Hello again and welcome to our first topic…

What is the first thing you have to do when you want to form a Flat-sharing community? Finding your flatmates which whom you feel comfortable and have a lot of fun abroad. In order to learn more about how to manage this initial step we visited our first residential community here in Budapest. Let us first say, with the right flatmates you can develop new friendships, find a new “family” and also learn more about yourself.

We were warmly welcomed by Gabriel from Brazil, Laura from Spain, Lorenzo and Veronica from Italy and Pauline from France. Our first impression about them was as if they have already been living together and known each other for many years. But how was this community created?

It was Veronica who looked for a flat and housemates on the Facebook Budapest Erasmus Group. Laura became aware of the post and directly liked Veronica’s profile. She took up contact with the Italian girl via Facebook and they got on well right from the start. After they had decided to open a WG together with other different nationalities, they looked for an appropriate apartment.

Laura was the first who found a flat on Facebook. The fact that in this case one could only rent single rooms instead of the whole flat made them optimistic about having the chance to live in an international community. To be sure that the pictures of the flat reflect the real state she sent her uncle, living in Budapest, to view it. After his okay Veronica and Laura agreed on booking two rooms. Before coming to Budapest they continually chatted with each other about daily life, work and vacations. The two girls already established a relationship of trust and friendship before coming to Budapest. In their opinion this has helped them to feel comfortable sharing the flat with strangers.

In contrast, the boys just looked for a room on their own and placed no importance on building personal contacts in advance. The only requirement they had in common with the girls was the internationality of the flat for reasons like improving English, learning from other cultures as well as sharing music, food and hobbies. Moreover the flatmates should be at the same stage of life so that they have the opportunity to share similar interests.

Although all we have written about finding your flatmates sounds so easy, there are sometimes difficulties in living with strangers and especially with different cultures.

But as a message or tip from the WG, don’t be afraid, it may be a challenge, but you can grow through it and test you limits.