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dancing_moon
a.k.a. The Exciting Sequel to DM Trying to Register as a Resident of Berlin. Subtitle: The Rebels Exchange Student Is Victorius!
So, today after some online research and preparation,
A visit which today included abnout seven minutes waiting to get a queau number followed by two hours waiting for my number to appear on the sign. But I finally managed to register as living in Berlin. Huzzah, throw confetti, ring the bells etc. They whined a bit again about my landlady not being registered, but this time I was prepared with her own proof of registration and the problem revealed itself. Apparantly, for some stupid reason, the computer doesn't list the first name she uses as her main name, but instead her middle-name and so they can't find her.
Then we had a minorargument discussion about why my two last names are written differently on my passport and my school papers (answer: because the Swedish population register doesn't give a flying fuck about the order of names, really*). At least I managed to convince her that, I really, really don't give a damn so she is welcome to fill in whatever my passport says (I mean, the names are spelled the same, just the order is backwards) and we came to the last hurdle: The European Free Movers Permit. This document is one the Citizens Bureau apparantly had to give me (it's what you get instead of a visa) only on this document it says that I need proof of having registered at school. But on the papers I got from Humboldt, they specifically write that I need a Free Mover Permit to be able to register.
Oi.
Luckily, either the lady I got suddenly got touched by kindness fairy or (equally likely, as it was two minutes before closing) she just wanted to get the hell outta there, so she quickly glanced over my Swedish school- and student aid papers and just signed all the crap. Finally!
Feeling emboldened by this sucess (btw this paperwork has cost me a total of 4,5 hours of waiting, some phonecalls, four subway tickets [of which 3 were basically wasted] and considerably aggravation) and some pizza I bought in the subway and put away in record time, I decided I'd attack the next hurdle to a free and painless life in Germany: Getting a bank account and an EC-card.
Despite the ads, Germany is not too friendly to the big credit cards. For instance, in the subway ticket machines (which sometimes take all cash, sometimes only coins. Muy aggravating) OR in the huuuuuge electronic stores Media Markt and Saturn, VISA isn't accepted work. It actually doesn't work much at all, once you get beyond hotels and restaurants.
That's right, German Media Markt take no credit cards in-store except the EC card (which I think is connected to MasterCard somewhere) even when they sell little things like 4000 euro plasma-screens, exclusive fridge/freezer combos and whatnot.
So. VISA, alas, doesn't work. And it's not like I or most other Europeans in my age range have ever held a cheque, nor do I think you can pay online with one and I ain't planning to find out. EC-card it is!
Deutsche Bank was picked on the careful reasoning that they were the first bank, from a list of national-wide German banks I googled up somewhere, that 1) allow foreigners (with residency permits) to open accounts and 2) have a Swedish office. Figured I might as well keep the account and trying to reason with a bank over the phone in case of trouble is difficult enough when it's a Swedish bank... That they had an office by Alexanderplatz settled it.
After fruitlessly asking a young couple and a little old lady, I finally got directions to it by two men in suits (wellp, sometimes prejudices are true). Steeling myself I went in and prepared to sit there until closing if necessary but I was gonna finish this today dammit.
Hah. Hahaha. That visit took about two minutes of queing, 15 minutes of talking/signing documents and they gave me a glass of water too. Capitalism took the homerun there, methinks.
*phew* I feel much better after this tl;dr whine. Although I thought it was supposed to take three months before you got to the "raarh stupid foreign customs why must you be so aggravated"-stage.
Ok, this is a bit of a hyperbole. I know Swedish government agencies can also be painfully slow - after all, I had a delightful five-hourish wait for my new passport this summer - but at least they are doing their very best so that you never actually have to park your butt in their offices, so I'm not used to quite this level of aggrevation. Not quite.
* obligatory whinage of Swede used to do 99% of government contact electronically/by phone now follows: OH LORD WHY CAN'T THE WORLD START USING OBLIGATORY NATIONAL ID NUMBERS ALREADY
So, today after some online research and preparation,
A visit which today included abnout seven minutes waiting to get a queau number followed by two hours waiting for my number to appear on the sign. But I finally managed to register as living in Berlin. Huzzah, throw confetti, ring the bells etc. They whined a bit again about my landlady not being registered, but this time I was prepared with her own proof of registration and the problem revealed itself. Apparantly, for some stupid reason, the computer doesn't list the first name she uses as her main name, but instead her middle-name and so they can't find her.
Then we had a minor
Oi.
Luckily, either the lady I got suddenly got touched by kindness fairy or (equally likely, as it was two minutes before closing) she just wanted to get the hell outta there, so she quickly glanced over my Swedish school- and student aid papers and just signed all the crap. Finally!
Feeling emboldened by this sucess (btw this paperwork has cost me a total of 4,5 hours of waiting, some phonecalls, four subway tickets [of which 3 were basically wasted] and considerably aggravation) and some pizza I bought in the subway and put away in record time, I decided I'd attack the next hurdle to a free and painless life in Germany: Getting a bank account and an EC-card.
Despite the ads, Germany is not too friendly to the big credit cards. For instance, in the subway ticket machines (which sometimes take all cash, sometimes only coins. Muy aggravating) OR in the huuuuuge electronic stores Media Markt and Saturn, VISA isn't accepted work. It actually doesn't work much at all, once you get beyond hotels and restaurants.
That's right, German Media Markt take no credit cards in-store except the EC card (which I think is connected to MasterCard somewhere) even when they sell little things like 4000 euro plasma-screens, exclusive fridge/freezer combos and whatnot.
So. VISA, alas, doesn't work. And it's not like I or most other Europeans in my age range have ever held a cheque, nor do I think you can pay online with one and I ain't planning to find out. EC-card it is!
Deutsche Bank was picked on the careful reasoning that they were the first bank, from a list of national-wide German banks I googled up somewhere, that 1) allow foreigners (with residency permits) to open accounts and 2) have a Swedish office. Figured I might as well keep the account and trying to reason with a bank over the phone in case of trouble is difficult enough when it's a Swedish bank... That they had an office by Alexanderplatz settled it.
After fruitlessly asking a young couple and a little old lady, I finally got directions to it by two men in suits (wellp, sometimes prejudices are true). Steeling myself I went in and prepared to sit there until closing if necessary but I was gonna finish this today dammit.
Hah. Hahaha. That visit took about two minutes of queing, 15 minutes of talking/signing documents and they gave me a glass of water too. Capitalism took the homerun there, methinks.
*phew* I feel much better after this tl;dr whine. Although I thought it was supposed to take three months before you got to the "raarh stupid foreign customs why must you be so aggravated"-stage.
Ok, this is a bit of a hyperbole. I know Swedish government agencies can also be painfully slow - after all, I had a delightful five-hourish wait for my new passport this summer - but at least they are doing their very best so that you never actually have to park your butt in their offices, so I'm not used to quite this level of aggrevation. Not quite.
* obligatory whinage of Swede used to do 99% of government contact electronically/by phone now follows: OH LORD WHY CAN'T THE WORLD START USING OBLIGATORY NATIONAL ID NUMBERS ALREADY
