Important facts to know before moving to BCN.

Is your Placement already secured? Your flight already booked? All you things packed? I guess you’re almost good to go and I’m pretty sure you’re very excited to move to the beautiful, sunny city of Barcelona. However, here a some few things to remind before starting to feel at home in your new environment.

In this blog-post we will tell you a little more about these following points:

• Cost of living & Housing
• Paperwork
• Spanish bank account
• Public transportation
  
  
• Cost of living
  
  Financial circumstances are always an important factor for students when deciding whether or not move to another country. Unfortunately, we often have experienced in the past that this is the most common breaking point for students having to reject a placement when a position has been offered.
  
  (Nevertheless, always keep in mind that all our offered internships pay a minimum stipend of 400€ for an internship and that every EU student can apply for an Erasmus Grant.)
  
  Here we show you a quick overview of monthly estimated costs for Barcelona:

• Rent: approx. €400 Including gas, water, electricity and Wifi for a room.
• Shopping: approx. €140 for groceries
• Public transport:
  • €105 per 3 months (under 25 years – T-Jove) and otherwise €142 with a 3 month ticket (T-Trimestre).
  • €54 Ticket for 30 days unlimited travel (T-Mes).
  • €10,20 Ticket for 10 trips (T-10)

Of course you can also choose to rent a whole apartment. Renting an apartment in Barcelona often costs €800 to €1000 per month, including gas, water, electricity and Wifi.

Here are some helpful websites when looking for your accommodation:
Badi
Idealista
Spotahome
Uniplaces
Nestpick
Studentmundial

• Paperwork
  
  For every Internship for longer than 90 days, you are required to obtain an NIE and a Social Security number (Numero de identidad de extranjero and Social Seguridad) which will be your identification number here in Spain. You are not allowed to be paid for your internship as long as you do not have these documents. We at Tech Internships abroad can offer you a smooth option of getting an appointment and both these documents through our partner. They help you with setting up an appointment for and they guide you through the complete process.
  
  You can also arrange these documents when you are in Barcelona on your own, ​​but because of the poor organisation we advise you doing it at the Spanish Embassy in your home country when deciding not to obtain these through our partner.

• Spanish Bank Account
  
  If you are planning to stay in Barcelona for a longer period of time, we recommend opening a Spanish bank account. Of course you can also use your account from your own country. However, transfers sometimes can take a (working) day or more longer. As already mentioned before, you need a NIE if you want to open a Spanish account.

• Public Transportation
  
  In Barcelona you can use Public Transportation at all times because metros and buses always run. At night, when the metro stops at 0:00 there are night buses that run until 6:00 am. Metros start to work again regularly at 5 am. If you’re planning to use the bus and train frequently , then we suggest it is

1. T-Mes 1 Zona – With this card you have unlimited use of the bus and metro for 30 days for € 54.00. A normal single ticket costs € 2.20, so it’s worth it if you have to use the metro or bus for day to day.
   
2. T-jove card – With this card you have unlimited travel for 3 months by bus and metro for only € 105.00 if you are younger than 26 years old.

Do you prefer to be more eco-friendly by using a bike? In Barcelona, there are many cycle paths that allows you to travel by bike safely. You can of course buy your own bike, but you can also use the Bicing, city bikes. There are no less than 41 points where you can take a bike and put it back and the bikes can be used almost 24 hours a day. An annual subscription costs €47.16. The first 30 minutes of each ride are free. A ride longer than 30 minutes and less than 2 hours costs €0.74.