Hunting for a Home.

Sometimes I like to be organised. When I have little control over something, I want to throw myself into the things I can change and make sure I do a good job. When it comes to the year abroad, I can do little at the moment besides post forms away, book my flight and train journeys (done, oh my god), and search for a place to live. So in between working a lot in the shop and doing some work experience at a local paper, I've been consumed by finding the perfect Wohngemeinschaft ("living community", a German flatshare) to set myself up in for the year.

Everything I've read on my new favourite website Third Year Abroad and what I've heard from previous Year Abroad-ers at uni has pointed to WG-Gesucht as being the best place to find a flatshare. The university in Halle did send me a link to their residential services but I don't want to go into halls in Germany. I'm too scared of living with loads of other international students - probably a lot of fun, but not fantastic for my German skills as I think I'd be tempted to just speak English all the time. And I definitely don't want (and probably can't afford) a flat to myself. All of the WGs on WG-Gesucht seem to follow the same template: washing machine in the bathroom, and the flatmates like to cook together but also have time to themselves sometimes. Sounds ideal. I'm in.

I actually found the perfect flat very quickly, but it fell through! The room was huge and bright, the flatmates seemed awesome, there were two balconies... what more could I really want? I even started making a Pinterest board of how I was going to make it my own and looked up the best bus routes to Ikea Leipzig (though I hinted to my mentor teacher first, in case I could coerce her into taking me in the car). The flatmates chose me, I was over the moon, and I sent all my forms to the letting agency straight away like a good little slave to bureaucracy, only to receive an email over a week later saying that the owner doesn't want to let me the room. Oh. OK. My would-have-been flatmates were fantastic and tried to do all they could to help, but the new owner of the building won't play along. So it's back to WG-Gesucht and stressing out!

What I will say, though, is that I've found everyone really friendly so far! One girl who I replied to a little too late said that she would put me in touch with a friend of hers who needs a flatmate, and offered to meet up with me when I get to Halle! And a friend of my girl Lara has also passed along the details of someone she knows who has a furnished room to let. Maybe contacts are the way?

Hopefully I'll be back soon with better flat-related news! And despite my lack of success so far, I'm still really excited to move out of my parents' house for the first time. I might be terrified of the year ahead of me, but despite my general uselessness (can't cook, can't fix things, can't do much really) I couldn't feel more ready for this aspect.