Here are some of the tips that I would personally like to have received before traveling to Utrecht or Maastricht.
**SAVING MONEY**
Here some tips to help your personal economy to avoid suffering more than necessary and to counteract the recent increase in the average rental price in the area.
**PUBLIC TRANSPORT**
First, the means of transport. Individual bus trips are really expensive, between 1.5 euros and 3 euros per trip. I suggest taking out a bus voucher (Ovshipkaart), which however expensive it may seem at first, ends up being profitable in the end.If I had known that from the very beginning I could have saved almost half of what I spent in public transport.
There are bus lines that leaves you right in front of supermarkets, something indispensable. The SPAR supermarket that is inside the different campus is quite handy, but I recommend it only for detours, because in the long run it is very expensive.
**SUPERMARKET**
Without any intention of advertising... I will say that JUMBO and ALBERT H. are supermarket brands with fairly quality & competent prices and products.
**TRAIN**
The train is also an important issue. Surely you like to travel, and both cities presents a great opportunity to visit many cities of interest. I think the RABOBANK bank made it easier to get a discount on train tickets.
**USEFUL APP**
To organize trips by bus and train there is a web page worth mentioning, OV9292 (language available in Dutch and English), this page is the "google earth" particular of the transports there, it allows you to organize a route from home to the airport from another city (or anything else) indicating step by step how to get to the bus stop closest to your apartment, the train station ... including all the places you must go through until you reach your destination and respective times. For those who have Iphone or Ipod Touch, the application for them is available. For Android I do not know but it's a matter of investigating it.
**SIMCARDS & MOBILE PHONE COMPANYs**
Related to mobile phones, the subject of mobiles is something important. When you arrive at the university, you will almost certainly get a welcome pack with advertising brochures and some Mobile-T or Lebara mobile gift cards.
I used the latter because with every 10 euros of recharge they gave you another 10. In mediamarkt you can find mobile phones for 15 - 20 euros, and if you are lucky you can find mobile packs Lebara where you have a mobile and a free prepaid card in the package . A cell phone there is important, not only to contact colleagues there but also for any emergency that may occur)
**UNIVERSITY BOOKS**
The cost of buying manuals and books from there is also important, if I knew the following could have saved me up to 50% of the cost of the books and also many disappointments; Some can be found in ebook online and can also be published in Spanish, as was the case of a book of a subject I had there.
That is why I advise you to have at least the books that you have to buy there if you can and after making sure you are already there of what are the subjects of the first block you are going to study, book them in StudyStore, the bookstore par excellence of the student there, you have one in front of the campus library.
I say booking because buying a book there can be complicated if it is not in the first days (the demand is huge) it happened to me that I had to wait weeks to find some of them, and time should not be lost.
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