German towns and cities have a 'Ruhetag', or 'day of rest' on a Sunday.Philipp Hienstorfer

‘No post on Sundays’ is an aspect of British culture that anyone who has read or watched Harry Potter is acutely aware of. Uncle Vernon, expecting a day of rest from admissions letters from Hogwarts, joyfully recites these words after days of chaos in the Dursley household. But other than the lack of post and limited trading hours in the UK, you could almost forget that Sunday is Sunday. In Cambridge, students can work uninterrupted by lectures or supervisions, but it’s hardly an invitation to take a break, just an extension of the working week. Even in the rest of the country, Sunday lacks clear boundaries, merging into Saturday, with one day of weekend indiscernible from the other. But in Germany, strong religious influences on politics ensure that it is quite a different matter. Sunday is a legally designated Ruhetag, a quiet day. I am not woken up in the early hours by lorries trundling past my flat and shopping hours aren’t just shortened, but cancelled altogether.

Having a Sunday off is something I gradually forgot about during A-levels, and completely fell to the wayside when I started my degree at Cambridge. Reclaiming my Sundays on my year abroad is a process that has taken time. I have had to adjust my mindset, change my expectations and, most importantly, learn to spend time alone. But when it comes down to it, having a free day is a challenge. Spending my Sunday morning reading in Cambridge is something I have long forgotten to resent, and not being told what to read is something that I’m no longer used to.

In Cambridge, the lack of lectures and supervisions finally gives me time to do some work. The free time that I crave all week for academic reflection is suddenly available. However, any Sunday in Cambridge is overshadowed by the urgency of term. I can sit and contemplate what I have learnt that week for a while, but at some point, the period of calm must come to an end, and I must churn out another essay. And, as is inevitable when living near friends, a morning of planned reflection is often pleasantly disturbed by a knock on my door. Furthermore, while academic classes may pause on Sundays, sports and other societies continue, and I feel the social pressure to emerge from my room and cycle off to a training session or a drawing group.

“Sunday may be the official day of rest, but the idea of completely shutting down and spending a morning in bed is now alien, however far away from Cambridge I am.”

In comparison, in Germany, it’s easier to buy a cigarette on Sunday than a potato. The Sunday shut-down is a daunting prospect to new arrivals in Germany, as the streets fall silent. It isn’t just small cities like Fulda which are eerily quiet on a Sunday morning, save for the sound of church bells, but also larger cities like Frankfurt. Almost no one must go to work, and it seems like the entire nation spends the morning either in slumber or in church. To the few of us interested neither in excessive sleep, nor attending a church service, deciding what to do with ourselves can be a real challenge. Social plans tend to be limited to the afternoon and running out of groceries before Monday morning is to be avoided.

On the other hand, once you accept that you are doomed to spend the first five hours of the day alone, there are quite a few options. Museums, for example, stay open for most of the day. I cannot imagine waking up on a Sunday morning in Cambridge and plodding off to the Fitzwilliam Museum. But here, popping into one or two museums early in the morning, before most of the city has had their breakfast, is a luxury that I just wouldn’t have time to squeeze in between an essay crisis and a reading list. Once in the right mentality, free Sunday mornings also give me the opportunity to pursue activities alone that I would otherwise neglect. I have time to go jogging, do some sketching or simply make use of my Netflix account.

Being given a large quantity of free-time came as quite a shock after two years in Cambridge and it has proven to be both a blessing and a curse. Sunday may be the official day of rest, but the idea of completely shutting down and spending a morning in bed is now alien, however far away from Cambridge I am. Of course, the possibility of limitless sleep is tempting, but when I reach the end of my year here, it will be what I have drawn, which TV shows I have watched and where I have gone running that I will remember. After all, it’s a fine day, Sunday