Productive by All Accounts

Today I rose early after a good night’s sleep in my own room and headed to the BürgerService to register my address. Within a few minutes of pulling a ticket my number came up. I showed my passport and lease, answered some simple question and voila! I received my Meldeschein. The woman I spoke to also gave me a packet of information for new residents. Though I have not looked to closely at it, the thought alone is nice.

From there I stopped by an ATM (Geldautomat) to pull out the money for my semester fees. I did not want to wait for a wire transfer to get the ball rolling. Thus, I sucked up the extra charges for using my PNC card. Minutes later I asked to open an account with Sparkasse. I chose Sparkasse mainly because the banks and ATMS are ubiquitous in Aachen. Looking over account options online, it seemed to have several perfectly adequate options for my needs.

The one the woman working with me recommended was S-Pool.

 It is a Giro account (don’t ask what Giro means. I still have no idea.) with online and in office banking options. You receive an ATM card that most shops in Aachen will accept if they accept plastic at all. Furthermore, there are a number of businesses in the city that offer discounts to card holders. You can even get phone and travel insurance through it. The down side is it costs around 3 euros a month with the student discount.

Another option exists that has no monthly fee, no discount arrangements with stores, and purely online banking. This option may have been more appropriate for me. I do not intend to visit most of the businesses that offer discounts, my phone is not worth ensuring, and I already have travel insurance. However, the “only online banking” bit threw me. If I am short a computer, I want access to my account. Thus, I let myself be talked into the more expensive option. All in all, 30 Euros is not the worst price to pay for some added convenience.

That same mentality fed into the rest of my day. After signing a pile of papers and depositing and immediately transferring the semester fee, I headed off to Starbucks to try and activate my student account. I got an error. I tried again and got the same error. Eventually, I read the card with my activation code a little closer. It turns out that after paying the fee you still have to wait a week for the system to digest your data. That was when I decided to pay for a wired connection in my dorm. I had hesitated before to cough up the 20 Euros and 15 Euro deposit. However, the thought of walking to Starbuck one more time to check my email…Although I hate how dependent I am on the internet, the situation demands it. I can honestly say, blogging from the comfort of my own room, that I made the right decision.