Prices and orientation week

First of all some minimum price comparison to Finland:

-Milk liter costs 0.60e here and about 0.90e back in Finland

-Freshly baked bread from a supermarket is 2-2.5e/kg, a bit above 3e(?) in Finland

-Beer from a store excluding pants is some 0.5e/litre comparing to Finnish highly taxed 1.9e liter price

-In a bar 0.5 liter pint is about 3.5e

-Chicken meat 6e/kg vs. about 9e/kg

-Minced meat 4.5/kg vs. 5.9e/kg

-Pita kebab or gyros or such basic fast foods seem to be about 4/5 or a bit less of Finnish prices

Oh and at campus eatery there are 7 lines, one of which is all Schnitschels(!!) (a battered steak, pig meat) and price is about 2.65 (there are some differences). I would guess rather tasty and not so healthy. It's always a good plan to find an apartment with cooking facilities if you want to keep your diet wholesome and healthy. 

Approximating from these food products are about 30% cheaper here and alcohol costs only 1/3 of Finnish prices. From supermarkets Aldi and Lidl are the cheapest but some products seem to have quite the same price in more expensive stores also like Rewe or Penny. There are couple bigger shopping centers or concentrations of stores in Karlsruhe: Europa Platz at the west side of center and Ettlinger Tor at the east side.

I've been in Germany now for almost 2 weeks and the orientation week is finally about over! It's been great time but also exhausting. There were only 4 actual important events: welcome speech where we got new back bags and important information vouchers, enrollment to the university, opening of back accounts and language test (45 multiple choices on a PC).

Then the fun part: every day some bars and/or cheap restaurants and nightclubs with other exchange students and tutors. It's completely voluntary to attend, but it has been a pleasure to do so even though it would have been sometimes very tempting to stay in bed in the middle of all that haste. Club culture seems to be pretty similar to Finnish one, quite dull. I haven't yet seen people doing any real dance moves, just the same basic small motion jamming. Some places were really crowded and hooooot but well, that just makes up the good feeling right?! I usually don't care to stay until morning hours and prefer to leave at about 1-2 o' clock. There are some more expensive exquisite clubs in the town and lots and lots of bars and sport bars and beer houses and food places, cocktail bars and whatsoever options for nightlife. Footnote: they say that in Karlsruhe the girls-to-overall ratio is about 1/3.

There were some other events also. On Tuesday was a photo rally where randomly generated groups would have to go to different checkpoints and make some interesting group photos. Interesting part was a quest to do harlem shake in a shopping mall! Scary and fun, as I was to be the solo dancer. On Thursday we did a karaoke performance as tutor groups and performed in one local bar at night. Realizing that singing is only a part of the show, we did some short and simple, yet nice, choreography about Britney Spears' song Oops I Did It Again and ended up on 2nd place out of 15 groups losing only to some men dressed up in pink ladys' dresses with very gayish make up and having girl's as a background choir. Not bad.

On Friday we visited the city of Heidelberg, which avoided bombardment in the world wars (btw. Karlsruhe was for a big part levered down during the 2nd WW). 15€ ticket included train ticket to Heidelberg and back and about 2.5 hour guided tour in the old city where oldest building is about 400 years old and most are from end of 19th century because the Sun King of France burned the city back then. Heidelberg is also a location for a beautiful medieval castle where's wine barrel of some 5 meter in diameter. There we also did some laborious yet rewarding hill hiking. A top of the hill, in addition to nice views, lies amphitheater-like-a-show-place built by the Nazis (it was really impressive) and some Roman ruins (didn't go to check those because we wanted to avoid darkness on return trip) and burned ruins of a monastery from 15th century. Altogether a very successful trip.

Sunset over the city

Neckar -river

Heidelberg Castle

Yesterday, on Saturday, was time for some serious sports, a game of flunky ball! Involving beer, beer, beer, onion, bottle, oh and beer. In a park. And FINALLY the sun showed up also after everyday cloud cover and rain for last 10 days. Yep, this should be one of the sunniest cities in Germany (in my *$#!). We played 4 games as a superb team consisting of 3 Spanish chicas muy guapas and me, won 2 and lost 2. Was fun and that some 6 bottles of beer did what it's brewed for.

In addition during this week, there were 2 barbecues which of neither I was able to attend due to lack of time. A small shame is that the orientation week is so beer focused. If you are an absolutist then it's up to you whether or not to like watching people drinking but I didn't actually see anyone overly drunk during the whole week so it's probably not that annoying as it can be. Couple of evenings I drank like 2 beers and noone was pushing for more. Even in drinking games nobody really minded drinking pretty slow and in small sips and the feeling was high.

And finally about the Erasmus people. The great majority are Spanish, then there are lots of French people and some from eastern European countries, South America (biggest group are Brazilians), one great Egyptian guy, and plenty others. There are, me included, 6 Fins in this Erasmus group at KIT, and 2 Swedish speaking Fins studying at Uni of App. Sci. None of these I knew before except one who was my room and group mate in army: quite big was the surprise when we realized we've seen before! I've learned to know some 50 new nice people this week and expect that trend to continue. Our tutors are very nice, active and helpful also. I only hope that people will stay more or less blended and not to stick too much with their countrymen, a phenomenon already showing some serious signs of existence.

 Today the O-phase week culminates in form of international dinner which we are about to attend as a group of Finnish friends preparing some Finnish dish.

Tomorrow starts the 3-week-long language course. And perhaps I also get to visit Gymnastics class. I'm already eagerly waiting for some sports to begin because the offering is quite a lot broader here than in Lappeenranta:
http://buchsys.sport.uni-karlsruhe.de/angebote/aktueller_zeitraum/index.html

Practicalities

I'm 25 year old financing and economics student from Lappeenranta University of Technology and now finally after 4 years of studies I felt it's time to go for a student exchange while this possibility for unique experience still exists.

My application process to Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany was somewhat unordinary. I received negative decision from another place that I first applied to on 18th of June and at that point deadlines for applying processes had already taken place for most of other prominent destinations.

Luckily enough representatives of KIT agreed to take in my application a couple of days too late. All the necessary information was provided by their coordinator by e-mail. Picking courses for learning agreement was a bit laborious but I managed to find some fitting ones. Oh and mainly KIT provides business engineering type of courses because students here haven't pure business programs but business combined with some technological aspect instead.

The application process and preparations were rather simple since we are in Europe anyway. Had to provide copy of passport, European healthcare card, passport picture, some certificate of lingual capability ,which in my case was a copy of my high school diploma with grade of M from short German, and a small letter of assurance written by me,  pay about 140€ of studying fees (incl. voluntary German, 50€),  filled enrollment application and little else. Nothing problematic. Hunting for a flat is the problem.

There's a dormitory but KIT officially announces that housing situation is challenging and I heard a rumor that there's like 40 000 people in queue and 200 rooms changing owner each year. Probably exaggerated but nevertheless one should not rely on it. I didn't even contact housing official of KIT since it was clearly stated that they can't provide houses for all appliers, but rather started looking for a flat from free markets through facebook group "KIT WG Börse" and ingenious rent-house-portal www.wg-gesucht.de. In that portal one can save her application as a template and easily send it as a reply for a number of different flat offerings.

I spammed some 30 housing advertisements with basically only one condition: smoking not allowed. Maybe 5-7 of those 30 advertisers replied. There's yet another problem. Many won't promise or agree to anything without seeing in person. Well I got lucky and had an Skype "interview" with a very nice girl who has an internship during this winter semester, which is the length of my stay also. She agreed to under-rent her room in 2-room student apartment already based on that interview, which occurred some 2 weeks before I actually came to Germany. We made official contracts here so until that it was of course a question of trust, which neither of us didn't seem to lack.

Now I have myself a fully furnished about 16 sq.m. room with shared kitchen and bathroom right in the center of Karlsruhe, which is a middle size city with population of approx. 300 thousand. The house is old apartment building but interior seems pretty recently renovated with parquet floor. The rent is 390€/month including gas, water, electricity, heating and WiFi. Feels pretty reasonable to me (at least in comparison with super expensive Finland). Yeah it's girl's room but it's decorated with fine taste and I kind of like it. At the moment I actually haven't a roommate. Some guy who lives here will come back in December after his internship ends, but it remains unclear is his room to be rented meanwhile or not. Oh and I also got right to use this girl's bike, pretty friendly and nice.

So here am I in Germany since 9.9. and orientation week is about to begin on Monday 16th Sep. List of important dates and events was provided to e-mail along with the letter of approval. After orientation week there's 3-week-long voluntary German intensive course which I will attend and the actual studies begin in 23rd October or something.

Last words about language requirements: Some A2 or B1 level German is required. I don't quite know about those ratings and certainly don't know how is my Sprachkentnisse on that scale, but I have studied German from 5th class in elementary school to end of high school. I changed it to easier middle length group in high school though, which is meant for those who had begin it in 7th class. I didn't exactly shine in that group either, and wrote short (for those who begin in high school, study 3 years) German but with rather good grade M, equal to 8 on scale of 4 to 10 (best). Summing it up, I should have quite a vocabulary sleeping in depths of my brains. I plan to take a couple courses taught in German so that will be my purgatory. I'll know a lot more of my capabilities after the Intensive course. Anyway, it would be possible here to fill that 30 ECTS quota solely with courses taught in English.

P.s. Nearest international airport is probably in Stuttgart and there's train station right beneath which connects to Karlsruhe. My one-way ticket was 114€.

Next blog will be about survival and price levels here in Karlsruhe.

-Lauri