Packing and preparation...

Semester's over, time to pack, and charge up the batteries for my camera!

New Trip!

I am going to the Snowball in Sweden!

Leaving on Dec 25, returning on Jan 12. Look forward to some pictures!

Move in: complete?

So, I've made it back to Minnesota. There were a few incidents along the way, such as being detained leaving Germany for overstaying my visa (it all worked out in the end, and i didn't have to pay anything, and had no charges or anything), and missing my flight from Washington to Minneapolis.

Over the past week, I've gotten all set up for my classes, and yesterday finished the move-in process. I'm not quite sure if I'm done rearranging my room, but it's pretty good so far.

Anyway, here's a few pictures from my last days in Hamburg:

From Germany 2008

From Germany 2008

From Germany 2008

And he's off!

Busy past few days. Done with work, etc. I seemed to make a really good impression.

Alicja, a counselor from camp, came to visit over the weekend, and we went to this thing called Elbeswing, which was a swing party on top of a boat on the Elbe. It was great!

I'm al packed up, ready to fly back home. When I get all situated, I'll post some more pictures for those of you who are curious.

So, I've been neglecting my blog lately...

It's been a busy month.  I've been really busy at work, I helped Lindsey move, I went to a cruise ship festival with Antonia and saw the Queen Mary II, parents came and we drove to Amsterdam, and... tomorrow is work again.  Dang.

Anyway, here are some pictures of my recent adventures:

Busy busy!

So, it's been a while.  The past two weeks have seen lots of stuff going on.  Lots of work, but also some fun stuff mixed in, too.  Last weekend we had our "grill fest" at work, which was sort of fun.  Lots of free, gourmet food, and tons of people told me how great I am at my job and how I should come work for them when I graduate, and how great my German is.  Two good signs.  The next day, Jakob had his going-away party, which was also fun.  

This last Thursday, I took a trip down to Freiburg.  I got a Sparangebot (reduced price tickets), and even managed to ride back 1st class.  Which was the first time I've ever ridden 1st class anything, and it was great.  I look forward to trying to do it again in the future.  On the way back, I almost missed my train and got stuck down there for another day, due to construction work on the rails.  We left for the 7-minute trip to the train station with about an hour and a half to spare, and ended up getting there just minutes before the train left.

This week looks like another busy one.  Don't they all seem to be busy ones, though?  I've got swing dancing tomorrow, work all week long, and some extra work to take care of, and I have to clear some stuff up with my bank.

Anyway, it's been a long (but fun!) weekend, and I'm tired out.  Time to go to sleep, so I can get up early for work tomorrow!

New Happenings

This last week wasn't bad at all.  It had a nice end last night when Jakob invited me to go to a student play at the university.  It was some weird British story about a psychiatrist, that was written after some censorship laws were revoked.  Which made for an interesting play.  But it was still pretty funny.

In other news, I might have found a little side job doing translations.  Which could potentially pay much better than my "real" job, but money isn't really the point of an internship anyway.  The neat thing about this translating gig is that I could feasibly continue doing it from the US.  And, translating doesn't take up TOO much time.  I figure it's also a pretty good way to maintain prolonged exposure to business German, and work on business English skills.  Anyway, I sent off my test-expose, and we'll see what they say.  

My real job (aka. internship at Varengold) is holding its annual Grill Fest this Friday.  Our hedge fund might reach an all-time high this week too, so this week should be a pretty good looking week at work.  Jakob is planning his Abschiedsparty, or leaving party, for this upcoming weekend, so that's another thing to look forward too.  

Parents are coming to Europe in August sometime, but it's sort of unclear whether they're going to make to Hamburg, or whether I'm going to have to take the train out to Amsterdam.  If I book now, I can get good prices.  The Deutsche Bahn (and seemingly other train systems over here) works so that if you buy tickets way in advance, you can get them for like... 75% off or so.  For my upcoming trip to Freiburg, I was able to book some tickets for about half price, including 1st class for my return trip.  I've never really had a 1st class experience before, so it should be neat.  In the Bahn, I don't expect it to be too much different, like it would be in a plane, but it should still be fun.  

So since Germany (and Europe as a whole) has state-sponsored media corporations that produce tons of informative content in good German, I've started downloading podcasts and video-podcasts from iTunes.  There are also a few "commercial" ones that I've found that are interesting.  I managed to find one podcast that's done in Plattdeutsch, or low German, which is (or was, it's been dying out for a while) the regional language around here in northern Germany.  I can't really understand it without reading along, but it's still sort of fun.

I'm thinking about asking to end my internship a week early, so that I can have a week to go on a bike trip, or visit Freiburg, or something along those lines.  On the other hand, if the U.S. political and economic situation gets too much worse, maybe I'll just stay here in Germany.  Hehe.  Kind of farfetched, but it's a backup plan.

We'll see what today has in store for me.  Tomorrow, I'm maybe meeting up with Jakob and Antonia after work, and after that, I'm going to swing dancing.  Granted I've only been at this new place for a week, but I really like it there so far, and seem to be doing pretty well.

Gourmet Food

So, I've been treated to some decent food this week.  Monday and Tuesday I was at a Reuters workshop, where they had a nice breakfast waiting for us.  On Monday, they took us out to lunch and I had a gourmet cheeseburger, which they recommended, and it turned out to be one of the best cheeseburgers I've ever had.  Tuesday, we went to an Asian restaurant, and I got some Thai curry.  That really hit the spot.

Last night, Antonia called me up and said she had tickets to some film festival at the planetarium.  We both checked out the website, but still didn't really have any idea what to expect.  Of course, they had free food at the event.  The films were sort of strange, (some were good, others weren't), but the food was tasty.  And gourmet.  It was a pretty mixed event, since I wasn't at all out of place in my suit, and Antonia wasn't either (she wasn't wearing a suit).

Today was a long day at work, but I got a bunch of stuff accomplished, and had a fairly decent Italian pizza for lunch.  I'm back to good old spaghetti for dinner tonight, but I think I did a decent job, and it tastes pretty good.

The latest from Hamburg!

So, I've fallen behind on my blog posting.  I've had a pretty busy week, or so.  Last Sunday, meaning June 30, I went to the Fischmarkt in Hamburg again.  I didn't get a free plant, but I did take some pictures:

I had a pretty busy week last week with work, but so far, things seem to be working out just fine.

Yesterday (Sunday), I went swing dancing at this swing dance party, and today I went to a lesson.  Lots of fun!

another update!

Not TOO much has happened in the past few days.  The biggest news was Germany's defeat of Turkey in the semi-final game.  There's a pretty big Turkish population in Germany, so it was a really exciting game for everyone here, and everyone was out cheering after the game was over.  It was a pretty close game, with Germany scoring the last goal in the last couple minutes, making the score 3 - 2.

I was going to go to AudiMax, which is a huge hall at the University where I watched the other Germany game, but it was full at 7:45.  The game started at 8:45, so we (Antonia aka. Christina, Manfred aka. Tobias and I) wandered off to find somewhere to watch the game.  In Germany, EVERY little restaurant, imbiss, bar, and almost every food shop, seems to have a TV with the latest Fußball news on.  Tobias, having grown up in Lüneburg, which is a city not far from Hamburg, and being a student at Hamburg University, knew the area and found us a little restaurant / bar where we watched the game.  The Stimmung wasn't quite as good as it would have been at the AudiMax, but it was still fun.  We were sitting outside, and had to stand to get a good view of the TV.  During the game, the streets were pretty much empty, with the exception of the occasional bus.  Of course Germany won, and the crowds went wild...

I went to two Reuters seminars this week, and am doing a Reuters certification program in a week or two.  It's pretty neat that they're sending me to all of this stuff for work.

Today's laundry day again.  German washing machines always take a LONG time to wash.  As in, 2 - 3 hours.  It's ridiculous, but that's just how it is.  Some washers have a "short" mode, but mine doesn't.

Right now, we've got typical Hamburg weather.  Rain.  Apparently the past month or so that I've been here has had some really atypical weather, since it was sunny almost every day.  Today looks like it might start to clear up in a bit, which will be nice.  I might go for a bike ride.  I think it's probably too late for today, but I'm thinking about biking to the ocean (or at least close to it) next weekend.  Now that I have my bike, I can go on these adventures.  Assuming I can maintain 20 kph (12 mph), which I'm pretty sure I can even exceed, it should just be a nice day trip there and back, with a scenic view of the north German country side.  Some other possible goals are Lübeck, Kiel, or Denmark! (Denmark would probably take a whole weekend there, and then I'd have to take the train back.)

No new pictures lately, but I'll try to take some tomorrow, when I visit the Fischmarkt again.  The sun's starting to come out, and I might meet up with Jakob aka. Jake and Christina tonight for something to do.

Woosh

It's been a busy past few days.  Germany's been winning soccer games, and it looks good for their semi-final game tomorrow.

Lindsey came to visit last weekend, and brought my bike!  It needs a little bit of tuning up still, but it sure beats the bus.  Lindsey and I found some "tents" put up by some fancy restaurant in the middle of the city, and got some relatively cheap gourmet food.  On Sunday, we woke up early and saw the Fischmarkt.  

Work's been busy lately.  I had a Reuters seminar today that I went to, and tomorrow's part II.  Gotta go make dinner and tomorrow's lunch!

Ein stralender Sieg für Deutschland!

So, it's been a busy past few days.  I got a haircut on Saturday, and spent a lot of the weekend working on some translations for work.  I can now read German legalese, and write it in English.

Yesterday was a blast.  It was the Germany vs. Austria soccer game in the EM, so you bet it was exciting.  Jake and I met after work, and got some dinner.  Antonia, who works at Google and gets free food there, met us afterward.  We hung out for a bit, and then Jake had a prior engagement to attend to, so we parted ways.  Antonia and I had 45 minutes to find a good place to watch the game, and get there.

After about 10 minutes of walking around, we got ahold of Manfred, another Waldseer, who lives in the area, and made our way to the University.  Did a little bit of Hamburg exploration along the way.  When we got there, we went into the "viewing room", which is really a lecture hall with 1000+ seats, and a huuuuge projector.  The collective atmosphere was great; everyone was super excited.  Watching some of the Germans get excited about the game was almost as good as the game itself sometimes.  They get really into it.

It was a pretty intense game; the head coaches of both teams got ejected from the game, and it was pretty funny to watch the coach and the guy who got a red card last game (meaning he couldn't play in this game) hang out with Angela Merkel, the Bundeskanzlerin.  Germany ended up winning 1 - 0, and they play again on Thursday!

Friday the 13th?

Today, despite being Friday the 13th, was a pretty good day.  Herr Schmidt has a birthday today, so he brought some kuchen.  A lot of people have had birthdays lately, which has meant a lot of pie and cake in the office.  A few of us went to a little restaurant / cafe sort of a deal down the street for lunch with Herrn Schmidt, which was fun.  After being moved to the trading office, work has gotten more interesting, since the traders and Frau Heiden are closer to my age.

After work, I was able to get ahold of Antonia (a fellow Waldsee counselor), and we toured around the city a bit.  She's also new in Hamburg, and is doing an internship at Google for the summer.  Pretty cool, huh?  Anyway, we went and explored a bit.  After wandering around for a while, we ended up at the public viewing area for the EM, or Europameisterschaft, which is the European soccer tournament going on right now.  

Here's a picture of the big screen.  It's neat, because entrance is free, and there are a ton of little places to get food or something to drink inside of the area.  We caught the last half of the Netherlands vs France game, which ended in an epic Dutch victory.  We arrived and the score was 2 - 0, and then the French scored after a few minutes.  After the French goal, we turned around to go check out some of the stuff behind us, and suddenly everyone roared out "TOR!", meaning that somehow in the 20 or 30 seconds since the last goal when we turned around, the Dutch had scored on the French.  The game ended up with a final score of 4 - 1, and was pretty fun to watch.  The Germans really like their Fußball, and even announce the scores on their electronic subway schedules.  In the picture, you can sort of see them announcing the final score of 4 - 1 for the "Niederlände - Frankreich" game.

After the game, we headed out, and hopped on train.  On the Reeperbahn, we found a little place that sells 2€ pizzas.  They were small and not outstanding quality, but definitely not bad for 2€.  We decided that none of the places over there were really what we were looking for as far as sitting down to eat or get something to drink, so we headed over to the Alster.  Here, we went to a little restaurant / cafe on the lake, and sat around for a while.

On our way to Alex's, the name of the place we stopped at, the strangest thing happened.  Now, Antonia is one of the few, if not the only, German who I'll speak English with as the main language (since it's pretty much her 2nd native language).  So as we were walking along, this one guy started making some not so pleasant comments to his wife and child, as he heard us speaking.  I think we surprised him a bit when we snapped back at him in German as we passed him.  It was sort of a weird experience, since neither of us have ever really heard of Germans having such a problem with hearing English.

Anyway, after we parted our ways, I managed to catch the train back.  Luckily, it runs all night on the weekends.  I did miss the last bus though, by about 30 seconds.  Oh well.  

On a finishing note, I should learn how to use my camera and all of its settings.  I tried to take some pictures of the Rathaus (you can see them in my photo album), but due to the funny lighting situations, they didn't really turn out.

Update

Work's been going well so far.  Over the past day or two, Haris (French intern) and I prepared a report and some research about commodities for our current boss, Frau Heiden.  Frau Heiden had a meeting with a journalist today, and made use of our research.  It was pretty close, we were doing our last edits and information updates right up until the deadline.  But after the meeting, she seemed pretty pleased, and she really seemed to like my idea of comparing historical commodity price to gold prices.  Ok, enough of that.

I took some pictures the other day, and thought I'd put them up here.

This is the Rathaus, or town hall, in Hamburg.

Here's a shot of the area in front of the Rathaus.  I didn't really do it justice, so I'll have to go back and take some better pictures.

Here's where I live.  Doris, my Vermieterin, lives next door in an attached house, and her brother lives in this house on the first floor.  Marian and I share the upstairs, and those windows you see up on the 2nd floor (1. German floor) are for my room.  There's a little doorway from the hallway that can take you on to the "balcony."

Here's another wonderful invention from Germany to finish this one up:

Yum!

Fun Evening on the Elbe

Today started out with regular old chores - laundry, cooking, etc.  The day became a little more exciting when I got ahold of Farin and Nora (two Waldsee Betreuer).   Nora goes to the Uni here, and Farin lives in Brussels.  We meet up at Oevelgönne, which is a little spot on the Elbe.  It's a pretty little area, and it's where all of the beach clubs are.  We spent a while hanging out at a couple of the beach clubs, Nora gave me some ideas for more places in Hamburg that I should visit. 

Also, feel free to leave comments.  The only one I have so far that's not from me is about a stylistic error I made.  Now, here are some pictures from the day:



Nora and Farin

Here was one of the neat ships that sailed by.  The one in the background is loading up.

Here's a shot of the little path that led from the road (and the bus stop) down to the beach clubs.  Clicking on it should, as usual, take you to the album, which has more pictures.

The reverse is true.

So I totally forgot to take a picture of the market yesterday.  I was pretty wound up in work, training in the new real employee who's going to be doing the work that I've been doing in the Compliance department.  Training continued on to today, but the point is, I forgot my camera when I went to lunch yesterday.  Oops.  My lunch used to be a 4.50€ pizza from a little restaurant, and then I decided that was way too expensive, so I started making little egg-cucumber-lettuce-cheese sandwiches.  Yum.  Those are a lot cheaper, taste pretty good, and are probably healthier.  On Thursdays from the market, or other days from some other little restaurant, I like to buy a cheap fish sandwich to augment my meal.  Fresh fish!

It's not that I can't eventually afford to have those pizzas, it's that right now, I have no money.  I don't know if I've gotten paid yet from work, since I don't have the one time initiation password for my online banking.  I'm pretty sure they sent it when my name wasn't written next to our mail slot.  So let me clarify real quick for those of you who aren't familiar with the German Post system.  If your name isn't on the mailbox or next to the mail slot, you're not getting any mail.  Which is always pretty exciting, when you're expecting your EC Karte, or your bank password, and it gets returned to the sender because your name either 1. isn't on the sign yet, or 2. the sign got taken down when the last people moved out and whoever took it down didn't put a new one up.  So, I probably have some money in my account from getting paid, but I can't find out until Monday.  Which is OK, since I bought food today.  I still have some traveller's checks, so if worst comes to worst, I cash them on Monday.

Not having money is sort of too bad, because Farin (a Waldsee counselor, from Belgium, dating a German) is coming to Hamburg this weekend, and told me to give them a call.  It'd be fun to hang out with them, but I don't want to show up and go to a restaurant and pull out my last 4€ and say "Hi, I'll order... tea.  Yeah, that sounds nice and filling..."  I'm sure something will work out.

The other day, I met Jakob for a movie after work.  It worked out perfectly, because going to the movie helped avoid the rain.  We went to Indiana Jones.  Pretty German, huh?  It was kind of a fun movie.  Not brilliant, but about what I expected as far as quality.

Plans for the weekend:  wash clothes maybe, clean bathroom / kitchen (it's my turn), maybe meet up with Farin and Nora (and Jakob and Manfred? and ??), think of ideas for my report at work, explore more of Hamburg, maybe find someone who will hire me to help them do yardwork, think about an internship for next spring (part time during the school year), think of interesting food ideas, and so forth.  Maybe I'll get a chance to take some neat pictures!

Oh.  I suppose you might want to see a picture of where I live.  I should do that, too.

Hamburger in Hamburg

Hi.  Things are going well.  My new roommate is pretty cool.  He's a few years older than I am, I think he's in his 30's, but we seem to get along pretty well.  We work in the same part of the city, so he's even offered to drive me to a subway station 2 stops away from work.

I still don't have my visa (I'm calling again tomorrow), my train pass (I need a special paper that lets be buy the student ticket), and therefore I haven't gone to swing dance yet, either.  I also lose my desk and phone at work tomorrow, since a real full time employee is starting up and taking it over.  So, I'm not sure where I'll be sitting.  I've been working on more and more "important" presentations and write ups and reports lately.

I've been eating a bit of fish lately!  Fish is supposed to be healthy for you, and it's tasty, it's cheaper than regular meat, and is quite plentiful in Hamburg.  Tomorrow, there's a market near work, so I'll try to take a picture.

The past few days have had enough excitement that I can now make another post.  Hurrah!  Over the weekend, my old roommate Leya, moved out.  Packed up most of her stuff, and gave the rest to me.  The one exception is a box of hers which she's planning on retrieving in July.  To celebrate a little, we went to a street bar / cafe on the Reeperbahn, located in St. Pauli.  We hung out at the cafe / bar for a while, and some of her friends showed up, and then we wandered off to go to a party.  On our way to the party, we stopped by the video store where one of Leya's friend's boyfriend works.  German video stores aren't too different from US ones, other than they're less classy and corporate.  At least this one was like that.

So, eventually around 12 or 12:30, we made it to this party.  Calling it a party is sort of a stretch, since it was more like the area infront of an apartment building fenced off, pretending to be a club.  After sitting around and talking to some mildly intoxicated Germans for a while (a few hours), we decided to leave.  Leya said goodbye to her friends, and we left.  On our way out, we ran into some people who wanted our wristbands, required for entry.  We gave them up, but ended up staying another hour or two, conversing with some of the... interesting... people we found.  All in all, I stayed up way too late, and fell asleep almost immediately after my teeth were brushed, when I made it home.

So, that was Saturday night, which was a lot more exciting than Saturday daytime.  I walked to Real, which is a huge superstore chain that bought the Walmart stores when German Walmart closed down.  So, Real is HUGE.  Not only is it massive and cover lots of area, maybe the size of a regular US Walmart, but it also has an upstairs.  Yeah.  It's huge.  After my adventure at Real, and accomplishing my mission of buying laundry detergent, I made my way home and did laundry.  yippee.

On Sunday, I decided I needed to do something more interesting than laundry, so I got up and walked into the city.  For those of you not in the know, I live in a suburb or area in Hamburg called Lurup.  Here's where I live on Google, so you can get a better idea.  I made it the stop before my work, Altona, and took the S-Bahn home.  I also bought Eis, and found some stores that are open on Sunday.  If you didn't already know, Germany is closed on Sunday, except for restaurants and places that can somehow justify to pay the extra taxes required to be open on Sunday.  So, finding somewhere to buy groceries (!!) on a Sunday is a big deal.

Also on Sunday, my new roommate moved in.  I think the first thing he said to me was "Hi, you must be... kann ich mit dir auf Deutsch reden?"  (can I talk with you in German)  So, apparently Germans appreciate the fact that I not only can, but want to speak German with them.  He's a little older than I am, but I think we'll get along just fine.  We found out today that he studied finance and is now working in computers, and I'm studying computers and trying to work in finance.

I'm just a few days away from getting my Monatskarte, which will give me a lot better access to the bus and trains.  Once I have that, I'm going to give the Swing Club a try, and see if that's any fun.  It turns out that I'll definitely have time after work.  One really cool thing that happened at work, was we were all working away in the Back Office, work work work, and then I look out the window, where river is.  Instead of the river and the port, I saw a wall floating by.  A ship that's larger than our office building just happened to be cruising by.

Work seems to be really flexible as far as hours go.  I get to show up anywhere from a little before 9, to 9:30 (and I could probably show up even later if I wanted) without incident, and I can leave between 4 and 7 (depending on what I'm doing) without causing a fuss, AND, I get to take time off for work related things.  Like getting a visa.  I don't think I could get a whole week off though, unfortunately.  I've even been ordered to go home before 5:00, because it was a Friday, and I should go home and relax!  Unfortunately, I didn't make it out until 6:00 that day but the next time that I was ordered to leave by 4:30 or 5, I made it .  This whole relaxed attitude leads me to believe that they wont be too hard about me taking a day or so off if I have visitors, or go on a little trip.  

I kind of want to go to Flensburg, and visit the Valentinerallee, or see a little bit Denmark (and hear them speak funny Danish!).  We're pretty close to the border, so it wouldn't be that long or expensive of a train ride.  I'm sure I can find some other interesting places in the area...

Here are a couple pictures I took recently:

From Germany 2008

Here's my dinner from a day or two ago.

From Germany 2008

This is a bridge that reaches across the street into the building in which I work, and a shot from it.  What's it for? you may ask.  I did too.  I thought it was just decorational.  Herr Joost corrected me though.  Apparently, about 3 times per year, the Elbe floods so high, that they need to use that bridge to access the building.  That's also why all of the stores on the ground level have these metal doors for their windows.  I thought it was just so they could pretend they were ships.  Unfortunately, I don't think it will be flooding while I'm here.  Oh well.

Back from the land of... no wireless.

I'm back!  A few days ago, while Martin (my landlord's brother) was out of town, our wireless router died.  And since it's locked up in his apartment, I was shut off from the rest of the world.  Some of you (Mom) expressed worry, but it's ok.  I have internet again.

I also have a cell phone over here.  Which is pretty nice, because now I can call people (work, Jakob, Lindsey, etc), which makes things a billion times more easy, especially if my internet dies again.  And, it feels cool to have a German cell phone number.  I got the basic cell phone pay as you go plan offered by Aldi, which is one of Germany's grocery stores.  Yeah, I bought my SIM card from a grocery store.  It's actually a decent deal, and I look forward to making use of it.

I finally dropped off my completed papers for my work visa.  This hasn't been quite as easy as the German Consulate in Chicago made it out to be.  Not to mention that German Ämter and Behörden (office and bureaus) are very... bureaucratic, full of Is to dot and Ts to cross.  Here's a basic summary (including repeats from previous posts) of my experiences with the Ausländerbehörde:

- Find the central office

- Find out that they're only open from 8 AM - 1PM, and then only MTWTh.  Oh, they also only give out visas on Thursday.

- Find out (thanks Jakob!) that I can go to a different one in Altona, which is the district of Hamburg that I live in.  This office has the same opening times, but gives out visas every day that they're open.

- Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that the give out appointments, instead of giving out visas.

- I found out that you have to show up around 6:30 AM to get a "number", which guarantees you an appointment on that day.  I showed up at 8:00 AM.  Luckily, if everyone with a number gets an appointment, they give people without a number a chance to get an appointment.

- Unfortunately, it's not mentioned anywhere (even when you ask ahead of time) that you have to register with the city before you can get an appointment for a visa.  I found this out around... 11:45 AM.

- Registering with the city is fairly painless, except that there's about an hour of waiting time, and it costs 8 €.  To balance that out, they give you free tickets to the Hamburg theater.

- So, on my second attempt at getting an appointment, I found out that there's a special form that my employer has to fill out, and no, the documents I signed at Varengold saying that I'm an intern and wont break the law, etc aren't good enough.  It has to be a specific form, as defined in some book she had to look it up in.  I shouldn't forget to mention that it took her about 1o minutes to realize she needed the book, 5 minutes to look up the thing in the book, and then about 20 for everyone in the office to help her look for the correct form.  The question I had was, if they had all of this trouble finding the form, how the hell am I, as a foreigner, supposed to find it?  Anyway, she gave me the form.  I think I lucked out, because she was fairly sympathetic with me, especially when she told me I needed to have been hired in order to get the visa, and I explained to her that no, Varengold hasn't hired me yet, because legally I need a work visa in order to be employed.

- Today, Mr. Joost (I think he's the person who's directly in charge of me) got the paperwork filled out, and the nice lady told me that I didn't need to wait in line again, I could just drop it off at her office.  That saved me probably... 4 hours.

- Now, I just need to call back every day until the "answer comes back" from some federal employment office, whether or not I'm granted a work visa, which my residence permit relies on.

The Consulate in Chicago led me to believe that the process consisted of me showing up at the Ausländerbehörde, showing them some papers, and getting a stamp in my passport.  Every German I've encountered has complained about their complex system of offices and bureaus, and how they're all necessary and not time efficient, but apparently they're ingrained enough into German culture that they're probably not going anywhere anytime soon.

On Sunday, Doris (my Vermieterin) had some friends over, who were all closer to my age than hers, and we had a ping-pong tournament in our back yard.  They're (almost) all professional musicians, so Doris and one of them had a little piano - saxophone jam afterwards.

I'm starting to get the hang of things around here, I think.  The next big task is figuring out how to get the student price for a month train pass.  After I get that done, things will be a lot easier.  Right now, I'm minimizing my train riding because 1. it's expensive (1.30 € or 2.60 € per trip), and 2. riding without a ticket (Schwarzfahren) is even more expensive (40 €), so I try to keep that to a minimum.  After I get that month pass, I'm going to check out the swing dance club, and see if it looks like fun!

In more good news, everyone at works seems to like me, and appreciate that I'm there.  I always get work done faster than they expect, and I get projects from all over the place.  One person even went so far as to tell me to apply for a real job when I'm done with college.  I also get paid (much) more than I expected.  I was expecting 500 € / month, and found out today that I'm getting a minimum of 700 €.  Technically, it's not official because we can't finish the paper work until I get my visa, but that's what was written on my papers for the Ausländerbehörde.  700 € gives me a lot more room than 500€!

To close it up for today, here are a couple pictures of Hamburg:

Tweet tweet

So, Hamburg is pretty far north.  By my rough estimates from Google Maps, it's about as far north as Hudson Bay.  Luckily for us here, the ocean's proximity keeps us from getting too cold; and according to my Vermieter, it gets to about 34 C (93º F) in the summer, which isn't so bad at all.  Being so far north, the sun sets around 9:30 PM, and rises around 5 AM.  This is all according to a web search I just made, but I always feel like the sun sets closer to 10 PM and rises closer to 4 AM.  For example, it's 10:20 right now, and it's still  light out.  Of course, accompanying the rising sun are the rising birds.  Tweet tweet tweet!  I think I'm getting accustomed to them though, and sleep right through their chirping.

Work has been great lately.  I'm becoming more and more the go-to guy for any and everything related to English.  Granted, people there have decent English, but they can't whip out things like "...and hereafter, the aforementioned client shall remain the sole authorized agent...".  Granted, that one was a little over done, but my English skills have come in handy in writing letters to clients, understanding letters from clients, and translating different forms.  Yesterday, Maria had me carry a box down to her car, and then she remembered she needed a box of her business cards, only to realize she had forgotten her Handy on her desk, and then only to realize she needed this one business card that was still up in her office.  So after 4 trips back and forth, she profusely apologized and bought me a double-scoop ice cream.  Totally worth it.

One really cool thing about work is that they have a basket of free fruit for the Mitarbeiter (employees).  Granted it's not organic or anything, but it's better than nothing!  Today there was a little market on the street near work.  A small little deal, with a few little vendors and their German food.  I ended up getting a smoked salmon Brötchen for lunch today, which was quite good, and decently priced.

The rest of today, however, was a pain.  I woke up earlier than usual, and went to the Ausländerbehörde, to get all signed up and to get my visa.  Of course when I got there, they had given out all of the numbers, and I would have to wait if I wanted to try to get an appointment.  Keep in mind, none of this process is posted anywhere.  Not online, not on the wall, not in a poster or leaflet.  The only way to figure out this process is to go and do it wrong once, and be corrected.  Then you'll know how to do it the second time.  The only other way is to go with someone who's done it, or have them explain it in precise detail.  Either way, that process involves them screwing it up on their first time.  So, after I wait in line, and finally get in, the lady starts talking, and informs me that in order to get my work visa, I need to register with the city.  And no, even though I had asked her earlier what to do, and had asked up at the information, no one bothered to mention that.  So that took another hour of waiting, but I'm now officially a resident of Hamburg.  Meaning I'm registered with the city, but don't have my residence or work visa yet.  Which is really really dumb, and I didn't find a single person today who thought otherwise.  But on the upside, I got a free pass to the theater, for one showing in the next three months.

Tomorrow's casual Friday at work, which should be nice.  I'll take (and link) more pictures once I start to get more into the swing of things.

First Day...

First day of work was great.  The office has a great location, and it seems like I'll be doing a lot of interesting things there.  Everyone seems really impressed with my German; Herr Joost kept on introducing me to people and assuring them repeatedly that even though I'm an American, I "speak fluent German", and "there will be no problems communicating at all."  I'm apparently just what they were looking for, because they need someone who's got an inside understanding of the American mindset, and knows how stuff works there.  Of course, I'm not seasoned American business person or tax expert or anything like that, but I can also wade through the information in English a little easier.

There's one person there who I met who's about my age, and he's an intern from France.  He speaks English with everyone, since we don't speak French.  Apparently he was almost my roommate, but called about 10 minutes too late, after the new guy who moves in in two weeks called.

I was able to set up a bank account, and in desperation I exchanged some of my traveller's checks over.  However, since the rate wasn't too great, I didn't do all of them.

Now the visa stuff is much more of a pain.  So, the Ausländerbehörde (Foreigners Office, or something along those lines) is only open MTThF from 8 AM - 1PM, but even worse, they only give out visas on Thursdays.  How dumb is that??  What do they even do all the time?  When I got there, there were about 5 people smoking outside (and they were for like... 30 minutes), and one guy just wandering around inside.  Thanks, Germany.

Anyway, my lunch is almost done (I'm making one now, so I don't need to go pay €3 for lunch), so I'm going to be heading off to work.  I'm planning on buying a week pass today, and even though it's a Tuesday, it'll still be cheaper than paying for 1-way tickets, or buying day passes, or Schwarzfahren (riding without a ticket) and getting caught.

I made it!

I made it all the way to Hamburg!

It wasn't 100% straightforward, or without trouble though.  First off, Newark Airport was unpleasant; really fit the whole New Jersey stereotype that I keep on hearing about.  I arrived in Newark, and then went through security, found my gate, and then of course the security guard informed me that I had to go get my boarding passes reprinted; they had been printed by Northwest in Minneapolis, and I needed to have British Airways reprint them.  Kinda dumb, huh?

So Newark (or at least the terminal I was at) has two main floors where all of the activity is.  And then they have a basement, where British Airways is.  Great design, I know.  Crammed into a little room was a huge mass of people waiting for the seemingly overworked and understaffed teat at the counter, trying to accomodate the sea of people.  Because all I needed was to get my ticket reprinted and didn't need to check in, I was allowed to go in the "fast lane", which probably took 30 - 45 minutes of waiting.  Would I make my flight?  I only had two hours of layover time!

I eventually reached the counter, and tell the guy my story, how security upstairs said I had to get my boarding passes reprinted, and he goes and takes them, and types stuff into the computer.  And then I was taken off guard.  "I don't see you on this second flight to Hamburg."

WHAT?  I went on explaining how I was obviously booked for it, since they were able to find it in Minneapolis, and look at my luggage receipts!   They got to Hamburg!  He insisted that I was on the flight to London, but not the connecting flight to Hamburg, and that I'd have to go to the ticketing booth (just a few feet away) to get it straightened out.

So I made my way over there, and waited patiently (another 15 - 30 minutes), and then told the guy there my story.  Turns out British Airways took the courtesy of rebooking my flight without bothering to inform me, because an hour and a half between flights in London wouldn't be enough time to make the second flight.  Which, I later found it, was completely true.  But it still was a pain that I hadn't been informed and was afraid my flight had been cancelled.

So, I made my way back upstairs, went through security for real this time, and got to the plane right as my row was being called for boarding.  I kinda lucked out, because when the guy at the ticketing booth "rebooked" me, he was able to get me some pretty nice seating.  I was in the front row of the coach section for the flight to London, and got me in the 5th row for my London-Hamburg flight.  10 feet of legroom is pretty nice, I've gotta say.  

Newark - London was pretty boring.  I had a hard time sleeping, but did manage to get a little rest.  I devoured the food that mom had packed for me, but in retrospect, I should've saved it for London...

London Heathrow is an enormous airport.  It dwarfs the quaint little MSP Lindenberg Terminal that I'm so used to.  I think that if I had known exactly where to go and I had sprinted to the shuttle  bus, and then to the right gate, I might have been able to my original flight on time.  But because I followed the signs like everyone else, and didn't sprint, and because the ride on the shuttle itself took 20 - 30 minutes (this is after the 20 - 30 minutes it took to get there and wait for the shuttle to come), I didn't get to Terminal 5 until well after my original flight had taken off.

At Terminal 5, they deemed my backpack to be a security threat.  I had accidentally left my bathroom-kit in there, which had some nail clippers, and a pair of scissors.  I had the option of throwing them away, or checking my bag.  After some deliberation and discussion with the security guards (the security guards were actually pretty nice), I decided to carry my laptop by hand, so that I'd have something to do for the next 4 or 5 hours, and then check the rest of my backpack.  This wasn't necessarily a mistake; I just wish I had remembered the other half of the sandwich that I had in my backpack before checking it.

So, here I was, in the London airport, no food, no British Pounds, and a lot of time to waste.  I think I managed to get a new high score on my tetris game on my computer during the wait.  The only options for food were good old regular airport food; and there was no way I was going to pay £8.95 for a Hamburger (that's about $18, by the way).  Anyway, it worked out fine, and I ended up making it to Hamburg alright.

In Hamburg, I was met with a slightly different set of issues.  First off, they didn't really mark where you're supposed to go, so a lot of the people (including me) wandered to "Baggage Claim Terminal 2" instead of "Baggage Claim Terminal 1".  This resulted in about 10 minutes of me looking for the "London British Airways" luggage claim, and asking around to figure out where it was.  I made it to Baggage Claim Terminal 1, and then after a few minutes found out I was allowed to walk  against the one-way signs, and into the baggage claim.  I found all my luggage, and it was all in good shape.

Then came the problem of transportation.  I had to figure out which bus to take; Doris (my renter) told me to take the 39, but the 39 stops at the airport and can go two different ways.  After about 45 minutes of waiting, the "correct" bus 39 came.

After all of that, I made it to my little home here.  It's not the best, but it's not bad either.  My room is huge, which is a nice plus.  I'm not such a big fan of my roommates, and they smoke all the time in their room, but they're moving out in two weeks, so I'm not really too worried.  I met the new guy who's going to be moving in, and he seemed pretty decent.  I seem to get along with Doris, who lives next door, and her brother, who lives on the ground level of my place.

So this weekend, of course I haven't been able to get my credit card to work.  I'm always met by the "Incorrect Pin" or "Falsche Geheimzahl" message.  Who was I to assume that after calling ahead to Wellsfargo, that my credit card would work here.  And of course, everything is closed in Germany on the weekends.  Ok ok, not everything, but banks are, and I needed a bank to exchange my traveller's checks!

Doris gave me some bread, cheese and butter, which in combination with my sandwich and carrots, held me over nicely.  I managed to find a weak wireless signal in the area, and got ahold of Jakob, who's another Waldsee Betreuer, who's studying here in Hamburg.  He biked over, and we walked around, and he bought me dinner.  We found this Greek place (there are several in the area, actually) that was pretty good.  For Sunday, I ate some of the Thai Noodle packages that I was planning on bringing for Lindsey, and some more bread that Doris gave me.

So, here I am, jet lagged at 6 AM, typing away.  Everything will be fine money and food wise after today, since I can go to a bank and deposit my traveller's checks, and maybe even fix my credit card.  I've heard that you don't need your PIN number to get money from it at Citibank, so I might have to try that out.  I'm still researching the different pros and cons of different accounts at different banks, but I think I'm just going to pick a free account that gives me an EC Karte (debit card), and see what else I can get.  You might be thinking "Zach, don't you work at a bank?  Can't you just use them?"  And the answers are "Yes, sort of" and "No".  I'm working at an investment bank, which isn't really cut out for the individual saver.  More for rich people and companies that want to invest tons of money.

Anyway, I'm going to try to get another half hour of sleep before I have to "wake up" and get going for the day.  I figure I should be super early for everything today, since I have no idea how long things will take, and I probably have to walk a ways, since the bus stop near my house doesn't have an Automat, where I could buy a Tageskarte (day pass for the public transportation).  I'm going to see what kind of discounts I can get, and see if there's any way that I can get the student discount, etc.  Everything gets sorted out today!

Hamburg, here I come!

So, today's the day.  I've moved out of my apartment, finished my finals, done with work, done with Waldsee, and done with packing.  All set.  (Ok ok, still need to pick up traveller's checks, but that shouldn't take too long)

Here we go...

And so it starts.

Things needed to do a summer internship in Germany:
✓Passport
✓Job offer
✓Plane ticket
- Place to stay
- Work visa

Got the job offer! Varengold Wertpapierhandelsbank decided to hire me as an intern this summer. The hard part was finding places in Europe that looked like interesting place to work, and then sending tons of email every day to find out which ones might be able to hire me for the summer. And then, get them to hire me. Which I did.

Plane ticket was tough. The plummeting dollar made buying a plane ticket pretty painful. I've spent the past week or two scouring the internet for "decent" prices. I decided to settle for prices now, rather than risk being faced with $2000+ tickets later. Having a set time schedule made this part particularly difficult; in the past, I've always had lots of flexibility with my dates, and the lack of flexibility constrained my choices. Not this time.

The place to stay is a sort of check. I've got a place that looks like it will probably work out. Just need to finalize it all. Found on http://www.wg-gesucht.de I'm still keeping my eyes out for more, but this one looks like it's about as good as any that I can expect.

Work visa is another thing that I only sort of have to worry about. The German Embassy assured me that as an American, I can get my visa after I arrive in Germany. The only problem with this is that it's yet another thing to worry about, and I don't have too much spare time where I can go pick up my visa. The other option is to go to Chicago and apply in person here in the US. The obvious drawback to that is the $99 it costs to fly down to Chicago, and then the money it'll cost to get to the Embassy and back. So, I think I'm going to pick up my visa in Germany. Sound like a good plan?


Now. Things left to take care of:
- Figure out housing for next year
- Make it through the semester

Housing is tricky. First, I have to see if there are better place to live than where I am. Second, I have to figure out if I even can stay here next year. I'm pretty sure that'd mean subleasing over the summer, which would be a hassle. But, you gotta do what you gotta do. This will unfold in the upcoming weeks...

Making it through the semester should be a piece of cake!.

..right?