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:
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