Hello everyone! I hope you had a nice weekend. We certainly did. It was filled with opera. We went to Arabella on Saturday and Simplicius Simplicissimus on Sunday. The former is an opera by Strauss that is about men fighting over a woman and a girl dressing up as a boy (typical opera stuff). The latter opera is about, well, actually I have no idea. I saw it, I understood some of the supertitles but I left not really having any clue of what I’d just seen. Both operas, however, were very well done so bravo Brenda’s colleagues!
Friday we had an appointment at the infamous Ausländerbehörde. You know, that office for foreigners that I consider a second home. In July, we had to go in to get an extension added to our passports that allowed us to come back into Germany after August 31. Brenda gave them her two year contract when we first arrived in Germany but apparently we can only be handled one year at a time and so we had to renew after the first year. Since we were unable to meet in August, however, they gave us an extension of 3 months starting in July. Why they couldn’t give us another year of approval starting in July is beyond me. Red tape in action.
Anyway, we had our appointment on the books for almost 3 months having scheduled it right before our Summer vacation. While we were sitting on the train heading over there Brenda turned to me and said “It is beautiful outside! Maybe that’s a sign of how our appointment is going to go.” I was hopeful that everything would go well, too. We really are at the mercy of this one office so all we can do is cross our fingers and hope for the best. We arrived early, 20 minutes or so, and waited patiently in the lobby. When the time came we headed to the appropriate office and went in. The woman that we were supposed to meet wasn’t there but instead we were greeted by a nice enough man sitting at the adjacent desk. He said Frau so-and-so was sick and that we’d have to head down the hall and knock on another door. We did that and were redirected to yet another door which was locked. Just as I was starting to think that it must actually be pouring rain outside a young blonde woman walked up to the door, unlocked it and invited us in.
We took our seats, glad that somebody was willing to help us, and sat quietly as the young woman got situated at her desk. Finally, she turned to us and said in wonderful English “Would you like to speak in English or German?” Um...English please. She took our passports and then the three of us started chatting while she worked. It turns out that this young lady was a nanny in North Carolina for a time. She met her current boyfriend there who is in the US military and is stationed in Wiesbaden, a town just west of Frankfurt. We couldn’t believe how lucky we were to be working with this really friendly, American-loving German official.
I’ve been curious ever since I first walked into the Ausländerbehörde what it must be like to work there. There are always stressed-out foreigners lined up (sometimes for hours) waiting to meet with government officials that will (or will not) allow them to stay in the country. I can’t imagine that Brenda and I feel the pressure that some of these other foreigners feel. If push comes to shove and we have a problem we can always go to the opera house and they will (hopefully) go to bat for us. I would imagine that a lot of the other foreigners that walk through the door only have themselves to rely on.
I’ve also observed that the government officials that work at the Ausländerbehörde are a bit cold. Not that they’re mean, they’re just down to business. I guess its that they don’t seem to take much pleasure in their work.
Now that I had a really friendly government worker chatting with us I decided to ask what it was like to work there. She said when she is working with people like Brenda and me it’s fine. With a lot of people, however, its really hard. She pointed to a stack of several 3-4 inch binders held together by a single rubber band and said “That is one person’s file.” She went on to say that some people come in and start yelling at her and threatening her. Some even threaten to kill her. She’s had people wait outside until she is done with work and follow her home all because they are mad at her for something she has no control over. She doesn’t write the laws regulating foreigners living in Germany. She’s just doing her job. Her boyfriend tells her that he’s worried about her and he’s a soldier. You’d think she’d be the one who worries about him. Which, I think, she does.
Needless to say, I have a new appreciation for the people that work at the Ausländerbehörde. I may get frustrated by the hoops we have to jump through but I now realize how much easier it is being on my side of the table than it is being on hers.
I almost forgot the most exciting part of our meeting. As we were finishing up I had the wherewithal to ask if she knew anything about where I could take cheap German lessons. As it turns out, the German government subsidizes up to 600 hours of German language lessons to foreigners. For those that are trying to become citizens it is required but since we’re not on that track it is optional which must be why no one mentioned it to us before. For the price of 1 euro per hour of class time I can start taking German language lessons! I have a list of schools to choose from and am now trying to decide which one I’ll go to. I’ll keep you posted on how it all works out.
Brenda started staging rehearsals for La Clemenza di Tito today. Performances will start next week. Until then we’re going to enjoy as much of the beautiful weather as we can. I saw some pumpkins at the store today so we may have to do some carving to get in the Halloween spirit. If we end up getting one I will post a picture of our ghoulish creation on the blog. Until next time, have a great week!
