Europe: the Move, part 1

[Fore-note1: Lacking any current and awesome pictures, I will include a mural from Berlin from this summer

Fore-note 2: I debated whether people might be interested in this, the sort of ''behind the scenes'' stuff about the move, and figured I'd write it and see. Also, Megan said she'd read it ;)]
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People keep asking me if I am excited.

Mostly, I worry.  I try to remind myself, though, of what I've already accomplished and the good things going on. 

• Have a job, or, will, in March. 
• Living in foreign countries. 
• Learning a foreign language. (No offense to the Danes, but I think I'll stick to German for now. )
• I have a local (German) bank account and cell phone. 
• I found someone to take over the lease to my apartment in Urbana (no meager feat)
• My worldly possessions are reduced to about 250 pounds of assorted stuff. 
• Schlepped said stuff across the ocean at very reasonable cost.
• Will have a nice place to live and math to do for 1.5 months, in Copenhagen, before Hamburg. That is, I will not be homeless or burning through all of my money before I even begin to work. 
• Have an appointment with the people who will give me my residence&work permit. 
• The people who grant residence&work permits speak/read/write English.
• I have made contact with some people about health insurance. 
• I have figured out which neighborhoods I'd like to live in, what websites to search, and what search criteria to use, and with the results made a spreadsheet to work off of. 

On to the stuff that is (somewhat quietly) freaking me out. The most prominent are 

(1) Finding a place to live in Hamburg 

(2) Getting health insurance 

(3) getting (1) and (2) so that I can get a residence&work permit on March 6th. 

I think I will tackle some of my troubles with housing and leave the health insurance debacle for another time. 

First, a word on the general state of the housing market in Hamburg. 

There were protests in October about the crazy rent increases. There is a severe shortage of housing. I read somewhere that it's in the top 4 highest-rent cities in Germany. 

I've found, I think, every website I could be searching for an apartment or a room (i.e. shared flat) on, and have subscribed to their emails where they send me daily the new ads that fit my search criteria. Great, ok. I have also touched base with the university's new group dedicated to ''housing for international guests'', which apparently I qualify as. 

Based on what I've seen, I will probably not get away with paying less than 500 euro rent pre-utilities, which can be ~ 720 euro after utilities, etc. My friend pays 330 euro pre-utilities in Berlin for a place that's nicer and bigger than any place I have any hope of renting in Hamburg for less than 575. 

To be fair, if I were willing to live >10km away from the uni, I could get cheaper rent. 

Various hurdles/concerns to do with the apartment-search:

Fees:  Most of the places are rented through a firm, and there are non-negligable fees, at 2.83 times the ''cold rent'' (pre-utilities cost, or base rent), >= 1700 euros (current conversion is about 1.3 euros/dollar).  

Deposit: To be expected, but is ~3x the ''cold rent'', so >= 1500 euros. 

Viewings: If you're lucky, there is a viewing date set in the ad, and you can make it. 

If you're not, you email them (and don't hear back or call them and leave a message on their voicemail. When they accumulate enough interested parties, they set a viewing date and time. I'm guessing this is random, or maximizing annoyance for the average interested party. 

Language: I guess this is obvious that it would be easier if I knew more German, and knew the German renting-phrases. Esp. as I need to leave voicemail. Here are some examples.

"n-Zimmer Wohnung": Ok, wohnung is apartment. In the states, n would be the number of bedrooms. Here, it's the number of rooms that are not (a) a kitchen, (b) a bathroom or (c) a hallway. 

"Miete zzgl NK" , despite what google translate tells you, is ''cold rent'', i.e. rent before heating/utilities 

NK=Nebenkosten = utilities, sometimes includes heat

"Nachtspeicherheizung", literally translates as "Night"+"storage"+"heating". What's that about? Why, of course they must mean *electric heat*. Which, by the way, is rather undesireable, being significantly more expensive than central/gas heat. 

EBK = Einbaukuche = '''built in kitchen''. This can mean sink+stovetop, or that plus any combination of the following: oven, fridge+freezer, dishwasher.

That is, there are places that have...maybe a sink? This blew my mind. 

For the interested, my search criteria: 

Min size (Min Große):  40 m^2  (~ 300 ft^2)

Min # ''Rooms'' (Min # Zimmer): 2        (e.g. bedroom + living/dining-room)

Max. Rent (euros):  500 (or, more recently, 550) 

Neighborhoods:  near the university (i.e. within a 6km circle), not in the red-light/former-red-light/punk areas. [Eimsbüttel, Eppendorf, Hoeheluft (Ost & West), Winterhude, Harvesthude, Lokstedt, some of Barmbek]