Germany: Student Accommodation Room Tour // Studentenwohnheim

I've been looking forward to writing this post since way before I went to spend a month in Tübingen. I really wanted to know what a room in student accommodation would be like, and I couldn't find all that much on google apart from ads.

I stayed for the month of August in Georg-Fahrbach-Haus in Tübingen. It's a bit outside the town centre, about a 10 minute uphill bus journey. My room was on the 7th floor of a 13 floor high building. My room was across from the communal kitchen and down the hall from the communal showers and toilets. All of the communal elements of the accommodation were a bit grim. Like they needed a proper deep cleaning and a freshening up. So from that point of view, I didn't really like living there, but I quickly came to love my room.

Seeing as I was only there for 4 weeks and basically living out of a suitcase, I didn't have the chance to really personalize my room. However, I noticed it quickly felt more like home the more I unpacked and the more souvenirs, postcards and leaflets I propped up. I had shelves for each thing - shopping bags, toiletries, shoes, presents for home and Pfand (the german bottle deposit system).

The room was equipped with a single bed, a lot of shelving, a large desk, sink and wardrobe. There was underbed storage as well which I didn't use, but I'm sure I would have had I had more things and more time! My view was over a big field. Only minutes away was a forest-y walk and in the other direction a small shopping area. It was a nice balance of urbanity and countryside.

I've never had a sink in a room before, but I was so glad and grateful that there was one! Especially with everything else being so communal, it was nice for me to have a space where I could wash my face, brush my teeth and just have a water source in general. I would totally recommend getting a room with a sink in it if you know that you'll be sharing a lot of the other amenities (with 13 other people on your floor!)

The wardrobe was spacious and was lockable. I was able to keep my more valuable items there (like camera and laptop when I knew I wouldn't need them) without too much worry. I think the amount of storage space in the room was really excellent and meant that it could all easily be kept tidy.

Overall I was happy with my room. The bed was surprisingly comfortable and the room as a whole was spacious despite its small size. The huge negative about Georg-Fahrbach-Haus (and from what I heard from people living in other accommodation around Tübingen) was the lack of cleanliness. A lot of the cleaning is left to the students but no real rota is put in place and there are calendars and notices dated 2013 still up! Nevertheless it felt safe and wasn't particularly noisy.

Have you ever stayed in student accommodation before?

Anna x