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.