So when I arrived in Bremen my
original planned living accommodations did not work out as planned, so I
suddenly found myself in need of an apartment. I looked all over for different
places to living in Bremen. I searched for flat-shares, individual flats,
dormitories and student houses. I was lucky enough to be able to stay with a
student from Bremen who had studied at Hobart during this time, so I wasn’t
stuck at a hotel, but it was still stressful not knowing where I would be
living for the next year. Although I wouldn’t want to do it again anytime soon,
this experience provided me with a valuable, and unexpected, lesson on life in
Germany. Seeing as I have never apartment hunted in the US, I can’t compare,
but there are some things about the process in a German university town that I
really found interesting.
First off,
there are an amazing variety of choices and option available, and there are not
that many that are really what you need, so most of the work is sifting through
the many pages of ads for places to live until you can get some places actually
worth finding. I had always heard about “apartment hunting” and I had imagined
the difficulty would be finding any apartment, but it is really more about
finding the right one amongst all the others.
Secondly
what was, to me, very interesting was that if I were going to be sharing a flat
with people they would interview me first. We would go out for coffee or
hangout for a while after they showed me the apartment, just to get to know me.
I found this surprising, but I suppose it makes sense. If you are going to live
with someone you want to know who they are first. One thing I found out after
the fact is that they often hold these interviews with multiple prospective tenants,
so they can pick who they want.
In the end
I decided to stay in a studentenwohnheim right on the University grounds.
Although the Uni doesn’t own it there are tons of students living here, and the
close walk to class is great. That’s all for now!
No comments:
Post a Comment