The 10 commandments of Erasmus in Bremen: accommodation

First commandment: "You will send 30 emails a day to try and find somewhere to rest your head. "

Hi again!

Today I'm going to start the section "The ten commandments of Erasmus in Bremen", where I will try and provide all the important information that any foreign student could need to live (or survive) in Bremen, and seeing that in this country it's pretty cold and sleeping under a bridge doesn't seem like a very good option, I'm going to start with the most basic thing: accommodation.

Before anything, you have to take into account that the search for a house can come to be a little complicated, so I recommend starting your search with plenty of time so you can see as many offers as possible. You also have to take into account that the offer of housing for students in Germany is different from Spain, so it's advisable to really understand how the system works so you can see which type of housing is the most similar to what you're looking for.

In Spain, if you don't live with your parents, you only have two other options: a shared flat and halls or dormitories. Contrary to this, in Germany there is four different options, with important differences between them, as we are going to see now:

Wohnanlagen Studentenwerk

• These could be defined as a mix between a shared flat and student halls. Studentenwerk is an institution that manages different services for university students in each German city, such as the university canteens and financial aid. It also owns a series of residential buildings for students throughout the city, in which, they offer bedrooms in shared flats. The majority of them are in the North of the city, close to the Universität, but very far from Hochschule.

  The main difference between the shared flats in Spain and the shared flats in Germany is that you don't pay the rent to a private landlord, also, all your neighbours will be students as well (and you'll have the advantages and disadvantages that come with this). For example, in Wohnpark in Vorstrasse, they held a big Halloween party where they opened up all the flats in the buildings and each living room had a different party and genre of music in them.

  The main advantage of the Studentenwerk flats is that the rent is a lot cheaper than the other offers of accommodation in Bremen (between 200€ and 250€ a month) and it's also the best option if you want to live with Germans. The problem is that because it's that much cheaper, it's really in high demand, so it's almost impossible to get one.

  To try and get one, you have to go to the "Wohnen und Leben" section of the Studentenwerk website. The first thing to do is fill in and send off the application form "Wichtige Formulare", you will also have to send some form of document or email which proves that you're enrolled in one of the universities in Bremen (a photocopy of a letter from the International Relations department will do). Once you've done that, you will be able to start applying for accommodation. To do that, you should find out which apartments have spaces available on the website and send letters to these apartments.

  The problem is that to get into these apartments, the students currently living there have to let you come in, and being that the flats are in high demand, they are somewhat selective. In fact, a lot of them try to be totally fair: if there is an apartment for 8 people, they will try to find 4 boys and 4 girls; 4 German students and 4 foreign ones... This complicates things a little, if you are not the right sort of person that they are looking for. For me, despite sending letters and attending the places that were advertised for more than a month, I didn't manage to get accepted into any of the flats.

  

  Studentenwerk Bremen

University halls

• Owned by private companies, you can find various university halls in Bremen (Galileo Residenz, Campus Viva, The Fizz... ) all located in the area of Universität. In the majority of them, there are individual rooms on offer with their own bathroom, access to a kitchen and a living room which is shared between 8-10 other people. Despite functioning similarly to the Studentenwerk flats, they are actually a lot more expensive, costing around 450€ a month. It's the most expensive option but also the easiest option, because, with the exception of Galileo, there aren't usually any problems with regards to finding a place if you don't start the application process with much time. I've heard that there are a few international students in these university halls and they usually have quite a good atmosphere.

  

  Galileo Residenz

Shared flats

• This is the most similar system to what we have in Spain: medium sized flats that you share with other students and whose rent you pay to an individual. Nevertheless, I also know people that live in rooms rented out in the homes of German families. The prices are a lot more varied, usually around 250€ right up to 600€ a month

  To find rooms, the best option you have is the website WG-Gesucht, where you will also find offers on some of the Studentenwerk bedrooms. Take into account that, whilst the Studentenwerk halls and flats are in the centre or the Universität area, there are shared flats that are easily 10 km from the city centre, so you should go to the area in which the flats that you want are found. A good method to find deals that may interest you is to use the search filters (by area, by number of flatmates, by price... ).

  

  A typical residential street in Bremen

Large shared flats

• Lastly, we come to the type of accommodation in which, luckily or unluckily (hopefully luckily), I have found myself. It's quite different from anything you can find in Spain, so it's kind of like a type of giant flat (or smaller version of halls). I live with 29 people of 10 different nationalities in a 3 floor house in the area of Neustadt (which is between Hochschule and the airport). On each floor there is a kitchen and 3 bathrooms, so I share a kitchen with 9 other people and a bathroom with 2 other people.

  Although it's not one of the cheapest options (360€ a month), from my point of view it's one of the best options, since it has the advantages of halls (getting to know lots of people from all over the world, practising languages and having house parties which is always what you want, as you can see in the following photo), whilst being cheaper and less formal at the same time. Our "landlord" (he's actually more of a manager since the house is owned by an estate agents company) is a 2 metre German guy, with whom, we bicker a little from time to time (over noise, cleaning, the internet, over the rubbish if someone has taken it out and not recycled something... ), but he doesn't really interfere too much or stop us from living our lives. Also, it's very well located, since it takes 10 minutes to get to Hochschule by bike or on the tram and it takes 20 minutes to get to the central station.

  

As I said at the start, finding a house in Germany is more complicated than it is in Spain, so I hope that this article comes of use for anyone starting to look for accommodation. You have already seen that there are a few options and they are all very different from one another, so I recommend that you have a look at all the different types of accommodation so you have more of a chance of finding something that fits in with what you're looking for.

Good luck with the house hunting! Until the next time!

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