Moving in Germany (Part 2)

Part 2: Dude, Where’s my Kitchen?!

A very usual sight when moving into a new place in Germany (Photo courtesy Immozippel)

About a month before moving into our new digs, my girlfriend calmly told me that something has to be done “about the kitchen”. Naturally, I was dumbfounded. “What kitchen?” I asked. “The kitchen for our new place, of course,” she said, matter-of-factly. Turns out, I hadn’t been aware of the quirky German tradition of moving places and taking your kitchen with you! Yes, you read it right. People actually take all their belongings with them which includes their kitchen as well. To be fair, though, many people also either sell their kitchens to the incoming tenants or to someone else on the presumption that the new people would bring their own kitchens with them.

In Pakistan, we have a completely different way of going about such things. Whenever someone moves into a place, they either have a kitchen built for them by employing plumbers and carpenters and what not. Of course, labor is quite cheap in that part of the world as compared to Europe. When someone else moves into that place, they either have a new kitchen built for them or keep the old one if its fine. In Germany – in fact, in most Western countries – assembling your own furniture and kitchens is the norm rather than the exception. For this reason, it might not be so unusual to some of you reading this post to know that Germans disassemble their kitchens and take them with the rest of their stuff. That includes all the cabinets as well; imagine pipes and sockets as being the only thing left behind.

POCO is to furniture outlets what Aldi is to supermarkets and Ryanair to airlines.

Being students, my girlfriend and I couldn’t afford an expensive kitchen. Therefore, we went to the nearest POCO outlet. POCO is the Aldi of furniture stores. It sells even cheaper stuff than IKEA! And what’s more, half the time, the quality ain’t so bad either. Penniless students that we were, we decided to buy a basic POCO kitchen. My girlfriend’s parents helped us transport it and also helped installing it later. But the installation will be covered in the next part. Until then, I bid you adieu.