Washing, Banking, and Biking in Germany. My travel to Germany. Over 1400 Germany pictures, photos, and stories, study abroad, maps, and travel advice for Germany and France.

I decided to devote a bit of today's page to some important things people should know about coming to study here (before they come to study here).

This is the entrance to the laundry room (Waschepflege). It costs 3 DM (about $1.50 at the exchange rate for right now) for each wash of laundry. It also costs $1.50 for each time you dry your laundry. If you come over here with a not so good exchange rate, it's going to be quite expensive to do your wash. I couldn't see paying $1.50 to dry my laundry, so Ahmed from my floor was nice enough to loan me his drying rack, and I was able to dry my clothes in my room yesterday because the sun was out and we had pretty nice weather.

To pay to do your wash, you have to buy a card outside of Frau Pichnik's office on the top level of the Student Union. They come in 15 DM cards, and you have to have the 1 DM, 2 DM or 5 DM coins to purchase the cards.

The dryer, wringer, and washer. The wringer is free, and will spin your clothes for hours on end if you want it to.

To you, this may seem to be just another old shopping cart. But for me, this is a multipurpose unit. Not only does it serve as an excellent laundry carrier, but also makes a great drying rack with foldout tray included.

Kind of like Wells Fargo in Colorado, the Raiffeisenbank has a lot of locations around Oldenburg and is easy to find in Bremen as well. (I don't know about anywhere else because I haven't been anywhere else yet.) The symbol on the left is found all over the place and is the sign for an ATM (Geldautomat).

I would recommend to anyone studying in Oldenburg that they open an account here as well. There are a few different banks (Sparkasse, Oldenburg Landesbank, Raiffeisenbank, etc.) where you can sign up for a Konto (account). I can pull money out of any of the Geldautomat's here with my Wells Fargo ATM card, but I get charged a fee for doing that. So by signing up for a Konto, I have the ability to pull money out without being charged a service fee. As well, because the bank is closely associated with the university, I was able to pay my student fees (171 DM) directly out of my konto to the Akademisches Auslandsamt.

I would definitely recommend getting a bank account if/when you come to study here. It only cost 5 DM to get it set up.

This is located on the lower level of the Student Union. Yesterday, I took my bike there (actually using the bike which Kurt's buddy loaned to him, since Kurt bought a newer one), and got two new caps for my tires (since someone had stolen mine--resulting in two flat tires), and got my headlight fixed, all for 2 DM. It was a pretty cool deal. Thanks to Josh (Denver) and Jared (Wyoming) for helping me out with that!

The Uni Fahrrad Selbst Hilfe (university bike shop where you fix it yourself), is quite useful, and for me, was quite inexpensive for the repairs I needed to have done. I would definitely recommend checking it out when you study here, if you have any improvements or repairs that need to be made to your bike.

By the way, since we're on the topic of useful information... You will want a bike while you're here. That is the preferred method of transportation in Oldenburg. Supposedly, you can rent one from the Unifahrradselbsthilfe for about 20 DM/month. I think Jenny did that. There are places you can buy new bikes here in Oldenburg, but they are more expensive here, on average, than in the states. There are also places you can buy used bikes, that range in price from 70 DM to 250 DM. Maybe you'll be fortunate enough to find someone willing to let you use theirs while you're here. That seems to have been the case with many of the exchange students here that I know.

Germany Map - where I lived

I lived and studied at the German university in Oldenburg which is near Bremen, and about two hours east of Hamburg, Germany. Clearly visible on the map are Bremen and Twistringen, Germany. When I go back, I'd like to visit Hannover and Berlin, as well as Cologne. Also, I'd like to visit more German castles, Because I only visited two in Nuremberg. Click on the buttons on this page to see pictures and advice about studying abroad in Germany (and traveling advice for France), or click the links below to go to strive4impact.com's other pages.

The Phones and the Internet
Inexpensive calling advice within North America, from North America to the world, and calling from anywhere in the world to North America

Jonathan's VOIP page
What is VoIP? It lets you make a phone call from your computer to anywhere in the world! I pay only 4 cents per minute to call anywhere in Europe! Cheap rates for countries around the world.

My travels in Germany Pictures and Photos

Pictures, travel tips, and stories