Change is always good! Yes, but not always. Here we’ll share our experiences moving to and living in Germany, we’ll talk much more about Munich - which is where we live now - our difficulties and how we faced them. A family of three, two adults and a two-year-old child, who knew nothing of the German language and even less about the country’s culture, trying to fulfill a dream of living unique and transformative experiences.
Moving to another country had always been in our plans simply to experience a culture different from our own, but we knew it wouldn’t be so simple and wonderful, even so we were willing to leave our lives behind, even if only for a few years, to make this dream come true.
However, our initial focus wasn’t on coming to Germany, we were looking at New Zealand or Australia and had already researched those countries a lot, but we were surprised by the opportunity to move to Germany. You can read a little more about the beginning of this journey in this post.
We found the dream right there in front of us, a job offer that would change our days. My husband - after a series of interviews - received a job offer to work in Munich in Germany as a Software Engineer at a large transportation-focused company called FlixBus. And then came the question:
What do you think about us moving to Germany? Well, we answered, why not? Even knowing it’s not the country of our dreams, mainly because of the cold and the local language, why not try life in Germany?
You can never be too organized
We decided it would be a good opportunity and that we’d have a lot of work ahead, so we started getting organized. Among the things we did, one that helped us a lot was creating tasks we’d have to complete to reach our goal. At the time we used an app called wunderlist for this, if you’re starting today I’d recommend trello (just a personal preference, since you can use any task-list app).
We’ll try to give you some examples of items on this list, obviously our list was very long and contained some topics irrelevant to you, so use your creativity and take what’s relevant. =)
- Get our son’s CPF and identity document;
- Get a passport;
- Apply for a passport at the Federal Police;
- Pay the fees;
- Schedule an appointment to collect the document;
- Collect the document.
- Prepare the documentation to apply for a visa;
- Sworn translations;
- Passports;
- Application forms;
- Diploma recognition;
- Photos;
- …
- Sell belongings that wouldn’t be taken;
- TV;
- Car;
- Refrigerator;
- Bed;
- …
- Buy plane tickets;
- Take out health insurance for the trip;
- Monitor ticket prices;
- Buy the tickets;
- …
- Cancel services
- Water;
- Bank accounts;
- Telephone/Internet;
- Electricity;
- …
- Rent an apartment;
- Research Munich neighborhoods;
- Contact hotels, airbnb, and apartment owners (if privately owned);
- …
- Make a power of attorney and appoint someone in Brazil to represent you if any problem arises;
- Buy euros (very important, we forgot and paid dearly for it);
Our “Moving to Munich” list was very important to us, to have deadlines and work together so we wouldn’t get lost along the way, because everything is new, lots of information or important steps can be forgotten, and that would bring negative results, besides, you can never be too organized and it’s always good, after all we wanted everything to work out.
It’s important to add that the more tangible and planned the task is, the better, you can also add all the details you’ve experienced in those tasks as a kind of comment, we used that feature and it helped us too, besides assignments (my wife is taking care of this, or I am) and status (to do, in progress, done, blocked, backlog).
Youtube videos
Another very important thing during our research was youtube videos and feedback from people who’d already been through these stages. This saves a lot of research time and often guides you down the best path. Among the subjects we found on youtube were salaries, taxes, health, education, transportation and culture, so below we’ve left some of the channels we followed and still follow.
Note that some videos outside a channel’s scope can also be very interesting to you, and they don’t need to be about Germany, such as bilingual children, for example.
As Matutas
Here you’ll find varied information about customs, culture, education, lifestyle, food, positive and negative aspects of life in Germany.
Link to the youtube channel.
Marubarby
Marubarby refers to the name Marusa Bárbara (the channel owner), she’s from Florianópolis, Santa Catarina and lives in Munich in Germany.
You’ll find information about shopping in Germany (including groceries, clothes, furniture, property, etc), bank accounts, and currently the channel’s focus is on its owner’s field of work, beauty treatments.
Link to the youtube channel.
Carla Schulz
Education, health insurance, taxes, shopping in general, tips about the local language are some of the topics you can find on her channel.
Link to the youtube channel.
Canal Backpackingalone
Diploma recognition and other bureaucratic matters, work, study, marriage, food, medicine, driver’s licenses, among other subjects, can be found here.
Link to the youtube channel.
Viaje com a Cris
How to rent an apartment and what expenses are or aren’t included, such as electricity, water, radio fees (don’t be surprised, everyone has to pay that here), living costs in general and, as the channel’s name suggests, Cris takes you traveling with her.
Link to the youtube channel.
Alemanizando
A couple who share tips on general subjects and show what life is like in Germany’s capital, with topics you’ll find on the channel including: living costs, local language tips, curiosities and historical facts about Germany.
Link to the youtube channel.
Final thoughts
Even with lots of research and organization, it was still very difficult to find the information that would prepare us to know what to do here in all kinds of situations, so we decided to write about what we lived through, this way you can know how we felt and where we found support.
Support, this word is very important for anyone thinking of moving abroad, support from the family staying behind, the family coming along, and also fellow Brazilians, it’s a very curious fact that we didn’t take this last form of support into account, because we didn’t imagine that when you arrive here you can count on being welcomed by groups of fellow Brazilians living in this country.
It’s very true that many times we needed information and found it in Facebook groups of Brazilians living in Germany, and even right here in Munich a group of Brazilian women (MBM) welcomed me and helped me with various issues, including missing Brazil, but that’s a subject for another text since they do incredible and commendable work.
If you have a specific question, leave a comment or send us a message through our contact page or facebook profiles. We’ll be happy to help you just as we received support from other people when we were researching. Bis später.