The grey cloud of Erasmus

You choose your Erasmus destination and with it begins the illusion of who opens a journal looking to write a great story. You can imagine walking the streets of the destination city, discovering a new you that maybe you did not even know and living the great experience that everyone tells you and of which soon you will be protagonist. It seems a dream come true, but suddenly a large grey cloud hides the ray of light that so far seemed to light your way.

You walk through the streets of a city that is not yours and that welcomes you with the hostility of not being able to start in a place where you can feel at home. You ring the third bell of the day hoping that this time will be the final one. You are greeted by an unfamiliar face that shows you the room you hope to feel like yours. It is not very big, it is not very comfortable and it is not cheap either. However, losing the opportunity is not a real option. You start to wonder if that is what you expected when you decided to make a big change in your life. If what Munich can offer you makes up for that feeling that now floods you.

The reality of many students

María Sánchez is one of those young students who, even beginning the search for accommodation in advance, soon discovered that Munich was not an easy place to find residence. She began searching for six months before flying to her destination and still began her journey without a place to stay. “They tell you about the existence of public residences offered by the University, but then it turns out that there are a tiny number of places compared to the Erasmus students that the city receives”, she says. Therefore, she began an arduous search where all the answers were hard negatives and sometimes not even reached. “I would go to different websites every day to look for new offers. I answered perhaps 20 a day and I got an answer from two who asked me to interview me in person. That was impossible for me at first”, she describes.

The idea of fulfilling her dream finally led her to make the risky decision to move. “I arrived with nothing. I rented a temporal apartment for five days in the hope that they would be enough to find accommodation. I had no choice because most flats demanded to see them in person”, she tells us. In addition, she explains that returning was not an option because the semester in Germany started months later than in her homecountry, so returning would have meant losing a completely academic year. She confesses that in the end “you accept what there is, regardless of the conditions or the cost”.

Andrés Colomer and Alejandro Sahuquillo are two friends of Biomedical Engineering bachelor who also suffered the odyssey of finding accommodation since the beginning of their search in summer. “There was a moment when we gave up because we could not find a viable option. We thought about cancel the Erasmus,” says Andrés. They decided to seize the opportunity, although “it looked more like a race, a competition to see who was faster. The landlady told us that whoever signed the contract faster would keep it,” he explains.

It seemed that everything was going well for these couple of friends, but when they finally arrived at the apartment, they found that the conditions were not as expected. “It is true that due to the speed with which we had to sign the contract, the conditions were not very clear either. We did not have time to properly analyse the offer in the face of despair”, he recognizes. Everything started to go wrong when a few days before arriving in Munich in mid-September, the landlady asked them to postpone the contract. “Our rent started on September 15, but she insisted that we move in in October,” Andrés explains.

As soon as they opened the door to their new apartment, they discovered that it was not what they had planned. They did not have anything as basic as a kitchen and it did not come furnished, even if both issues were included in the contract. “The stress of seeing us furnish the entire floor on our own began. An expense that was not planned, but we had to do. In addition, we spent a month ordering food at home and eating on the floor. The kitchen was finally ready at the end of November,” he remember. Currently, they enjoy the comfort of their home, but “it does not make up for the situation we experienced in the first months”, Andrés ends.

An experience that has a lot to improve

The path that these young people went through until finally being able to enjoy the Erasmus experience turned out to have more grey nuances than expected. A reality usually soundproofed and that questions the bases of an entire educational program that in theory allows international immersion. There is a false belief that the Erasmus grant will cover all the basic expenses of staying abroad. However, the reality is that are the families of these students who in most cases must offer financial support. While it is true that the European Union itself – the entity offering the grant – defines it as a contribution to travel and living expenses, and not as full funding; much remains to be done if it is really to become a possibility for all. In this way, the motto of an opportunity open to all becomes, once again, a matter of privilege.

Finally, we should also question the immorality sometimes present in the process. The illusion and the desperation become in innumerable cases in elements of game where the winning hand is always the power one. The pursuit of maximum profit at the expense of those who only wish to live the illusion of starting a new life. Or the usual scams that turn gray, all that one day was light.