Red Tape

I had carefully planned my tasks for the first few days before the start of school. My first full day, the Friday after I arrived, was supposed to start with registering my address followed by opening a bank account and finding a source of internet. I achieved one of those goals.

When I showed up at the Bürgerservice building beside the Hauptbahnhof, I pulled a ticket like one does at a deli and waited my turn. It only took seven or so minutes and I felt I had gotten off to a good start. The only hitch that I could foresee was that I could not remember the address for my apartment. Staying at a hostel as I am, I had no reason to write it down earlier and problems with the router kept me from looking it up as I had intended. I planned to explain the situation and kindly ask that the employee let me pull up the email with the relevant information. No go. The moment I explained that I was currently in a hostel, he stated that I could not register with a transitory address. Even if I knew where I would be in a matter of days, I could not claim to live there without actually doing so. I would have to return when I had moved in. Fine, no problem, except for one small detail. You cannot open a bank account without first registering. Until the 1st, and likely a few days afterwards, I cannot use an ATM without paying at least a $5 fee plus 3% of the withdrawal, and that will only work at special machines. My solution is to live like a pauper, hording my forty remaining euros for any unexpected expenses like, say, more nights at a hostel.

That may be necessary. In a fit of blinding stupidity on my part, I managed to forget that I have to pay the first months rent and a ~$600 deposit before I sign the housing agreement. No agreement, no keys. A wire transfer is on its way, but if it comes late, I really hope that I can wheedle another student into housing this foolish fugitive for a night or two. Ah well. I will try to be a true stoic and laugh in the face of adversity.

Particularly astute readers will probably have realized that the task I did accomplish was to find internet. I started my search by visiting the Stadt Bibliothek (city library). There, one can reserve computer time on one of their PCs given a membership card. However, that would not provide a convenient or immediate solution to my internetless. I marked the library in my memory for future reference and sallied forth again. This time I passed a sketchy looking kiosk with a sign advertising internet access. The sign did not lie. 1 Euro for 1 hour gave me plenty of time to tell my parents I'm alive and locate a Starbucks. I took a pretty wandering path to get there. German streets signs are often difficult to see, and half the time the street name on one side of the intersection is different from the name on the other side. Moreover, the clean lines and the clear intersections on my map have little to do with the ancient organic maze I spent the day wandering. However, after getting tangled up in red tape, untangling foreign but friendly streets was exactly the stress relief I needed.