Trucs et astuces : tout prévoir avant un départ à l’étranger

Here are thus, by categories, all the things (capitals or details) your poor brains has to memorize and carry out !!

① IN HOUSING YOU WILL THINK:

After having chosen the courses, filling the various administrative papers of stock exchange, the most complicated task began: find an accommodation.

First of all, it is necessary to think to which typeof life you want to have: only? In corent ? With friends or strangers? In city center or near the university? For my part, I am going to have an apartment in corent with perfect strangers, halfway between my university and the city center. Italian, Italian, French, and one German (normally)…. I am actually doing  the remake of L’Auberge Espagnole !

With the choice of your apartment also comes the choice of the rent. In Barcelona, the prices can quickly rise… Just like they can be strangely low! So, for a rent near the center – a corent I mean-  the prices are understood in a fork  from 200€ to 750€.

To find your apartment, except for the feasible solution – but risked – to begin to look for it only once there, I recommend you to go on the Internet.

Here is a list of web sites which I navigated a lot:

– Easypiso.com: a site of announcements of private individual to private individual (with only some of the agencies).

+: you can make your announcement (description of your profile and search) what will attract the announcers who will contact you directly.

-: to contact certain users, it is necessary to become premium and so to pay a subscription (weekly, or monthly).

– Segundamano.es: Spanish Leboncoin. You thus communicate from private individual to private individual.

+: no agency fees because you are in direct contact with a private individual.

-: pay attention to the swindles, as on Leboncoin! Furthermore, few announcements contain precise and good quality photos of the apartment.

– Locabarcelona.com: a site of rent and sale of apartment. You can choose according to the desired time of rent.

+: very modern site, and available in French! Photos are of very good quality, and numerous criteria allow to refine our selection to avoid the useless announcements.

-: I haven’t found any !

② IN THE FINANCE YOU WILL WATCH:

Before any departure abroad, it is obviously necessary to think of the means of payment that we shall use over there. For my part, no problem of exchange, because Spain is a part of the Eurozone.

If you leave in a country from which the currency is different, thus think of converting your sub-money and of taking advantage of the best exchange rate, by looking at the fluctuations in this one.

Look at the end date of your Credit card… No one knows, if unfortunately it would expire during your stay ! Do the same for the passport or the ID card.

The thing to be verified is also how your owner  wants you to pay your rent. If he wants cash, check with your bank how much you can withdraw per day or week. It would be silly not to be able to remove enough money the day before the harvest of the rent!

Finally, so as me you are a beneficiary of a stock exchange Erasmus, think of verifying the good reception of this one and then, during all your stay, watch a reasoned use!

③  IN THE COMMUNICATION YOU WILL REFLECT:

Besides the means of transport, which will assure your movements within your new city, it is simply necessary to think of the telephone communication! Because even if, undoubtedly, most will choose an housin equipped with an internet and phone network, it is also necessary to think of the communications and the browsing made outside the apartment.

Thus verify first of all what your French operator allows you to do : for my part I can send and receive international SMS free of charge but not navigate nor phone. Thus think of buying an on-the-spot prepaid card (in Spain, it is necessary to be a holder of id Spanish one and of a Spanish bank account to subscribe to a package). For that purpose, I recommend you to compare the price lists of the various foreign operators BEFORE your departure. Once there, you will know towards which to turn you, and this annoying but essential detail will not be more than a simple memory !

 ④ IN DETAILS YOU WILL MEDITATE:

And for it, nothing better that lists! For example, if you leave several months, think of the seasons that you will cross to choose your clothes. Best is to present your list so and to mark every time you put these business in your suitcase:

– winter clothes

– spring clothes

– summer clothes

– winter shoes

– spring shoes

– summer shoes

Also, if you take medicine, think of renewing your prescriptions before the great departure to take all the necessary quantity in your stay. It is also preferable to arm itself with the card E111 (that is the European health insurance card). Thus think of contacting your mutual insurance company before your departure!

If you choose to live in a furnished flat, ask however to the owner or to your future roommates what is missing: sheets, braid, pillows, towels, hairdryer… And also list it!

And finally, take obviously all the items that pleases you or which you use daily: your make-up, your care, shampooes, etc. and some decorations items, photos of your family…. All that does not take a lot of room materially but which takes it enormously in your heart!

Here we are! I hope I have said everything…. If ever a detail return to me, I would put it in edit! Or if something misses, do not hesitate to put it to me in comment!

Kisses,

E.