Transcription
(upbeat music) - Good morning! My name's Brielle, and we are here in Dusseldorf, Germany. It's about 9:00 AM. I am enjoying my morning cup of coffee and the view outside my bedroom window.
So, a little bit about me: I'm originally from Central Maryland, about an hour outside the DC-Baltimore area. I then went to college at a small liberal arts school in North Carolina, where I got my BFA in musical theater and a minor in music. Suddenly, when the pandemic hit, working in live entertainment became tricky. I remember seeing on Facebook that my friend was getting ready to go to South Korea to teach English and that she got certified through ITA. I thought, "Teaching, traveling? Yeah, okay, let's see what this is about."
So, I talked to my friend about it, contacted one of the delightful admissions counselors here at ITA, did some of my own research, looked around, and I was like, "Yeah, all right, let's do it." I took the 11-week online course over winter break my senior year at university, finished my practicum in the spring along with my thesis, and moved here to Germany in August.
When I first got to Germany, I actually stayed with some relatives in Munich, in Bavaria, for about a month. Then, I moved into an Airbnb in Neuss, which is a small town outside Dusseldorf, while I waited for this apartment to become available. In November, I moved here. I am going to give you guys a tour, but I'm going to wait a bit for all of my roommates to get ready and get where they need to go. I have the morning off; they do not, so we're going to give them a minute. In the meantime, I'm going to put my little "ask me anything" button bubble in this vicinity somewhere. But do know that the budgeting stuff is coming. If that's your question, don't worry, I'm on it. It's coming soon.
Okay, so here is our entryway. We have two bathrooms because there are four of us that live here. The first one is very small; I call it a water closet—an apt name. The second bathroom is bigger and has the shower in it. We do not have a bathtub, but for me, that's okay. Yeah, and we have some shoes and things.
Then, we have our kitchen. It's pretty common in Germany to not have a living room, so really, we have kind of this galley kitchen. We do have our washing machine. We also have a dishwasher, which is nice because we have four back here. We have this little park; you can probably hear children. There's a daycare back here. So yeah, here's our kitchen. That's the end of our shared spaces.
As I said, there are four of us, so there's a bedroom, there's a bedroom, there's a bedroom, and here is mine. So here is my room. It is definitely the biggest in the apartment. This is a pretty big room for a shared apartment. All of the furniture came with it: the side table, the lamp, the bed, even the sheets and the bedding, and the chair back there. The only piece that did not come is this one; that's from my roommate. The wardrobe, the desk, all of that came with the apartment, even some of the art on the wall.
You'll notice it's a little naked right now; it is because I am actually getting ready to move tomorrow to a new apartment. Not for any real reason other than my lease was up, and my new apartment is cheaper and closer to my work.
I did want to talk a little bit more about how I found my apartment and what the living situation is. Like I mentioned, there are four of us that live here. It's what's called a (speaking foreign language) or (speaking foreign language), which means "inhabited completely," kind of. It's a shared apartment; they're super popular here in Germany, and there are a bunch of different websites that you can go on. If you're interested, let me know, and I'll drop links.
So I just went on one of these third-party websites, found it, emailed the landlord, and was like, "Cool, I'm interested," and we figured everything out. For my new apartment, I did the same thing. I went on a bunch of different websites, and yeah, I really recommend shared living. It's really popular with students and expats, and when you're moving to a new country, you kind of have built-in friends, which is really nice.
One more thing I'll say about apartments is the month that you are looking for them matters. Here in Germany, the start of the university semester is in March and September. So if you are looking for an apartment at that time, like I was, it can be really hard. I started looking in January and found an apartment last week. If you're looking to come at... Of course, these are also peak hiring seasons in a lot of schools, so if you're looking to come at the peak hiring season, plan ahead and start looking for apartments because that's how I ended up in an Airbnb for two months; I could not get into this apartment sooner. So start looking for apartments before you leave your home country; your future self will thank you.
This is absolutely my favorite place to come in Dusseldorf. It's down on the Rhine, close to the bridge of the river. I try to come here at least once a week to walk the river, and we're going to go down and see a little bit more. Also, behind me is a great big concert hall called the Tonhalle. Yes, I've been inside. I saw a symphony there, and it was magical. It was my favorite thing ever.
This is Altstadt, which literally just translates to "old town." It's the town square. You can see I'm kind of standing in a really big courtyard area. A Christmas market is set up here. You can see it's right on the river. There are a lot of bars, restaurants, and a bunch of shopping over that way, and it's really just a great place to be, to hang out. People sit and eat, which is where we are going next.
This is my absolute favorite thing to eat in Germany; it's called "Pomm Döner." "Pomm" is just... "Pommes frittes" is French fries, but this "Döner" is the meat on top. It's kind of gyro meat that we have in the States, and it kind of has a tzatziki on it, as well as some other sauces with a little bit more kick, a little bit more spice. As you can see, it's eaten on French fries. It comes in a little box; it's really, really handy. It's great to-go street food. And it's also not actually German, so it's my favorite food here in Germany, but it's actually Turkish, and it is ugh, exquisite. Highly recommend.
So this is one of our classrooms. This is at my brick-and-mortar school. This is really for private lessons since there's only the one table. That's what I have here coming up in about half an hour. They do outfit us with a computer and a TV. You can see the little camera on top because we have hybrid courses. But for me, I bring my own laptop and hook it up, which I will do here in a second.
Like I mentioned, my class that I'm teaching here tonight is a private student; he's a business English student, B1, B2. I teach him on Tuesdays and Thursdays here at the school. I have an online business class that I teach on Thursdays, where I teach the whole company, so it's a big class. Then, I have another General English A2 class that I teach here on Mondays. I will also have intensive courses, which are like nine to noon or nine to two, but I don't have those all of the time.
My schedule tends to vary a lot because I'm a freelancer, which is important. Most English teachers here in Germany are freelancers, which is special for your visa. It means my employer is not responsible for my insurance, they're not responsible for my housing or for my transportation, and they're not responsible for my taxes. This means I have to do all of these things myself. I also have to be consistently employed under two different companies at least, at all times, to maintain freelancer status.
That is the work permit that I am on right now, which is why you noticed in my budget, I have to pay about 220 Euros a month for insurance. I have to cover it myself; it's not covered by my job. It was a pain to get because I'm a freelancer. You have to have very special requirements for your insurance. So, if you are doing English teaching in Germany, you will most likely be a freelance teacher, and you have to make sure you're keeping everything in order—all of your paperwork, all of your books—you have to do yourself. Very important.
Of course, I do work at two different schools. One is, of course, here, my brick-and-mortar school. The other doesn't have its own building. It's either online, or I teach students in cafes, libraries, in their home, or in my home, which I don't really like to do, but I can. Those are all private students. I don't do a lot of work right now with that school because I'm still trying to build up my client base.
It's important to know that you cannot work until you have your visa in hand, so you need to budget for that when you first come abroad. I was not able to work the first three-ish months that I lived here, and I had to pay everything out of my savings, out of my pocket. So make sure you have a cushion because you can't legally work until you have that visa.
Okay, so very quickly about my visa before I get on the train home. My visa was a three-month process from when I turned in all of my paperwork to the immigration office to when I actually went in for my appointment. They took my fingerprints, and they got me my card. So again, like I said, have that cushion; be prepared to be a couple of months in process.
As an American citizen, you can enter Germany on a tourist visa and you can stay for 90 days. As long as you apply for a different work permit or a different visa within that 90 days, you're okay. They're not going to kick you out of the country if you have started the process. Again, my process took three months, and I've been told that's record speed. You need a ton of documents, and I'm going to drop a list below, and then I'm going to explain some of the funky ones. Bear with me.
Okay, so the three weird ones are the application for the actual freelance permit, the application for your residency permit, and your registered address. In Germany, you have to register your address anytime you move. Whether it's across the street or across the country, you have to re-register. The other two forms can be found on government websites for your city and your state; it's different wherever you're moving to. Fill those out and send your emails in German when you communicate with the foreigner's office or the immigration office.
I sent my first email in English; I never heard back from them. My friend said, "Hey, try it in German." I sent it in German. Within 48 hours, I had a response. Stick it into a translator—not Google Translate. I use DeepL Translator; it's much better. Stick the email in a translator, send it to them in German; they're much more likely to give you a response. Pro tip.
Okay, so I just got home; it's almost 10 o'clock here in Germany, so I'm going to rapid-fire some of these questions that you guys sent in before signing off. So let's go.
First up, "Why Germany?" For me, I visited when I was a teenager to visit my family, and I really just fell in love with Germany, with Europe. The whole vibe, the whole atmosphere is different. I really just felt this kind of nostalgia for it, even though I had never been there before. It really was a place that just felt right for me. Ancestrally, a lot of my family is German. I had started studying the language because I had family here, and yeah, something about it really just felt right and continues to feel right, and I love it.
Next up, you guys asked about the job search. For me, I really just started sending cover letters. I searched for language schools and international schools and just kind of started throwing stuff at the wall until something stuck. Yeah, the peak hiring season is September and then also February and March. August is their vacation month; everyone is on vacation in August. Do not try to find jobs in August; they will not respond because they're all on vacation.
"Do you need German?" No, but yes. You don't need it because all of your classes are going to be conducted in English, but you should learn it because, one, you're moving to the country, and it's the respectful thing to do, I think. Number two, it's going to help you communicate and connect with your students and help them learn if you can make comparisons across their language to English. I do it all the time. Learn German.
So I'm out of time, but I will try and text answers to the questions I didn't get to, and I will drop my personal Instagram, or you can find me on ITA's Germany Facebook discussion group. Thanks so much for coming with me on my day in Dusseldorf, and thanks to ITA for letting me host, and (speaking foreign language). (upbeat music)