Heidelberg?

judas101

Right, so my girlfriend is off back to Germany to study and it looks like she's going to Heidelberg.

I decided that i'd take the plunge so to speak and head over with her :eek:


Has anyone on here ever been? I've heard its a beautiful town.
Is it expensive to live there?

I'm a qualified engineer but have no German (started lessons last week!)
Will it be difficult for me to find a job? I'm not looking for an engineering job there as there's not much industry.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Ruu_Old

I was there for a few days on holidays, beautiful place and I would drop everything if I could go and live there. I wasn't there long enough but found food expensive. I found that many Germans seemed to have little English. Sorry I can't be of more help, best of luck.

shnaek

I was there on holidays too. I worked in Nurnberg for a while, so I travelled down there a couple of times. It's a beautiful place, with a large US army base. They do speak English alright. As for work - I couldn't say. But the town is lovely, and usually has great weather over the summer! I didn't find it expensive. But that was a few years back.

paddylonglegs

Judas,I'm almost sure that Heidelberg is where they manufacture high end printing presses - Someone correct me if i'm wrong though.These presses, called "Heidelberg" presses funnily enough! are used worldwide and this is a huge industry.Their manufacturing plant is huge and everything is organised to the last. Depending what engineering you are experienced in, maybe they have a website for employment.

Alternatively you could try and contact some local job recruitment agencies and find out whats needed out there.

Mitch Connor

I was over in heidelberg for 2 weeks with work recently. Lovely town, and apartments are cheap over there (in comparison to Ireland)

Food wasn't expensive imo - cheaper than we get in ireland. Not amazingly cheap but cheap. I had no real difficulty not speaking german over there, most people had enough english to help me out, but that was in the more touristy area, so i don't know what the english would be like in supermarkets and the like.

Can't help you out regarding jobs, have no idea to be honest.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Forum that might help (it's for the whole state, but there should be something on heidelberg)

http://www.toytowngermany.com/forum/index.php?showforum=97

Dubdude

It is true Heidleberg is on of the biggest manufacturers of printing presses and have been around for years and i believe there manufacturing plant is unbelievable see if you can do a tour you wont be disappointed so i believe

Thoie

My sister lived there for a few years, and I visited her quite often and loved the place. All my info would be a bit out of date, but one thing I do know is that's it's difficult to find furnished apartments (though all the places I saw over there were lovely). In many of the apartments there was literally only a sink in the kitchen and you were expected to bring your own presses etc. IIRC the letting agents had separate listings for furnished places, so find out what the German for "furnished" is

A lot of the people I met (socially, and in shops etc) had really good English, but as with everywhere they always appreciate if you make some effort to talk German first. I'd usually get as far as "Guten morgen" when they'd take pity on me.

judas101

thanks for all the replies. most helpful.

liking the sound of the military base. english speaking and could do with a mechanical engineer i'm sure.

also, good news about the cheap rent.

on the other hand, furnishing apartment with no money will not be fun. it'll be like going on a J1 to NY all over again!

anyone got anything to add?

Thoie

I'm not entirely sure if the military base employs civilians unfortunately.

If you need to furnish a place (and bear in mind my info is years old, so maybe things have changed), Ikea will be your friend. They even do "starter kits" - http://www.ikea.com/de/de/catalog/categories/departments/kitchen/10515/

Schlafzimmer is the bedroom stuff
Wohnzimmer is the sittingroom/living areas
Kuche is the kitchen

I remember at the time that people used put ads... somewhere... for selling all their furniture when they were leaving a rented place.

This link might be useful as well: http://www.heidelberg.army.mil/sites/local/

hunnymonster

The other thing is that Public transport is so god n Germany that you can check out neighbouring cities for jobs. Mannheim is next door but even Darmstadt, Karlsruhe etc are commutable.

thekooman

lots of big industry in that area; John Deere make machinery in Mannheim. its very easy to get around with the autobahn, trains and light rail in the towns. when i was there everyone was helpful as i hadn't any german. i was in a petrol station one day and the attendant had no english but another customer helped me out!

carrotcake

Getting a job on base will probably be your best bet since finding work with little or no German is not easy. Ramstein Air Base is a huge base an hour out of Heidelberg. That might be worth a look too, but a waste of time of you don't have a car since public transport to and from the base is scheiße.

Also, unless you can move into student accommodation with your girlfriend then getting set up with an apartment will be hard. Almost all landlords advertise through agencies, all of which charge a fee for 2.38 times the rent. Most landlords also want a deposit of three months rent.

Sign up to that site that Ikky Poo2 linked to, since you'll find most of your answers there.

jester77

You don't state what type of an engineer you are, but the market is as good now as it has been for a long time. I know that software engineers are in big demand and plenty of jobs available, even if you have basic German. When I first came over to Germany my German was very poor but I had no problem getting a job because of my skills and that was when the market was very bad. You can pick up the language quickly from working with the locals. Have a look at this site, it lists lots of recruitment sites and some specialised ones based on industry.

Heidelberg is a beautiful town and with the excellent public transport you can spread your search. Frankfurt, Mannheim, Mainz, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Darmstadt to name a few are within commuting distance and have large industrys. ESA are based in Darmstadt, I've seen them looking for English speaking people in the past and Siemens are in Karlsruhe. If you are really stuck for a job then have a look at Berlitz, they will hire almost any native English speaker and train them. No German is required and you basically teach English from a manual.

judas101

reallt appreciate all these respones folks.

thats a bit of a bummer about the rent though.

i'll be most likely slumming with the girlfriend until i have a job anyway. that might take a while as progress on the language front is slow!

keep the info coming folks!

Vero

for renting a room visit
http://www.wg-gesucht.de/
(you may need some help with the german, there's no translation option to the page)
but there you can find furnished rooms and flats (to share or not)
don't know if already posted but that may be helpful
http://www.heidelberg.de/servlet/PB/menu/1088101_l2/index.html