Has been a mostly uneventful past couple of weeks here in Berlin, afternoons drinking coffee and evenings drinking vodka interspersed with work and the remnants of moving my life here. The first of which this week was going to register myself with the government, all 1984 style.
First off, I'm not too sure why this is exactly needed. I mean, why do the German Government need to have the address I'm living at along with my landlord written down on a form that is then processed. Its nothing to do with taxation. Its nothing to do with immigration. Its nothing to do with having any form of ID. It seems to simply be that I now have a stamped form that says I am infact here in Germany. If I didn't have one, I'd still be here, living in the same place, paying the same taxes (well, when it comes time for me to do such) and doing all the other little things that one does when one exists. So, the only conclusion I can come to is that its for The Man/Them to keep tabs on me.
But, the process itself. It wasn't too harsh (when I booked an appointment rather than sat in the waiting room for 3 hours watching a number slowly change on a board, clutching a much larger numbered ticket in my hand) although it was rather Communist/Orwellian. Mostly because of the nice big soviet style building that I went to go register in, what seemed to be, at one time in the past, an ornate town hall type place. All official looking, where a man in a top hat and large moustache, debating the merits of hot air balloons, wouldn't look out of sorts. Add to this a gaggle of bored looking grumpy old women who don't speak a word of English (well, I guess it is Germany and not England, although with the way she just repeated the same sentence to me louder in German thinking that I'd then understand, it did remind me of the English) who seem to revel in making sure you know just what a pain in the arse their job is. Throw in some 1970's furniture, a humongous cavernous room for an office and some glorious olde world rubber stamps and the picture was complete. All in all it was quite entertaining.
Organising a bank account on the other hand, was a bit of a breeze. Deutsche Bank not only have people who can speak English (I know, I should learn German) but they also have forms and leaflets in English along with online banking in English. They didn't seem to care about my job or how much money I make, and within about 10 minutes it was all done. Bliss.
Then, I went onto the ikea website, with the idea of buying myself a cheap desk and chair. Simple enough. Found a couple of cheap options on there, clicked to order them, came to around €100. Type in the postcode, calculate the delivery charge, €79 for delivery. "Hmm" I thought, that seems a little on the steep side, I could probably pay someone to carry them on their back to my apartment for cheaper than that. So after some more clicking around and investigation I found that if I buy the desk (on its own) it'll cost me €9 delivery charge and if I buy the chair (on its own), it too will cost me €9 delivery charge. Now, I don't know about you, but for me that adds up to around €18 which is around €61 shy of what they were asking for to carry them on the same van rather than two separate vans. So, like a good citizen, i dutifully emailed ikea to point out that they are infact morons and could they please fix their stupid website. I am yet to get a reply.
So, life here in Berlin is going quite well. Just have some insurance bits n bobs to sort out, moving my company here for next year and an apartment. Oh, and learning German, that might be quite usefull.
I want a blue jumpsuit named "The Corvette", I'd look soo cool.
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