- Daiki Saito
When my company decided to send me to Essen, I took a quick look at the local community and said: Please do!
Living in Oberhausen
Because of the incredibly popular film festival that is held there every year, Oberhausen in Germany is also known as “The City of the International Short Film Festival”. Located between the large cities of Duisburg and Essen, Oberhausen is a vibrant and thriving city with some fascinating unique aspects about it. For example, Paul the Octopus lived in Oberhausen - Paul made newspaper headlines all across the world for predicting football scores in the 2010 World Cup. His predictions were surprisingly accurate, and at one point his success rate reached 85 per cent. Although it's tempting to move to a new city solely on the information that a psychic octopus once lived there, it's probably best if any future expats in Oberhausen explored the actual city first to learn a little bit about its history and inhabitants. To feel the city's cultural heartbeat, you should visit the Gasometer Oberhausen, a huge gas holder that has been recently converted into a stunning exhibition space. And after that, a shopping spree around Europe's largest shopping mall, CentrO, will scratch your consumer itch.
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Moving to Oberhausen
The first film festival in Oberhausen was in 1954, and in 1982 the group that wrote the Oberhausen Manifesto were awarded the coveted Deutscher Filmpreis (a movie-industry accolade). Many people are first drawn to the city because of the film festival and then decide to stay after having fallen in love with the city. Additionally, it does not hurt that the local shopping opportunities are also a major draw at CentrO, as are the city’s world-class colleges and schools. If you are thinking of moving to Oberhausen, but you have your doubts about the stresses and strains of expat life, you should join InterNations and browse through the content and forum sections on our website. There are discussion threads about pretty much anything you can think of and even if other expatriates hasn't already left any comments about your particular conundrum, you simply leave a post yourself and wait for a friendly reply.
Working in Oberhausen
In the 1960s and 70s, Oberhausen’s economy was largely based on steel manufacturing, and iron mining, but the last few plants closed down in 1997. Nowadays, the economy is driven more by chemical processing, mechanical engineering and a growing education system. If you want to start working in Oberhausen, but you don't know where to begin looking for a job, then you should approach somebody on the InterNations forums. No doubt an expatriate just like yourself will have had an experience similar to yours, and they should be able to talk you through the German job seeking process. With the help of the global expat community at InterNations, you will get settled into life as an expatriate in Oberhausen faster than you can predict the upcoming football scores, just like Oberhausen's Paul the Octopus once did. Or maybe you are less worried about working in Oberhausen and are rather looking for fellow expatriates in the city? You can use the InterNations’ private messages system, forums and discussion boards to get in touch with other expats living in Oberhausen in order to both socialize and network.
- Daiki Saito
When my company decided to send me to Essen, I took a quick look at the local community and said: Please do!
- Cristina Fernandez
On InterNations I did not only meet interesting people but I also found a flat near Bochum and settled in quickly. A great platform.
