Night life in Köln!

Hallo!

In this post we will tell you all about the night life in Köln. From all the clubs we will tell the name, address, nearest tram stop and then our experiences about them.

Roonburg (Roonstrasse 33, near Zülpicher Platz)

Roonburg is a relatively small club where we only go on Mondays since there is a special event called Fuckin' Monday. The entrance fee is 4 € and cloakroom is 1,5 €. Here you also get the credit card for buying all your drinks and paying them when you leave the club. Unlike in many other places in Roonburg there is no minimum amount to spend. In the Fuckin' Monday -event the first 100 guests get a free shot and every group of 5 girls get a bottle of sparkling wine for free and you can play beer pong for free also.  The music played is mainstream and the atmosphere is relaxed. The club is located in the basement and the walls are made of red tiles. The place itself is not that fancy but cozy in its own way. Roonburg is actually like a combination of a bar and a club ,since there is big dance floor but you can also just sit there and talk.

Das Ding (Hohenstaufenring 30-32, at Zülpicher Platz)

Das Ding is a very good club for students since it has different offers everyday! We only go there on Tuesday because then you need to pay 5,50 € for entrance and you can drink two hours (22-24) for free. At the entrance you get a glass and when you take it to the bar they give you a glass of vodka red bull. Every time you want a new drink you can just take the glass to the bar and they will automatically  change it to a new one. The atmosphere in the club is surprisingly a bit crazy after twelve...:D but we have always had a great time there! They play mainly mainstream music and the club is pretty simple. The bouncers are very strict there. They want to see everyone's IDs and they look at them very carefully. Also each time that we have been there someone has been kicked out:D

Flamingo (Friesenwall 86, between Rudolfplatz and Friesenplatz)

Flamingo is a club where we go on Wednesdays. They have a student party each Wednesday and the place is always really crowded. That is probably why it is called Flamingo since you can literally only stand there with one foot. There is no entrance fee and also no minimum amount to spend because you pay for your drinks immediately. They have a special offer from 22 to 24, you get two drinks for one! At the entrance everyone also gets a chip and you can have a game with the bartender with it. You roll the dice and if you get a higher number you get a discount for your drink. The place is really nice and they play good music but it is always too full.

Diamonds (Hohenzollernring 90, near Friesenplatz)

The club where we have been going the most. We go there only on Thursdays since they have an event called Crazy College. There is no entrance fee and you get two shots for free and also other special offers. At the entrance everyone gets the credit card and the minimum amount to pay is 5 € when leaving the club. Diamonds is the biggest club and also it is nicely decorated. They play mainstream music like almost every club here. Special about Diamonds is that people can smoke inside. The Crazy College parties are always so much fun and the place is usually full!

Vanity (Hohenzollernring 16, near Rudolfplatz)

We have been in Vanity only a couple of times. It is a relatively big club with one huge dance floor. They arrange a lot of different kinds of events there. The last time we went there the entrance fee was 5 € and you get a credit card for your drinks. The minimum amount to spend is 10 €. The club is okay and nice but not so special. Like said we haven't been there that many times.

Heinz Gaul (Vogelsangerstrasse 197, near Venloer Strasse/Gürtel)

Heinz Gaul is a huge house music club in Ehrenfeld. The club is built into a huge storage hall so the atmosphere is rough but still the place was nice. Popular house music artists perform there and the place is full of people. That's why the entrance fee is really expensive. When we went there it was 12 €.

Reineke Fuchs (Aachener Strasse 50, near Rudolfplatz)

This is a very small house music club. The club doesn't invest that much on decorations, there is nothing inside except a dance floor. :D The music there is deep house and people who go there really go for the music and not for a party. Many people there are on drugs: at least it seems like it. The entrance fee is changing, sometimes you can get in for free and sometimes you have to pay 10 €.

Crystal (Hohenzollernring 79-83, near Friesenplatz)

We went to Crystal only once when we had a party organized by our school. The place was then totally full even though it is rather big: it has two floors. It is a club and they have a huge dance floor. The music there is also mainstream. The club itself was really nice and the atmosphere at least at our party was great! Then the entrance fee was 5 € and the minimum amount to spend was 5 € also. A special thing in the club was that if people wanted to go smoking outside they had to pay 5 € for that.

Subway (Aachener Strasse 82-84, near Moltkestrasse)

Here we also went once because we wanted to try a new place. That night they had a hip hop event so it wasn't really our kind of music. The place was quite small and it was totally full that evening. It was also located in the basement. The entrance fee was 5 €. One stupid thing was that when we went there the cloakroom was full so we needed to carry our jackets with us.

These were only the clubs we have visited but Köln is full of night clubs and bars. This was only a small part of them. It's so nice to have all different kinds of clubs and bars to choose from, we are going to be so bored and depressed back in Finland. :D

The next post will be a random photo post!
Bis später!
Jenna&Maiju

Differences between Finland and Germany

Hallo!
In this post we are telling some differences between Finland and Germany and also other things we have observed here during our stay! This is going to be a loooong post (just to warn you)....

No streetlights. In Finland every street has streetlights, so when it is dark you can also see something! But here, in the evenings the streets are really dark, only light is coming from cars and from the windows of the buildings.. In the beginning it felt a bit weird and also kinda scary but nowadays we are used to it. And here in Köln you really don't need to be afraid. We have never experienced anything scary here.

Traffic lights. Here in Germany the duration of traffic lights is really long! If you just miss the green light and need to stop, you need to wait like 5 minutes (at least it feels like it :D) before the lights turn green again. And German people are really diligent: all the people are standing and waiting the lights to turn green, even though there are no cars anywhere and you could cross the street. In Finland you just walk if there is no traffic, it doesn't matter which colour the traffic lights are.

Cars. Cars in Germany are in general really new and expensive. In Finland you see all kinds of shitty cars but here every other car is Porsche or something you would think as "special" in Finland. Of course people drive only German cars, so the streets are full of new and lovely BMWs, Audis, Mercedes-Benz and so on. We think it is because of the taxation in Finland: people basicly just don't have money to buy that nice cars. Here it is totally different case.

Taxis. All the taxis here are the same colour, like for example in New York City! In Germany all the taxis are beige, cream or how can you define the colour.. But they are really easy to notice because other cars are never that colour.  In Finland you cannot differentiate a taxi from a "normal" car, the only thing is the taxi-sign on top of the car.  Furthermore taxis are super cheap here compared to Finland. The starting fee is 3 € and it doesn't matter if it is weekend or night, the price is always the same. Of course we have been using taxi only in the city area, but we have never paid more than 10 €.

And surprisingly all of them are Mercedes :D

Driving culture and speed limits. People here overall drive very fast and someone could also say crazy, and they are not afraid to honk (töötätä). In Finland you only do it if someone is not driving when the lights are green, but here... If you are not satisfied with someone's driving, you can honk like million times to show that. Also we have seen couple of times people to open their cars' windows and shout there something :D And the speed limits haha.. People drive fast. And in motorways we only saw once a speed limit sign and it stated that the limit of 120 km/h is ending so you can drive as fast you want :D We thought that was hilarious... Because in Finland the maximum allowed speed is 120 km/h and only allowed during the summer time when the weather is nice.

Emergency vehicles. Ambulances, polices and fire trucks are really loud here! Of course you can hear them in Finland too, but here when they put the siren on you really need to cover your ears, because the sound is so loud.. We think it is a little bit too much. It really destroys your hearing :D

Sundays. Every shop is closed on Sundays. In Finland you cannot really differentiate whether it is Sunday or just a normal day, because all the grocery stores and clothing stores and so on are open. Here on Sundays only couple of cafes and kiosks are open. Everything else is closed. On Sundays people just gather to pubs and cafes to hang out :)

Kiosks. In Köln there are the biggest amount of kiosks in relation to amount of people. And you can really see that! In every street there is a kiosk. They sell similar products than kiosks in Finland but also wine, vodkas and other alcohol. It is really easy to drop by a kiosk if you need something small, because they are everywhere (believe us, everywhere). In Finland it is totally different. Of course we have R-Kioskis in every town, but here there are like hundreds of them.

Backwerks. Meaning shops where you can buy fresh sandwiches, pretzels and sweet pastry. Germany is full of them! German people apparently love to grab something small on-the-go. We really couldn't find a translation for that word so we always call them Backwerk. It is actually only one brand, there are of course many companies having the same business idea. And these you can also find from every block! Have to admit that it is really handy to go and grab there breakfast if we were too lazy/busy to eat at home. And sandwiches there cost approximately 2 €, so it is not bad for your wallet either ;D

Clubs.  We will write a separate post of night life in Köln, but in this post we wanted to tell you that the clubs do not close here! :D In Finland it is super super strict that they don't sell alcohol after 3.30 and everybody needs to be out at 4 in the morning. It is the law that clubs cannot be open after 4. Here on the other hand clubs close when people leave :D Only club (as far as we know) is Roonburg, which closes at 4. Others keep their doors open as long people want to party! It is great but not so great is that too many times we have been home somewhere around 6-7 in the morning...

Alcohol. Price of alcohol is here in Germany ridiculously cheap compared to Finland. In Finland the prices are approximately double than here. We don't really know how we can afford drinking alcohol in Finland after staying here this autumn :D Also in Germany it is allowed to have alcohol discounts and offers, such as "buy 3 pay for 2 drinks". In Finland that is illegal because you cannot set incentives to buy alcohol. Haha luckily you don't need to tempt a Finnish person to drink alcohol :'D
Also one thing to mention is that you cannot get cider from Germany. Nobody knows what is cider and when we try to explain it, people are really amazed and do not even understand what kind of a drink it could be :D Exception is only one Irish Pub here in Köln where you can get apple cider!

Just a basic grocery store in Germany!

In Finland Bacardi costs 25,90€.....

In Finland Smirnoff costs 21,90€ and Absolut 22,80€

Also non-alcoholic drinks are super cheap here! (In Finland that is about 3€)

Bottles. Nobody in Germany drinks from cans. In Finland you cannot really (that much) get anymore alcohol drinks in bottles, everything is put into cans. But here in Germany they drink from glass bottles! We haven't even seen beer in a can here.
Finnish people, do you remember those old thick lemonade bottles? Nowadays in Finland plastic bottles are much thinner because of some recycling law or something. Here the lemonade bottles are exactly like in Finland 10 years ago! :D

Smoking. In Finland you cannot smoke in bars or clubs. It is illegal. Here in Germany it is not regulated by law so you can do it if the club itself allows it. Illegal also in Finland is to advertise cigarettes. We were quite amazed and also amused when we saw the advertisements here the first time! Yeah, there are a lot of cigarette advertisements in streets, tram stops and so on. And the slogans are so hilarious in them! :'D For example: "Marlboro, when you want nothing less." "The intelligent choice" and so on.. Also they have discounts of cigarettes in Germany! "Buy now, get 20% more for free". Totally illegal in Finland, in the country of laws and regulations :D

Clevere Wahl= More clever choice :'D

Cash. German people love to pay cash. In many restaurants and actually also in many grocery stores and for example pharmacies you cannot pay with card. In Finland it is totally different: people tend to pay everything with card and actually only old people use cash nowadays. So when traveling to Germany, be prepared to pay cash where ever you go :D  Here in Germany they also use 1 and 2 cent coins. In Finland the smallest coin is 5 cent and we round the sums to the nearest 5 cents when paying. Those small coins are really annoying because you always get them (of course everything costs 1,99 or smth) and at least we are often too lazy to pay with them.. It takes such a long time to count them! So the result is that our wallets are full of those small useless coins.

Nature. By this we mean that even though Germany is not THAT much more south than Finland, there are millions of different trees that don't grow in Finland. And earlier we never thought that trees are small in Finland, but after coming here we realized that they are tiny :D Trees grow here so much bigger.

Homeless people. Sad but true. Of course we have beggars in Finland too (mostly in Helsinki though) but people are not living and sleeping in the streets. Here it is everyday life: When you walk around the city you can see that homeless people are sleeping in their sleeping bags in the streets, it doesn't matter whether it is cold or raining but apparently they don't have a choice. It is really sad.

Phone booths. Though we have never seen anybody to use them, there are phone booths still at least in Köln! From Finland they have disappeared a long time ago.

Hopefully you found this interesting :D At least for us this has been!
Next post is going to be about night life in Köln! Actually we are just about to go and do a bit more research about that topic ;D
Bis später,
Maiju&Jenna

Köln Christmas Markets

Hello!

In Köln it is already feeling like Christmas, thanks to the Christmas Markets!
In Köln there are 7 Christmas Markets around the city and they all opened on 24.11., month before Christmas Eve.
Every Christmas Market has its own theme and they are open every day!
Every market has lots of stands which are selling Glühwein, Bratwurst, fried almonds and other nuts. Then according to the theme there are lots of different gifts and small items you can buy :)

In my (Maiju) opinion Christmas Markets are nice and the decorations are really beautiful, but there is really not that much to buy. Or there is, but nothing I would like to buy. My mom would say that the markets are full of krääsä :D Small decorative items, Schneekugeln= snow globe, candle holders etc. Beautiful, but nothing you would really need. So sorry guys but no gifts from the Christmas Markets! The only thing I am planning to buy are those almonds and maybe some chocolate! :)

I (Jenna) on the other hand LOVE the Christmas Markets and could spend a whole day just walking around and admiring the beautiful stuff there :) I wanna buy everything, the things are so pretty <3 I wish we had Christmas Markets in Finland too!

We have visited almost every Christmas Markets here in Köln and also one in Aachen (but we probably will make a separate post about that).

Actually, there is a Christmas Market right next to our place! We can see and hear it every evening from our window :D It is of course the gay-lesbian market! Btw Conchita Wurst was performing there yesterday! We don't even need to go out to see the show because we can see the stage from inside :D You can see from everything that it is not a "normal" Christmas Market. The decorations are quite outrageous and full of glitter and everything :D Also they sell there all kinds of stuff..... haha you can only imagine!

Rares, Stephanie, Jenna, Yvonne and Maiju having Glühwein <3 yummyy

Rudolfplatz

Dom

Dita, Alyssa, Christina and Jenna

Alter Markt

Heumarkt

Next post is about differences between Germany and Finland! Stay tuned :D
Maiju&Jenna

Exams at CBS

Hallo!

It is the end of semester here in Köln and that means finals and exam week! At CBS all the exams are held at the end of the period, the school has reserved two weeks for them. So now everyone is really stressed out and trying to read for their exams :D We are both very lucky since we have our last exam already on Monday and after that we can just relax and enjoy the last days in Köln!

Surprisingly when we are in Germany, CBS has a lot of rules for the exams. One exam lasts for one hour only, you would think that yay!! only one hour but actually it's not good. One hour is not enough when the teachers put so many questions to the exams that you don't have time to answer them properly.

We are also not allowed to write our names to the exams but instead everyone has an individual exam number that needs to be written to the papers. This way the teachers can grade the exams objectively. But actually it seems stupid since the teachers always check the participants in the lectures and they say that participation affects on your grade...How can it affect when they don't know who wrote the exam?

CBS also has an examination office which handles all the stuff related to exams and course works. All course works are returned to the examination office, not to the teachers like in our home university. The examination office makes the schedule for all exams and they are overseeing the exams. This was a bit surprising for us. The teacher cannot affect to the exam date and that the teacher is not present in the exam to give you advice or answer your questions.

Here the exams usually make 100% of your grade and there is a lot more theory in the lectures, so we have been really studying for them! Seems crazy to be studying many hours in the library since we haven't really done anything during the semester :D

International Human Resource Management </3 :'(

The face when you realize you have spent 5 hours in the library and learnt nothing... :'D

Our new home: Köln University Library and Lesesaal

Two exams to go! Then we are freeeeeee!! <3

Next post is going to be about Christmas Markets.

Jenna&Maiju

Erasmus

Hallo!

This post is going to be full of (boring) information about Erasmus. :D What we needed to do before coming to Germany, about the documents and assignments, also about grants and so on. Like everyone already might now, Erasmus is an European exchange programme for university students.

Our process started already in March, when we needed to apply for going for an exchange. We applied only to Cologne Business School, even though our school offered a lot of destinations. We estimate that there were like 50 different places to choose from. We needed to wait approximately two weeks and in the end of March we got a result, that we were accepted and would be the two lucky ones from Finland to go and study in CBS! At the moment when we found out Maiju couldn't stop smiling because it was like a dream come true. (I remember, when I told Jenna about it, she looked actually quite terrified XD)

After a while we got the final acceptance also from CBS and then we started to fill in all the documents: Learning Agreement, Grant Application, Course Registration and Student Dormitory-application. By the way, we sent the dormitory application to CBS in May and they answered that the dorm was already full. So you need to be really quick if you want to get a room from there :)
Filling the documents was a mess: we printed, scanned, filled them like million times again and again and it didn't help that Maiju was in Helsinki and Jenna in Oulu.. :D But eventually we succeeded!

Before we left, we needed to do some pre-assignments. They are part of "Valtteri"-course. That course is mandatory for all students going for an exchange and it is worth 3 credits. There were 6 assignments: CV, presentation about Finland, budget estimation, revising history of Germany, expectations about the exchange and description of language preparation. All the assignments were okay but writing about history of Germany was quite horrible, to be honest :D

Also before leaving here we needed to make a notification to KELA that we are going to stay abroad the next semester. Normally we get study aid 268 € per month, but now that we are staying abroad it is 9 € more :'D jeij....

All Erasmus students get a study grant and the amount depends on the country where you go. Countries are divided to two categories and Germany belongs to category 2. Our Erasmus grant is 210 € per month or 7 € per day. We got 80 % of the grant in September and the rest we will get after returning all the necessary documents (=transcript of records and learning agreement)  to our home university. Furthermore we got a travel grant of 400 € from our home university.
Also it is good to know that our school gives scholarships to students who are going abroad. Maiju applied one (btw it was really easy, only one paper) and got a grant of 300 €.

During the stay here we needed to fill the Learning Agreement again, because there was some changes. We chose our courses already in the spring, but we couldn't fit to those courses and we were put into different ones, so we needed to make a new learning agreement. We actually have been delaying doing that the whole semester, but when we finally did it it took like 5 minutes :'D haha..

When we go back to Finland we need to of course return the documents like mentioned earlier, but also write a report of our exchange. It is going to be in our school's intranet to give information for students going or planning to do their exchange after us :)

We think this was it! Probably not relevant to most of our readers but hopefully someone finds this informative and useful :D

Next post is going to be about exam period here in CBS.
Tschüss!
Maiju&Jenna