For some reason, I am tempted to keep typing "bureaucrazy". And, yeah, there are times when it seems it drives you crazy, but once it's all over and done with, it doesn't seem that bad. German bureaucracy, as far as I've seen it, is quite... uhh, bureaucratic, but it's also efficient. And people have this extremely no-nonsense attitude. If you have the documents, fine. Great. Would you like some coffee? If you don't have the documents, sorry, we can't help you. Would you like some coffee anyway?
One day, we suddenly discovered we need 4 documents in order to get our semestertickets (those charming little cards we can use for everything ranging from free travel on public transport to borrowing books from the library to getting printouts). A certificate of residence registration with the Burgeramt (Town Office), a residence permit from the unpronounceable Auslanderbehorte (Foreign Office), a German health insurance or an approval of our low-cost, slightly shady-looking Indian health insurance, and a form we had to fill in. Well, the form filling was easy. The rest drove us to panic.
Here, I have to mention an anecdote about how irritatingly Germans stick to the rules. The lady who was supposed to give us our semestertickets only had office hours on Tuesday. Now, maybe we Indians tend to take concepts like "office hours" rather lightly, but Germans are dead serious about them. When we went to her office at another time, she was simply not there. We went again on Thursday, when she had "telephone hours", thinking she definitely would be in her office then. But she didn't open the door! So then, standing right at her door, I called her up on the phone number given for the "telephone hour" and she picked up! While explaining something, I found it difficult to follow her pronunciation of "Auslanderbehorte". After a few attempts, I told her I was right outside the door and asked if I could enter and take down the details from her. She refused. She said, "It's my telephone time and if I let you into my office and talk to you, someone else might be trying to reach me by telephone at the same time." Duh. But not everyone is like that. Prof. Wiemann, the professor who is in charge of this exchange programme, has repeatedly gone out of his way to help us.
Also, "Thou shalt read the brochures" seems to be the first commandment here, one which we Indians are notorious for violating. Ok, maybe I should speak for myself, but seriously, I think we often expect that someone will fill us in on procedures. Brochures, notices and other literature are secondary. We depend on someone telling us the procedures, whereas here, the idea seems to be, "All the information is in the brochure/notice/form. I thought you know." They say it very nicely and sweetly, "Oh, I'm soooo sorry, I thought you knew." But what they mean is, "You bloody well should have known." Just like that, they can make you feel small. Like a not-yet-citizen. Like a "bloody Indian".
The residence registration was the easy part. We thought it would be very difficult, but we went to the Burgeramt at Zehlendorf, which is the closest to our hostel at Schlachtensee, and they just checked our passport and our hostel contract and gave us the certificate in, like, 5 minutes. Uhh... except that it wasn't as simple as that. We went there on the 30th of April, the last day that we were told we could use our temporary semesterticket, and they didn't give us a token! The next day, the 1st of May, was a German public holiday, and I suspect they wanted to close early. (Germans! Remember what I said about Fridays?) But it was ok, the guy at the information counter gave us some forms (in German; everything everywhere is in German) to fill, and we went again on Friday and got the registration done quite easily. Kasia, our Guardian Angel, taught me a few phrases in German to impress the people there with. So I went in and said to the Information guy, "Entschuldigung. (I forgot the Guten Tag I was supposed to add here) Wir kommen aus Indien. Wir sprechen kein Deutsch. Sprechen sie Englisch?" There was another, rather difficult, sentence to say that we want to register as residents, but the Information guy, who was listening intently to my broken Deutsch with a mild smile, saved me by answering in excellent English and helping us out. But Kasia's lesson stays with me. Small things like speaking in broken German or wearing a Germany-flag-coloured braided wristband bring smiles to the faces of German officials.
The residence permit was funny. (I hope next week won't prove that the joke's on me, but right now it's still funny.) For some reason, the German embassy granted me and my classmate Musadhique a visa for our entire stay! Usually, they only give a 3-month or such short-term visa, and once we are in Germany, we need to get a residence permit for the entire duration of our stay. Our friends who went to Dresden told us the same thing, and even our own classmate Vivek was given a visa only until the 30th of August! So this means that Musadhique and I don't need a residence permit at all, which is good, because when we booked an appointment with the Auslanderbehorte for Vivek, we found that the earliest possible appointment was only available in July!
The strangest thing was the health insurance, which is still not completely sorted out. But that needs another post all to itself, so I guess I'll keep it for the next time!
One day, we suddenly discovered we need 4 documents in order to get our semestertickets (those charming little cards we can use for everything ranging from free travel on public transport to borrowing books from the library to getting printouts). A certificate of residence registration with the Burgeramt (Town Office), a residence permit from the unpronounceable Auslanderbehorte (Foreign Office), a German health insurance or an approval of our low-cost, slightly shady-looking Indian health insurance, and a form we had to fill in. Well, the form filling was easy. The rest drove us to panic.
Here, I have to mention an anecdote about how irritatingly Germans stick to the rules. The lady who was supposed to give us our semestertickets only had office hours on Tuesday. Now, maybe we Indians tend to take concepts like "office hours" rather lightly, but Germans are dead serious about them. When we went to her office at another time, she was simply not there. We went again on Thursday, when she had "telephone hours", thinking she definitely would be in her office then. But she didn't open the door! So then, standing right at her door, I called her up on the phone number given for the "telephone hour" and she picked up! While explaining something, I found it difficult to follow her pronunciation of "Auslanderbehorte". After a few attempts, I told her I was right outside the door and asked if I could enter and take down the details from her. She refused. She said, "It's my telephone time and if I let you into my office and talk to you, someone else might be trying to reach me by telephone at the same time." Duh. But not everyone is like that. Prof. Wiemann, the professor who is in charge of this exchange programme, has repeatedly gone out of his way to help us.
Also, "Thou shalt read the brochures" seems to be the first commandment here, one which we Indians are notorious for violating. Ok, maybe I should speak for myself, but seriously, I think we often expect that someone will fill us in on procedures. Brochures, notices and other literature are secondary. We depend on someone telling us the procedures, whereas here, the idea seems to be, "All the information is in the brochure/notice/form. I thought you know." They say it very nicely and sweetly, "Oh, I'm soooo sorry, I thought you knew." But what they mean is, "You bloody well should have known." Just like that, they can make you feel small. Like a not-yet-citizen. Like a "bloody Indian".
The residence registration was the easy part. We thought it would be very difficult, but we went to the Burgeramt at Zehlendorf, which is the closest to our hostel at Schlachtensee, and they just checked our passport and our hostel contract and gave us the certificate in, like, 5 minutes. Uhh... except that it wasn't as simple as that. We went there on the 30th of April, the last day that we were told we could use our temporary semesterticket, and they didn't give us a token! The next day, the 1st of May, was a German public holiday, and I suspect they wanted to close early. (Germans! Remember what I said about Fridays?) But it was ok, the guy at the information counter gave us some forms (in German; everything everywhere is in German) to fill, and we went again on Friday and got the registration done quite easily. Kasia, our Guardian Angel, taught me a few phrases in German to impress the people there with. So I went in and said to the Information guy, "Entschuldigung. (I forgot the Guten Tag I was supposed to add here) Wir kommen aus Indien. Wir sprechen kein Deutsch. Sprechen sie Englisch?" There was another, rather difficult, sentence to say that we want to register as residents, but the Information guy, who was listening intently to my broken Deutsch with a mild smile, saved me by answering in excellent English and helping us out. But Kasia's lesson stays with me. Small things like speaking in broken German or wearing a Germany-flag-coloured braided wristband bring smiles to the faces of German officials.
The residence permit was funny. (I hope next week won't prove that the joke's on me, but right now it's still funny.) For some reason, the German embassy granted me and my classmate Musadhique a visa for our entire stay! Usually, they only give a 3-month or such short-term visa, and once we are in Germany, we need to get a residence permit for the entire duration of our stay. Our friends who went to Dresden told us the same thing, and even our own classmate Vivek was given a visa only until the 30th of August! So this means that Musadhique and I don't need a residence permit at all, which is good, because when we booked an appointment with the Auslanderbehorte for Vivek, we found that the earliest possible appointment was only available in July!
The strangest thing was the health insurance, which is still not completely sorted out. But that needs another post all to itself, so I guess I'll keep it for the next time!
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