The exchange is cancelled

We cancelled the exchange yesterday. The Coronavirus situation is getting only worse, and there is no hope, that it would get better soon. That annoys, irritates and frustrates at the same time.

We have been dreaming of this for three years, when I decided to go back to school. We have planned and organized things for more than a year. Now the last weeks have been very busy, as we have organized the last things: packing for move, SIMs for mobile phones, travel insurances, the trips there etc. The departure came closer day by day, but still it was so unreal, that we didn't really understand that the departure will be soon. And then.. BOOOM. Before we even realized, we really are going, we should now realize, that we are NOT leaving.

Of course we have cancelled our apartment in Finland. We have brought part of our stuff to store. And now with 2 weeks notice we have to get a new apartment and to get help for the move despite the Coronavirus (and one of our kids is coughing and has mild fever).

Besides this, the coming time is going to be one of the most tight times financially ever. We decided with my wife, that we are committed to try next year again. I have only 4 months left of my adult student pay, and I want to save them for next year. The summer would be good times to finish my Master's thesis, but alongside work that would be too rough, and would my employer accept, that I come with so short notice from study leave back to work? My wife changes this month to home care allowance. I have to come along the summer with student pay, so that I save the adult student pay. So, my income will be 350 € per month, and I have to be careful, that the income limit for the whole year won't be exceeded, so I don't know if I get that for whole sommer 4 months or less or at all.

Luckily a cheap alternative for living was found. My parents old house has been almost empty lately, so we get to move there. Phew, it would have been too rought to look for an apartment in this situation and even for the cheapest possible because of low income.

So after a year we will try again to exchange. The University of Regensburg has promiset to be as unbureaucratic as possible and the happily accept us next year there. A very big thanks to them. The University of Vaasa has an official process which we have to go through, luckily it has positive assumption. The biggest issue is, if my graduation takes too long time. We have to hope, that the decision is positive. We well be waiting for that.

To-Do list 7.1.2020

The organization of the exchange has went well so far. We have had quite clearly in mind what is the next bigger step to do, and we haven't stressed almost at all. Until this point, we haven't got any list of our doings and non-doings. But now it is better to make a list, what we have already done and what we still have to do, so that all things really will be done at time. Especially because of many smaller tasks, the list is very important, so that everything will be done.

The situation is rather good at the moment. All the biggest tasks are booked, meaning the destination, apartment and flights. The rest are less important, except one bigger task: car.

Here below is a fast-formulated list of the current situation written from memory. Most probably something is forgotten, but they will be added and updated, when they come to mind.

[ ] The destination
[x] The application to University of Vaasa, all documents, signatures, etc...
[x] Get a place behalf of University of Vaasa, wait for the nomination
[x] The application to University of Regensburg, all documents, copy of passport, etc...
[x] Get a place from University of Regensburg
[x] Check all the hundred e-mails, what to do to really get the place
[x] Declaration of consent for an insurance company in Germany
[x] Pay the semester fee
[ ] Check finally, do I have to send some documents back or not
[ ] Relax for this, as finally you can be sure, that by sending all the documents etc. the place is secured

[x] Apartment in Rebensburg
[x] Get to know the apartment markets and possiblities
[x] Ask for help from University of Regensburg
[x] Decide and book the apartment

[x] Flights
[x] Look for cheapest and easiest flights
[x] Negotiate one day to both ends of the renting contract so that we can have cheaper flights
[x] Book the flights

[x] Order EHIC-cards from Kela and receive them

[x] Passports
[x] Photos for passports
[x] Applications for passports
[x] Identification at police station
[x] Receive the passports

[ ] The Car
[ ]  Plan, what to do with the car
[ ] Plan A: Sell it in Finland, buy new one in Germany
[ ] Plan B: Bring the car into Germany, fly back to Finland

[ ] The apartment and belongings in Finland
[ ] Cancel the apartment contract in Finland
[ ] Seek for a warehouse for the belongings for the time of exchange
[ ] Clean the warehouse
[ ] Go through all the belongings, spare the needed, sell the unnecessary and throw the rest away
[ ] Pack
[ ] Move out, transport all belongings into the warehouse, clean the apartment

[ ] Telephone subscriptions
[x] Get to know about german telephone subscriptions
[ ] Check and change the telephone subsriptions, so that we won't get any surprises in Germany

[ ] The trip to Regensburg
[x] Plan the trip to Regensburg
[x] Ensure overnight accommodation in Helsinki
[x] Buy train tickets to Helsinki
[ ] Check yet the plan, especially for the eatings and doings, so that the kids are happy throughout the whole trip
[ ] Plan, what to take with
[ ] Pack the suitcases
[ ] Reserve food
[ ] Reserve patience and good mood. Now we are getting to the trip we have waited for 3 years. Let's have fun, not angriness.

Well, the list became not so long as I awaited for. But then, I didn't write the application phases to detailed (because I don't remember them so well anymore), but they would have given many rows more.

Until next time. Thank you!

Car in Germany

With five kids is a car almost a necessity. I have many times thought about a life without a car, because we would save in total appr. 400-500€ per month. But a life with small kids, hobbies, shopping and commuting would become so hard, that after all it is needless to even imagine life without a car. The thing would be different, if I would live in Helsinki and if my whole life would circle around few metro stations.

Because of these reasons is a car in exchance oblicatory. In the middle of the challenges and feelings brought by the strange surroundings, we don't want any additional challenges. And addition to that, travelling around Germany and its neighbourhood is so much more flexible with own car, than by train or buses. My dream is e.g to go to the Alps to explore the valleys and mountain slopes.

But how to implement a car into Germany? In practice, the options are to take the own car to Germany, or to sell i and buy a car in Germany.

Transporting own car to Germany

Would I take my own car to Germany? The first option coming to my mind is to drive it into Germany. There are multiple route options. From Helsinki one can take a ferry direct to Travemünde Germany, which takes 31 hours of time and costs 280 € with own cabin. Second option is to take a ferry to Sweden, to drive to Southern Sweden and after that, either to take a ferry from Southern Sweden to Germany, or to drive through Denmark trough the Öresund Bridge (around 50 €) and the through the Great Belt Fixed Link (around 35 €). The last option is to take a ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estland and to drive through the Baltic states and Poland. This option would have the most driving kilometers.

The disadvantage of driving the own car to Germany would be, that I should drive it into Germany beforehand, leave it there, and fly back to Finland to accompany my Family to Germany. This because of the reason, that it would be too burdensome for my wife to come alone with five kids by train and flying to Germany.

On the other hand I could as some friend or sibling to drive the car for us to Germany. In any case, based on my calculations it would cost at least 700 € to drive a car to Germany and then fly between Finland from Berlin by EasyJet (the cheapest flights between Finland and Germany) and this two times, here and back. Not so cheap.

The last option is to look for companies, that transport cars from a country to another. I contacted one of such companies, and their price was 1200 € from Helsinki to Regensburg.

Buying a car in Germany

Would I sell my own car in Finland and buy a new one in Germany? Germany, the land of cars, where you can drive with full throttle in Autobahns, if you dare. This option is very appealing. In Germany, depending on the car make and model, I would get for the same price a newer and less-driven car. When considering also the fact, that our family will most likely continue to grow, so a bigger car is going to be needed - and this need I could fulfill at the same time. So I would bring the car into Finland at the end of the exchange.

But the thing is not so easy. A good car can take time, and the residence during the first days without a car can feel hopeless. How do we do shopping? And all that time that I am looking for a new car, my wife has to take care of our kids alone in strange country and strange apartment. Additionally, I do not have too much money as a student, so the budget is very tight, and this limits the selection and makes it difficult to close a good deal.

And I have to sell my car first in Finland. Ford Galaxy, 2006, driven soon 390 000 km (244 000 miles), diesel, manual. There are risks on selling the car, how long does it take and for which price?

So, which kind of car would I buy in Germany? Maybe the easiest option would be to buy same model, but preferably from 2012 model year up and as less driven as possible. The similar size would be Volkswagen Sharan, but they are more expensive. The low-cost options are Opel Zafira and Volkswagen Touran. But when thinking the future, the best option would be Volkswagen Caravelle or similar 9-seater small bus. But they are very pricy!

Renting a car in Germany

I have also explored the long-term renting of car, but this would be so expensive, that frankly this won't be worth it. Every euro is thrown away, and because we need car also after the exchange, the money would be directly away from the next deal.

Choices

So, which option to choose? Provisionally we have thought, that we will sell our car here in Finland and buy a new one in Germany, which is the brought to Finland after the end of exchange. Most likely this is the choice, but it is not yet completely decided. The timing of selling the car in Finland before leaving and also finding a new one in Germany is challenging. And the budget brings its own challenges. Extra 20 000 € would simplify this issue oddly.

Thanks for your interest and until next time!

Apartment in Regensburg

Home has a big role with kids in regards of quality and meaningfullness of life. Even a small courtyard brings easiness and flexibility to life, when you can get outdoors nearby and you don't need to go farther to playgrounds. Also the kids can go outside to play with each other and we parents can do our own things inside. For example during cleaning or other household works the kids can be outside and we can peek them through the window and supervise if there are some fights to be solved.

The University of Regensburg offers in practice only shared flats for exchange students. For some reason they didn't appeal to us with five children, even though it would have been inexpensive. The only option left was to get an apartment from private markets. Therefore, getting an apartment is the biggest and most expensive challenge in exhange studies.

When researching the rental markets of Germany from various sources, it became clear quite quickly, that in big cities the rental markets are very challenging. It is very difficult to get an apartment and you might need to search for an apartment for months. And Regensburg is one of those cities. So the biggest challenge became even more challenging.

I researched the rental offerings from many sources, e.g. Immobilienscout24.de, immowelt.de, ebay-kleinanzeige.de, wg-gesucht.de and AirBnB. I googled also many sources and read also the instructions in Reddit for people interested to move into Germany, which can be found here. I found also a very good tip to look for local newspapers and their adverts. The local newspaper of Regensburg is Mittelbayerische Zeitung, and at first looking into it I didn't understand anything, because the adverts were full of different abbreviations, e.g. ZKB, EBK, NK, OG, EG etc. Very soon became clear two characteristics of the rental markets of Germany. The first characteristic is that the rents are announced as cold rent (Kaltmiete) and on top of that comes the additional costs (Nebenkosten) such as heating, water, etc. So compared to Finland you have to total the cold rent and additional rent. The second characteristic is, that the rental aparments don't usually include kitchen, but the tenants have to obtain the kitchen by themselves! Yes, you read precisely! This is totally insane from the perspective of a Finn... But, if there happens to be a kitchen, it is informed with word Einbauküche or with abbreviation EBK.

In addition to normal rental apartments there are also vacation homes, which appeared to be very expensive. These can be searched from e.g. ferienwohnungen.de or by googling different variations of words ferien wohnung.

Because it started to feel yet more challenging to find a suitable sized apartment for short-term renting while being located in Finland (though I was also prepared to go there in Jan-Feb to look for good apartments), I asked help from International Office of University of Regensburg. They directed me to office of longer term researchers etc. They have to some extenct different welcome services for exchange students and longer term researchers and PHD students. They pointed me to AirBnB-like company Bed-and-Breakfast-Regensburg.de, and initiated negotiations of an apartment for us. This was a good finding, because with my own googling I wasn't able to find it.

Bed and Breakfast Regensburg had surprisingly wide and good offering in Regensburg-sized city, and there were many suitable options. There was upstairs or downstairs of a house, flat apartments, but also even whole houses. The price level was manageable, if you didn't want to get an apartment from the center of Regensburg. Though, there wasn't any row houses or semi-detached houses.

When considering the alternatives the criteria of the comfort and home-like of living started to weigh the most e.g. compared to inexpensive price. We thought that the experience of Germany for my wife and kids would be the most comfortable, if we have our own courtyard, own house and own permission (a saying in Finnish "oma tupa, oma lupa"). So we ended up renting a whole house, even though it costs more. On top of being in a strange country surrounded by strange language and strange people, we didn't want any more stress factors, so this was the best option. For example, in the other half of a house offered, the landlord didn't want to give permission to use their courtyard, and on the another they would, but we should always pay attention, that we don't disturb the landlord too much, and that would have been too exhausting.

So there is waiting a confirmed house for us, which is fully furnished. It is located a little farther than 20 km from Regensburg, but it has good transport connections. The rent includes in practice everything: heating, water, electricity, furniture, washing machine, linen&towels and even some kind of cleaning every three weeks. The amount of rent is 2500 €/month, so for whole exchange 10 k€, completely shocking amount! We have to check yet the broadcasting fee (Rundfunkbeitrag) if it is whether us or the landlord to pay it. But anyway, the broadcasting fee is mandatory to everyone in Germany, even for those exchange students in the shared flats!

I started the apartment searching very early. I contacted the University of Regensburg first time at April 2019 so approximately one year before the exchange. The confirmation of the apartment took place in July 2019. So the biggest challenge of the exchange is already overcome, and we have been able to start thinkink about the exchange even more positively. It feels it is really going to realize. There are only way more minor things left to organize.

There are still 5 long months to wait.

Thank you for reading. Until next time.

Destination

The destination of the exchange studies was selected to be University of Regensburg in Germany. The consideration of the exchange destinations began from New-Zealand, because of its beautiful nature, Canada, Nordic countries and Europe. Also, we considered more exotic destinations such as Asia.

The Nordic countries were excluded, because when we really go to exchange, it is a bit unimaginative, not getting farther away than Nordics. New-Zealand and Canada would have been good choices, as the family could develop their English skills and getting along would have been easier for my wife with local language. Anyway, my university doesn’t have an agreement with a university in New-Zealand, so I should have acquired one by myself and addition to that the tuition fees are rather high. In Canada there was one destination ready, but here also the tuition fees would have been rather high.

At this point the choices were limited in practice to Europe or some Asian destination. The practical means started to guide more the selection. Maybe the most important criteria were, that with kids the destination must be safe. Because of that the exoticism of Asia wasn’t so appealing anymore. The only exotic choice left was Las Palmas, which was rejected because of requirement of Spanish skills.

For myself one important criterion was the job possibilities of the future and the impact of the exchange to the job possibilities. My big dream is to have a job from BMW in München Germany. For this goal the exchange in Germany would be the most useful. We could learn the language, experience how the living in Germany feels, get to know the culture, people and places, and to get a foot in the door of BMW. The exchange would work as a test for the whole family, how the life in German would be. Based on that experience we could decide of possible permanent living in Germany. Because of these reasons we chose Germany.

There was variety of universities in Germany, of which to choose from. I picked those options, where BMW has production or other offices. Our university has mainly two choices: Leipzig and Regensburg. In Leipzig there is two alternatives: private top-university Handelhochschule Leipzig, in which the teaching is held in English, or the public university Universität Leipzig, which requires min. B2 German skills, because there are no courses held in English. In Regensburg there were also courses held in English.

So, the destination was selected to be Regensburg. Regensburg is located in south Germany in Bavaria 125 km to north from München. In Regensburg there are 166 000 residents, so its size is in halfway between Jyväskylä and Turku. Regensburg is known of its old town, which survived well of the bombings of World War II. There is also a big production plant of BMW, where they produce for example 1-series and X1 & X2 models. In the university of Regensburg there are 10 faculties and 21 500 students yearly.

Until next time!

Decision

Almost three years ago in autumn 2016, when I decided to go back from worklife to studying, it was clear for me from start, that I wanted to go exchange during the studies. The exchange studies didn't interest me the last time I was in university, and that was starting to regret that more and more.

Getting international experience in form or another started to feel more interesting during worklife. Many times moving abroad was in my mind and I was thinking about different possibilities to make it happen. We also discussed about these plans with my wife. But realizing it would be somewhat challenging. You should find a new job abroad, discontinue your safe contract, find an apartment and so on.

When you study it is a totally different game. Practically, you will get to exchange, if you only decide and fill some application forms. No need to search job, go to job interviews, be anxious about the results, discontinue contracts etc. Only by filling the form you will get an exchange destination with almost 100% probability. Wonderfully easy! Well okay, there are some hiccups along the way, but my intention is to write about these in here.

Anyway, my own decision to go exchange was crystal clear and nothing would weaken that decision. No children, not the possible schoolgoings by kids and nothing else either. I. Had. To. Get. To. Exchange.

And because the idea is to write here about organizing and experiences of exchange from the approach of a family with children, let's tell that I am 31 year old father of big family, and we have 5 kids with my wife. This sets special challenges for the exchange, that differ greatly from other exchange students' challenges. Despite the challenges, the aim is to gain common and wonderful experience for the whole family.

At the time many things is already nailed down for example the exchange destination and apartment. About all these I will write here in the coming weeks and months. The exchange will start in the beginning of April 2020, meaning there is still 7 looooong months to wait.

Until next time!