Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Goethe Museum
Okay, so I only got to the cafe and the gift shop (where I didn't even buy anything), but it was fun. Right now I'm in a three week intensive language course where we go out for lunch each day and practice small talk. Today we went to a small cafe around the corner from Goethe's birthplace (the Tortolloni was excellent) and since we had time, browsed the gift shop. The gift shop had some neat stuff in it, lots of old fashioned pens and ink wells along with some of the more typical gift shop merchandise. I plan to check out the rest of the museum some Saturday after I am settled into my new (permanent) apartment.
Monday, February 4, 2008
The Train Wreck that Was My First Day in Germany
So I’m finally getting ready to write about my rather exhausting first week in Germany. Since my flight arrived on Sunday, I will start with Monday, my first full day in a foreign country, ever. Yes, before I got on the plane on Saturday I had lived over 2,500 miles from the place where I was born (2,831 miles driving, according to Mapquest) but had never left the United States of America.
So, back to Monday. My first goal was to go to the office where I had to register so that I could receive my residency and work permits in three days’ time, after that I wanted check out my temporary living arrangements, purchase a prepaid cell phone (or Handy as they are called here) and, if there was time, open a German bank account and stop by the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (or Die Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage) to meet the Institute Missionaries and anyone else who might be around.
Well, I decided to take the train to the Registration Bureau (Bürgeramt), and I thought I had it figured out between my map of the train system and my map of Frankfurt, until I got to the main train station where I spent the next 40 minutes, trying to buy a train pass and trying to figure out where to go to actually get on the train. The train pass was particularly fun because I wanted to buy a Monatskarte, or monthly pass, from the machine (which of course did not take credit cards). I think this was a reasonable thing to attempt as there was a button labeled Monatskarte. Eventually I gave up and purchased a Tageskarte or day pass which the machine did let me do. Then after I finally got on the right train and finally arrived at the Bürgeramt, I was given a number and told to wait in the upstairs waiting room.
As government waiting rooms go, this one was quite nice and I liked the automated system that showed the last three numbers to be served and which desk number they should go to. I also liked the relatively short wait. At first getting registered was a bit tricky as my German is fairly bad and the (very nice) woman helping me didn’t speak English (note: if anyone ever tells you that all Germans speak English, they don’t know what they are talking about, a large number of Germans speak English but not all). Then I found out that in order to complete the registration, I needed to give them an address of where I was going to be living, something I didn’t have yet as I had been told that registration was my number one priority for as soon as I got to Frankfurt and that all I needed to do was to go there with my passport and the information from my employer. This of course meant that after all my getting lost and trying to figure out how to buy a train ticket I would have to go back and register later.
On the way back to my hotel I purchased a prepaid cell phone, and had some difficulty figuring out how to make the thing work but decided that wasn’t important at present because I needed to get over to my temporary home for my 1 o’clock appointment. Where I found out that there had been some miscommunication concerning my housing arrangements, meaning I might not be able to move in on Tuesday as, I thought had been previously planned. I then promptly got lost.
It started with my decision to walk a little ways rather than try to figure out which trains were going which directions. My map clearly showed where the train line ran and so I decided to follow that road and maybe along the way I would get lucky and find a store that sold an adapter that I could use on my computer as the one I had brought with me was dead.
That wasn’t such a great idea, as I got lost again. I still don’t know how exactly I managed to get lost whilst following a single road, but I did.
I had a brief, bright moment of hope when I saw two LDS missionaries walking down the other side of the street, and I realized if anyone in Frankfurt knew how to get to the church building, it would be them. Then the light changed and they continued on while I waited for the opportunity to cross the busy street between us. At that point I determined the world was mocking me.
Finally with the help of the woman at the British Book Shop, I was able to find the U-Bahn station and get on the right train going the right direction.
At some point during the time I was lost, I passed the 24 hour mark in the total number of hours I had been in Germany in my life.
Life seemed to be going better once I got on the U-5 headed north towards Preungisheim. I wasn’t exactly certain which stop I needed to get off at, but once the train started running above ground I could see the house numbers from my seat and I knew the Church was at Eckenheimer Landstraβe 262-264. So I got off the train when I saw an odd number that was only a little ways down from the two-sixties. Within a few moments of the train leaving I discovered an interesting quirk in German (or at least this Frankfurtian street’s) house numbering system, namely that number 262 isn’t necessarily across the street from or anywhere else near to number 261.
By the time I got to the church building I was tired and could feel the blisters on the backs of my heels and ankles and on the bottoms of my toes. The front doors were locked and going along the outside of the building only resulted in seeing walls without doors. This was the point at which I started crying. Fortunately, I was able to get a hold of myself a little and see that there was a door bell. My day started improving from there on as one of the senior missionaries answered the door, showed me how to get to the entrance that the Institute Outreach Center uses.
I was also able to e-mail my parents and get a better idea of what exactly was going on, including determining that the housing situation was really a misunderstanding that was easily cleared up. This really was the point at which life started looking up as a variety of problems began to be sorted out; at minimum I had a place to live and learned where I could buy a Monatskarte. I am still trying to determine whether the fact that everyone I met there has ample reason to think that I am a flaky emotional basket case is a good thing or a bad thing.
So, back to Monday. My first goal was to go to the office where I had to register so that I could receive my residency and work permits in three days’ time, after that I wanted check out my temporary living arrangements, purchase a prepaid cell phone (or Handy as they are called here) and, if there was time, open a German bank account and stop by the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (or Die Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage) to meet the Institute Missionaries and anyone else who might be around.
Well, I decided to take the train to the Registration Bureau (Bürgeramt), and I thought I had it figured out between my map of the train system and my map of Frankfurt, until I got to the main train station where I spent the next 40 minutes, trying to buy a train pass and trying to figure out where to go to actually get on the train. The train pass was particularly fun because I wanted to buy a Monatskarte, or monthly pass, from the machine (which of course did not take credit cards). I think this was a reasonable thing to attempt as there was a button labeled Monatskarte. Eventually I gave up and purchased a Tageskarte or day pass which the machine did let me do. Then after I finally got on the right train and finally arrived at the Bürgeramt, I was given a number and told to wait in the upstairs waiting room.
As government waiting rooms go, this one was quite nice and I liked the automated system that showed the last three numbers to be served and which desk number they should go to. I also liked the relatively short wait. At first getting registered was a bit tricky as my German is fairly bad and the (very nice) woman helping me didn’t speak English (note: if anyone ever tells you that all Germans speak English, they don’t know what they are talking about, a large number of Germans speak English but not all). Then I found out that in order to complete the registration, I needed to give them an address of where I was going to be living, something I didn’t have yet as I had been told that registration was my number one priority for as soon as I got to Frankfurt and that all I needed to do was to go there with my passport and the information from my employer. This of course meant that after all my getting lost and trying to figure out how to buy a train ticket I would have to go back and register later.
On the way back to my hotel I purchased a prepaid cell phone, and had some difficulty figuring out how to make the thing work but decided that wasn’t important at present because I needed to get over to my temporary home for my 1 o’clock appointment. Where I found out that there had been some miscommunication concerning my housing arrangements, meaning I might not be able to move in on Tuesday as, I thought had been previously planned. I then promptly got lost.
It started with my decision to walk a little ways rather than try to figure out which trains were going which directions. My map clearly showed where the train line ran and so I decided to follow that road and maybe along the way I would get lucky and find a store that sold an adapter that I could use on my computer as the one I had brought with me was dead.
That wasn’t such a great idea, as I got lost again. I still don’t know how exactly I managed to get lost whilst following a single road, but I did.
I had a brief, bright moment of hope when I saw two LDS missionaries walking down the other side of the street, and I realized if anyone in Frankfurt knew how to get to the church building, it would be them. Then the light changed and they continued on while I waited for the opportunity to cross the busy street between us. At that point I determined the world was mocking me.
Finally with the help of the woman at the British Book Shop, I was able to find the U-Bahn station and get on the right train going the right direction.
At some point during the time I was lost, I passed the 24 hour mark in the total number of hours I had been in Germany in my life.
Life seemed to be going better once I got on the U-5 headed north towards Preungisheim. I wasn’t exactly certain which stop I needed to get off at, but once the train started running above ground I could see the house numbers from my seat and I knew the Church was at Eckenheimer Landstraβe 262-264. So I got off the train when I saw an odd number that was only a little ways down from the two-sixties. Within a few moments of the train leaving I discovered an interesting quirk in German (or at least this Frankfurtian street’s) house numbering system, namely that number 262 isn’t necessarily across the street from or anywhere else near to number 261.
By the time I got to the church building I was tired and could feel the blisters on the backs of my heels and ankles and on the bottoms of my toes. The front doors were locked and going along the outside of the building only resulted in seeing walls without doors. This was the point at which I started crying. Fortunately, I was able to get a hold of myself a little and see that there was a door bell. My day started improving from there on as one of the senior missionaries answered the door, showed me how to get to the entrance that the Institute Outreach Center uses.
I was also able to e-mail my parents and get a better idea of what exactly was going on, including determining that the housing situation was really a misunderstanding that was easily cleared up. This really was the point at which life started looking up as a variety of problems began to be sorted out; at minimum I had a place to live and learned where I could buy a Monatskarte. I am still trying to determine whether the fact that everyone I met there has ample reason to think that I am a flaky emotional basket case is a good thing or a bad thing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)