WG Gesucht

In Germany and with most German universities, there are not real "dorms." Sometimes "Studentwohnheims" can be found, which can be kind of like dorms. They are reserved only for students, and sometimes they are three or four room apartments, and sometimes they are just rooms on a corridor with a kitchen for everyone's use. However, they don't belong to a particular university, and there are not nearly enough for the number of students that go to larger Universities. For example, the Freie Universitaet alone has over 40,000 students and the Studentenwerk, which runs the Studentwohnheims, only administers 10,500 residences. While some students live at home, others have to find a place to live.

This is exactly the category that I was put into when I chose to stay for the Sommersemester. Although I could have stayed with my host-family, I wanted something new and began to look for a "WG." WG stands for Wohngemeinschaft, which can be translated to commune, but more commonly refers to people sharing an apartment. Since there are so many students in Berlin and such cheap housing, there are a lot of these around. However, the picture that was painted to us about how we would have to search for and get a WG in Berlin was very ominous.

Right after we decided to stay for the Sommersemester, our student advisors Luis and Verena gave us the low-down on how to search for an apartment in Berlin. They recommended using WG Gesucht, a website where people can list how big the room they are offering is, how much it will cost a month, where it is located, and a little bit about the people that are living there. Although that seemed easy enough, the next process was not.

For the WGs that we liked, we would have to call, since it was better to get in contact with people as soon as possible rather than via email. Then they told us we would have to set up an interview with the roommates, go to the apartment and talk to them, and then they might even have a "call-back" interview. I assumed that it would be like a regular apartment search, where the person searching goes to the apartment and it more depends on their liking the apartment than the apartment-mates liking them. Not so, apparently even if you are only staying for 3 months, they really want someone compatible with the WG.

The week before we left for our long trip to Hamburg and Copenhagen, I had to begin my search. I called probably 10 people in one day, got interviews with three, and actually only ended up going to two (since I called one about an hour and a half before to get directions, and they told me it was already taken, but hadn't bothered to call me).

The first interview I went to was at a Studentwohnheim in the far east - really far away from night life, the center of the city and my university. The two girls were very nice, but it was also very bizarre because they didn't actually have the apartment yet, they were waiting for it to become available. So, we they just knocked on two random doors to be able to show me the apartment. Although we got along well, the fact that I was only staying for three months was not so appealing. But, I didn't really want to live there anyway. They said they would call me in a couple of days with a decision, but they never did...

The second interview was at an old Soviet-style apartment right by Alexanderplatz, in the heart of the city. There was only one other guy living there and was looking to take the room of his roommate that was leaving. When I explained that I would only be staying to the end of July, it was actually to my advantage. It turns out that he has a friend who wants to come live in the apartment in August, and me living in between then would be perfect.

While we were on the trip, I got the "Yes" from Tobias that I would be able to live there, and that we would talk about it more when I returned.

In the end, my WG search was a lot easier than it sounded like it was going to be, but also a lot easier than most people had. So now, I live with Tobias in an East German building, that has an elevator that only goes to floors 1,3,6, and 9, among other quirky things. My host-sister Paula asks, "Why did you move from our house (a beautiful, old apartment in Bohemian Kreuzberg, that is right next to the canal with lots of greenery) here?" But the answer is simple, that this is Berlin too, and I simply wanted to try something new!


[And I would have pictures if my camera hadn't broken while at the zoo...]