You’re moving to another country!! You better bring everything…. right? Well, no. Not really. There are a lot of things in Germany that will likely be cheaper than back home, but there are also some things that aren’t here that I will suggest that you bring.
Just a heads up again – I’m from Canada, so this blog post will likely be most applicable to people from Canada/North America.
Grocery store food is cheap. Clothing (regular fast fashion) is cheap. German-branded cosmetics, and things like shampoo, body wash, etc are cheap. You can find shampoos, conditioners, and body wash for 0.55 Euros. Unless if you have a particular product that you MUST use and are obsessed with, I’d recommend leaving it behind. I’d say that generally the most expensive things (relevant to you as a student) in Germany are electronics. My phone charger broke, and so I bought an off-branded one for 12 euros at a book store. It stopped working eventually, and to avoid that from happening again, I bought the Apple branded one for 25 euros. Note that this is usually $25 CAD. Oh well…
Also, if you’re living in dorms, especially Ulmenweg, a lot of people are going to leave stuff behind from when they move out. You might score some free things like working TVs, lamps, hangers, extra chairs, coaches, toaster ovens, cutlery/plates, wifi routers, etc. The earlier you arrive to your dorm, the luckier you’ll be. The landlord of your particular dorm generally will give away left over wifi routers until they run out, and I managed to be one of the lucky ones who didn’t have to pay 30€-100€ for it. There aren’t too many stores that sell them in Mannheim, and as all the exchange students started to move in, they were sold out across the city and if you wanted one at all, you had to pay for the top-of-the-line router that nobody else wanted to pay for. I’ll make a post about how to set up wifi in your room another time.
Overall, there are only a few things I’d recommend bringing.
- Your favourite sauces or cooking secrets that you need on hand, including your favourite hot sauces (it seems like the Germans aren’t a fan of spices)
- Your favourite Western branded cosmetics should you really need them, as they’re priced at a premium here
- Medicine should you need it – vitamin supplements, Advil, Tylenol, birth control, herbal medicine, anything you might need. They have some here, but supposedly they’re formulated to be much weaker here in Europe
- Deodorant – apparently they work differently here even though they may be the same brand
- Some reusable bags
- You can use them for laundry, groceries, and storing things in your dorm room. Super helpful for once you get there. They don’t have bags for you at the store generally, and if at all, you have to purchase their reusable bags.
- A combination lock for hostels when travelling
- Super handy!! Otherwise you have to purchase one there, or rent one from the hostels.
- A water bottle with a built-in Brita filter (or similar)
- Water in Mannheim tastes pretty bad. It has a bad reputation among everyone and even other Germans for the poor taste of the water. It’s not toxic or anything, just doesn’t taste good and seemingly has a lot of mineral content. Lots of buildup in kettles if you boil water a lot for tea/coffee, and friends have said they can see a film of something in their cups when they leave water out for a few days. Might have to do with the chemical factory across the bridge in Ludwigshafen…
- You can buy bottles of water from the store, but if it hurts your conscience to do that, then you can do the water bottle filter instead.
- I didn’t find any of the water bottle styles in Germany (but to be fair I didn’t look too hard), only huge water pitchers with the filters. As someone that was always on-the-go and using a shared fridge with little space, I didn’t want that.
- Clothes to layer
- Temperature-wise, if it’s similar to the year I went (2017), then it’ll be pretty hot until the first week or two of September. It was probably 30-35C during that time, you’d definitely have to wear shorts and a t-shirt to survive.
- DOCUMENTS!!
- I can’t stress this one enough. You probably won’t think of it – but it’s really important. This is to make it less of a hassle once you get there, and can save you when all of your stuff gets lost or stolen. It might be hard to find a place to help you print things at first, or it might be pretty expensive. You can fix this issue by bringing copies of the following to Mannheim, which I found extremely helpful.
- Your rental Booking Confirmation (if you’re renting from Studierendenwerk) x 2
- Your flight information x1
- Course registration information (if you registered through myUniMa for any culture/language courses) x2 per course
- The official “Letter of Admission” for University of Mannheim x2
- The official “Welcome Letter” for University of Mannheim x2
- A print out with instructions for how to get from Frankfurt Airport to the Frankfurt Fernbahnhof (Frankfurt long distance train station), then from the Mannheim Hauptbahnhof (Mannheim central train station) to your residence x1
- A print out of the map for your dorm layout, including the phone number and building that your landlord will be in x1
- A scan of your personal identification cards (ex. drivers licenses, health insurance cards, passport, etc) x1
- Proof of your health coverage abroad x2
- Copy of your home university declaring your acceptance to the host university and participation in an academic exchange semester x1
- Also remember to keep digital copies of your online files should anything happen to your physical copies. Prepare for this ahead of time while at home – keep it on the cloud, on a USB, etc.
- I can’t stress this one enough. You probably won’t think of it – but it’s really important. This is to make it less of a hassle once you get there, and can save you when all of your stuff gets lost or stolen. It might be hard to find a place to help you print things at first, or it might be pretty expensive. You can fix this issue by bringing copies of the following to Mannheim, which I found extremely helpful.
Depending on how much disposable income you have, you may or may not want to bring certain things as well. For example, pens/pencils and a calculator, nail clippers, makeup, umbrella, etc. These can very easily be purchased while abroad, but you probably already own them all, so you might as well bring them. In my case, I was on a relatively tight budget, so I brought everything that I possibly could so that I could purchase as little as possible.
What you should leave behind are extra clothes, a heavy jacket (unless if you have spare room in your suitcase), basic hygiene goods, etc.
Studying in the Quadrate 