(upbeat music)
- Good morning everyone.
My name is Lynsey and I'm taking over
the ITA Instagram stories today
to tell you how and why I am in Dusseldorf, Germany.
If you have any questions please ask me
I will answer as best as I can.
So I'm originally from Missouri, grew up there,
but I lived in New York for the last six years
and I was a nanny there to one family
for the last 5 1/2 years and the kids just got too old
and were in school full time.
So I asked myself what I wanted to do with my life
and still was unsure.
I had been to Europe and had traveled a lot,
but I had never lived in Europe
and I really, really wanted to
and I stumbled upon teaching English as a foreign language.
So in my search for how to teach English
as a foreign language I came across the ITA website
and was like oh, that's really smart.
I should get TEFL certified to see
if this is really something that I want to do.
So I enrolled in the on-line course that started in March
and began doing that and then I was looking
at different countries I could go to and teach
being that I don't have a bachelor's degree.
We all saw Holly's story on Monday about how
she had problems finding an apartment
and I was very fortunate that I have friends
who were also nanny's who told me
to find an apartment as soon as I could.
So in March, I'm talking as soon as I started
the TEFL certification, I went online
and found an apartment that was affordable
and it just so happened to be in Dusseldorf,
that was just kind of the luck of what was available.
As soon as I found the apartment I signed the lease
with a start date of September 1st,
so I knew when I was moving.
My TEFL was gonna be done end of June
so I had two months essentially to get ready to move.
The next step for me was I joined
the ITA alumni Facebook page, for Germany specifically,
so I could try to connect with some people
who were already here and see what they had gone through
about getting jobs and just ask for advice.
It wasn't until May that someone had posted
about a job that was gonna be opening up
actually at the end of August, beginning of September
and I contacted her immediately about it.
It just so happened to be in Dusseldorf
and that's how I got my first job here.
My new boss put me in touch with a friend of hers
who owned Helen Doron Early English Language School
and from there I interviewed with her
and then was passed along to another franchise location.
Helen Doron specializes in teaching children
from the ages of, I think they start at three months
and they go all the way up to 18 years old
and they teach them language through their method.
The only thing about Helen Doron is that
you have to go through their training
and that is an additional 550 euro to do that.
So I planned for that and when I got here
at the end of September I did their teacher training course.
So, I'll back up a little bit.
So I interviewed via Skype with the woman
who owned the Helen Doron location and she said
that once I was here I was gonna meet with her,
but that she already had some classes
she would like for me to teach
once I passed the training.
So, that was great.
I had an apartment, I had jobs,
and I had just finished my TEFL course,
and I passed thankfully, and so the next up
was just getting ready to move
and I booked my ticket for the end of August.
I arrived August 28th.
So next I started to get things together for a visa
because I was going to apply in New York City
since I lived there and there's a German Consulate;
however, when I got there they said
it would be much quicker to apply
once I was in Germany because they could approve
as little as same day.
I'm pretty sure Holly went over this but,
to apply for a visa, any visa in Germany,
you must have an apartment
and you must register your address.
I did not get my apartment registered
until September 18th, I think,
and then I had to do a visa.
I went to try to get a same-day appointment for a visa
and they had stopped doing that
and I was unaware of that.
So they gave me an appointment for my visa
for November 19th and so I have to wait until then
to see if I even get approved.
However, I already have three jobs,
and contracts from those jobs, so hopefully
my visa appointment will go smoothly.
I will say having somebody who's a native German speaker
with you for that would be ideal.
I plan on staying in Germany at this point indefinitely.
I'm really loving it.
I'm loving living here, I'm excited to do
all the teaching that I can do
and just really explore Germany
and Europe a lot better.
So I'm not working online right now,
but that would be a good way to supplement income
if you needed to if you didn't save enough
to be able to live here until you got your visa.
And I'm doing the free-lance visa.
So I would say at least 5,000 if you can do that.
If you can save $5,000 that would be great.
That means when you convert it you'll get
like upper 3,000, maybe $4,000, euro,
not dollars, euro, and that's great.
Yeah, absolutely I'll be able to save enough
to be able travel on some weekends.
I'm not gonna do it every single weekend
because that gets costly even though
it is less expense to travel around Europe
once you're here, but I have dogs
so it kind of limits me.
So bringing a dog to Germany, in my case I brought two,
is a little bit of a checklist that you have to do.
You have to make sure that they had their rabies vaccine
after they had a microchip implanted, that's important.
After you've made sure they've had
their rabies vaccination,
after their microchip was planted,
you take all of their vet records
and they have to be certified by a USDA certified vet,
if you're coming from the United States.
They have to say that everything
that is on the records is valid.
You then take that paperwork that was certified
by the USDA vet and you take that
to the APHIS USDA office and they have
to put their seal on it saying that your dogs
are able to leave the country and enter another.
Once you have the seal from the APHIS USDA office
you have to enter the country you're going to
within 10 days of having that done
otherwise it's not valid anymore and you can't enter.
So it's a time crunch.
Once you have all of that paperwork taken care of
and you're getting ready to leave,
also before all that make sure you find
an airline that allows pets.
I found SAS Airlines and one was in the cabin with me
'cause she's only five pounds, and the other
was in the cargo 'cause she's bigger.
If you have a direct flight, that's great.
Once you get to Germany you just go through customs,
you hand them your paperwork and they approve it
and your dogs can enter the country.
For me I had a connecting in Sweden and they approved it.
Yes, absolutely, I think I said it before,
I think I wrote it in a text,
I will be starting German classes in a couple weeks.
It's essential to learn it once you're here.
Even though a lot do speak it, not knowing
what's on signs and what people are saying
is really frustrating.
Bringing my dogs was great.
I'm very happy that I have them here with me
especially since I'm gonna be here indefinitely.
So, yeah, they love it, my dogs are adjusting really well.
I mean, they don't know German,
but I'll get there eventually.
They know nein, but that's no.
Thanks for following me on my journey today
as I took over ITA's Instagram stories.
If you have any more questions please contact me
on my Instagram.
I'll put my name over there so you can do that
and I'll answer questions as best as I can.