Something that I realized after I reached Mannheim (1/2)

After the useful tips to prepare for the semester abroad, I have decided to write something that can be more related to for the Mannheim students (the best city ever)! Below it's the first half of the list (it might be too hard to read with too many words!), which are more of useful tips and surprise discovery I had about living in Mannheim as a new comer.

1. You can drink tap water

Growing up in the Boston area and three years at UMass, I was told to never drink any water without filter it (or just buy bottles of water to save yourself from all these trouble). I took my European and Germans friends are couple of week of convincing before I begin drink water directly from the tap. There’s no additional chemical being put into the water at Mannheim therefore it is safe to drink (I am not a science or biology major so I will not question them). For our dorm, there’s a sink at each of our room so it will be very convenient for us to refill our water bottle whenever we wanted to.

When I arrived at Mannheim, I tried to find a water fountain to fill up my water bottle and they don't seem to exist in Mannheim (while we have one basically every 100 meter on campus group). I would still recommend bring a water bottle though which will save you a lot of money from buying water bottle in school or when you are traveling.  

P.s. Don’t hold me accountable if you get sick from drinking the water, also this might not apply to other regions in Germany. Always make sure you ask the people around you before you drink the tap water.

2. Recycle your bottle

Also when you reach Mannheim, you will not see any bottles on the ground as trash. You might not even find any bottles at the trash for many residential area in Manheim. That is because people in this city is really conscious about recycle (at least the bottles). I was told that beer is cheaper than water in Germany which I basically have to agree on. However the point to recycle your bottle (both water and beer) is to lower the cost of those bottles of water we bought from the supermarket. Unlike the United States that recycle mostly the soda can, Germany focused their recycle more on plastic bottles and glass bottles. By recycling one bottle, you will get a refund of 0.25 Euro - 1.00 Euro. With those store credit that you get from the recycling, you can purchase anything from that store (for some people that would be more beer...or water?).

However, keep in mind that you can only recycle the bottle at the supermarket that you purchase from! (Ex: You might not be able to receive the water bottle that you bought at Netto supermarket at an Aldi supermarket.)

3. Supermarket closes on Sunday

Speaking of the supermarket...the place that i have a love-hate relationship with! If there’s one thing that I dislike about the supermarket, it would be that the supermarket closes on Sunday! As someone from America where supermarkets open 7 days per week, it was really hard for me to keep in mind that supermarkets and a lot of restaurant in the city are closed on Sunday. You will need to make sure that there’s enough food for you to last a day (or find someone who have extra food for you), or check ahead of time and see which restaurant is open on Sunday for you to dine in. As someone who live in Ulmenweg (a student residential area), I found that there is a pizza place and a Döner (one of my favourite food, I will definitely introduce it later) place that is open on Sunday. Different residential areas or parts of the city have different restaurants available on Sunday, you can just Google them or ask the students around you.

Another fun fact about German supermarket is that they are not allowed to sell alcohol any day after 9 pm. The reason behind it is to avoid competition with the German bar and restaurant (which requires a different license when registering with the city).