German Bureaucracy!

Well, no stay in Germany would be complete without having to go through the famous bureaucracy... yet again. When you get here, you have to register at a bunch of offices, and you have to unregister from those same offices when you leave too. On Monday I was running around the whole day doing this. Here's a quick narrative of that day:

First, I woke up early and rode my bike (the bus stop is gone for the week because of construction) to Vaihingen to cancel my health insurance. I stopped on the way at a hardware/hobby store to see if I could find something to fix my glasses... (the left arm part randomly broke off a few days earlier and had been tied on temporarily with string). I went the insurance office and found out that I needed the form that shows I unregistered myself with the government, as well as the form that says I'm no longer registered as a student at the university. So, nothing could be done and I had to go back to my apartment. On the way, I had to stop at the international office to get a copy of my application for the unregister from the university form (it takes two months to get the real certificate back), and also to find out that I have to have my grades mailed to the center later because the office of the German classes is moving to a different building and is unable to give out grades right away. This means it will take longer until I get my transcripts to Tech.

Then, I went back to my apartment to study a bit, to warm up for my German CS oral exam that afternoon. After eating lunch, I went to the caretaker's office, waited in line for 15 minutes to make an appointment to move out of my apartment (he has to inspect the room). That finally being done, I had to scoot to the CS building to take my exam. I did well enough to get Tech credit, but not as good as I would have wanted.

After that, I finally had some time to fix my glasses. What I found at the hobby store were some little plastic/rubber things called "shrink sleeves," about the diameter of a big coffee stirrer. What I did was cut off an inch, wedged the two broken ends of my glasses in there, and we held it over a flame, so the plastic shrank really tight. It worked really nice and is black and is not very bulky, so it's a good fix for now. The best part - it only cost me 3 EUR!

Then, I had to ride my bike back to Vaihingen to the insurance place, now that I knew what papers to bring. So, my insurance stops at the end of the month, but they still have to bill me for a month (when the money is pulled from your account, it's actually for the month before), so I have to keep my German bank account until at least the middle of August, not cancel it like we're supposed to.

Because it matters with the bank account, I had to call up to this other office from the apartments to find out how I get my 300 EUR deposit back from my room. I have to go in person, on the 30th, after the caretaker checks out my room, to this office, pick up my money in cash, and then deposit it into my German account. Then, when I get home, I have to either transfer it through the international system or with PayPal or something.

Finally, I had some time to sit on the balcony couch and eat a Popsicle!