big changes started when I was there. By the time my uni course came to an end and my visa ran out, things were unruly enough that nobody was really in charge, and nobody cared whether there were people there without permission to be there, so instead of going home, I went and lived with my friend and her family for a while. I ended up staying until just after unification and then headed back.
I learned so much that year. It ended up steering the start of my research career, actually, and of course it was terribly meaningful for me personally. I'm so glad I had that opportunity.
Of course, if no one knows, no one can be sure I just made it all up...
Ha! Yeah, that's true. That's kind of where I am with my own story, too. I've done a lot of reading about the KGB and the illegals program, but it's pretty clear from what I've learned that while the show is very well researched, they didn't just transpose real life to the screen--they took liberties with a few things. Strangely, this doesn't make things easier, it makes things harder, because I have to research the real-life instituation and then guess at what slight changes in that institution would have produced the version of it that we know from the show, and write based on those guesses. It's incredibly challenging, but totally fun, too. :)
-J