The Auslanderbehorde Disapproves of My Nationality...

But will give me a work permit anyway! That's right, I got my arbeitslaubnis (work permit) today so I can begin work just as soon as my boss contacts me and says she has a class for me. Yay! It was a pretty tame day at the auslanderbehorde (foreign resident's office)- a line around the block an hour and a half before the doors were even open and then, once the golden hour finally arrived, everyone rushed the door cutting in front of people ruthlessly to get to the head of the line. Guh. Something odd: there was a notice on the pole in front of the building that said that persons of certain nationalities would not be serviced today as there was a strike coinciding with 9/11. These nationalities included: Arabic, American, Afghanistan, Iraqi, Iranian, and Israeli among others. The notice said something about terrorism but was hard for me to translate as it was written in very formal Deutsch with lots of long, conjoined words. Luckily, the strike did not apply to me as I already had an appointment. Still, I think that is pretty lame. Many Americans do not approve of this war, and many of the other nationalities they listed probably don't either. I mean, why do you think we left our own country?

Got My Visa!

It was 7 AM (opening time) and the Ausländerbehörde (Visa Office) was crowded in all three waiting rooms. Turkish babies were crying. British expats were crying. And the machines that gently beep to let you know a new number is coming up kept breaking down. After only a couple hours of waiting, Carlos came out with a big smile on his face and a shiny new visa in his passport. Unable to resist the temptation to pry, I asked him what had gone on in there, if it had been violent, if they had made him give blood, urine, semen? He told me they didn't even ask him any questions, really, just handed the thing over. I, however, had to wait 6 hours only to be told by some German lady who didn't speak English that I needed some document of some kind and would have to come back in a few weeks after I'd obtained whatever it was. Not being the kind of person to give up my time that easily, I decided to take a new number, wait another hour, and try my luck talking to someone else. After tossing around some documents regarding my school enrollment, funds, and health insurance, I was given a visa for one year. I'm very happy to be done with this. I wouldn't wish the Ausländerbehörde upon even my worst enemies.

We have a new apartment & our manager is dead

It's true. We arrived on Friday only to find that the reason our latest emails hadn't been answered by the manager is that he died 5 days ago. His wife and the hausmeister Mr. Kropp have been taking care of things, but haven't been able to really get things up to speed just yet. In light of the circumstances, we were moved into a new, larger apartment (twice as large, to be precise) which has a bathtub, balcony, and full kitchen with dishwasher. Unfortunately, the wireless issue has become an issue as only Carlos can get internet for any extended period of time in the apartment. The hausmeister has let me use his office (which is a small chilly room located in another building across the courtyard) for internet until he can get the gentleman who handles these sorts of things to, erm, handle it- although Herr Kropp recently informed me that this gentleman is currently busy with installing a new kitchen and therefor it might be sometime before we can get this whole thing straightened out. So far we've taken a few trips out into the city- once or twice out to dinner, and a long walk to Club Maria- yet another old-warehouse-turned-club where we saw Mouse on Mars & Vitalic. Needless to say, it was a pretty damn amazing thing. I ran into Kid606 (who I've been calling "unkie miguel" on account of the fact that he's been very accomodating of all of our silly touristy-type questions- despite the fact that he is a super star DJ). We're going to get cheapo bikes at the flea market on Sunday even though it is very cold, and I may freeze to death riding it back home. Carlos has been freaking out about visas pretty regularly. I had to buy him dinner at Schwartes Cafe a couple nights ago to get him to chill out. He seems to be doing better, having resigned himself to signing up for a language course in order to get the student visa. I think it's a much better plan that living under the raydar, as the german's seem to have some pretty serious fucking raydar. We're going to get registered on Thursday (the law requires that you register within 7 days with the foreign authorities office). This won't give us a visa or anything- that will all come later once we have a more permanent place to live and have paid for school. School, by the way, doesn't start until April. I think with 25 channels of public access documentary style work programming on the tele I'm going to be pretty bored for the next couple months, and unfortunately it's too damn cold to be frolicking around just for the hell of it.