The last time I wrote, I was reflecting on how I ended up here. This question has many facets.

One could start by asking 'how did any of us end up here'. Here's what I mean.  This past weekend I hung out with a mixed group of europeans my own age - late 20s and 30s. We were at the Neues Nationalgalarie for the last weekend of the Koons/Klee exhibition, and this french chick, whose name escapes me commented that her vision was deteriorating and that she was concerned. She mentioned that she didn't want to go to an optician where she would simply be prescribed more powerful glasses, that she wanted to see an eye specialist. 'You have a Krankenkasse, right' (statutory public health insurance). Yep, she did. So she could just book an appointment directly with a specialist. Or go to a family doctor and ask for a referal there. This was not the problem, though. The problem is that as a relatively new arrival, working principally through english and with french as a native language, she just hasn't acquired the level of German that would allow her to comfortably visit a doctors. 'Can't you go in France the next time' enquired my Italian friend. No, she mentioned, she no longer resides in France and therefore has no coverage there. It would be the same for me in my home country. Not having resided there since 2001 means that I no longer have any claim to anything there. So I guess one kind of answer to the above question would be, I ended up here, at this point, finally addressing the fact that I live my life in translation because I like many others did what all those utopian europeans suggested and freely moved across the continent. This may seem like a kind of obvious point, but I'm not sure that I was really clear on how definitive this kind of moving would be when I did it, I was not clear that I was emigrating and I did not realise that by emigrating I would become an imigrant. I thought that I was moving from one part of a quasi superstate to another. I did not really concieve of what I was doing as leaving home territory. What I am getting to grips with now, is that being an EU-Ausländer, an EU foreigner is a condition unto itself. One has to spend time worming ones way into a strange new system and language, wait it out until one acquires new knowledge and benefits while similtaneously losing the comforts of the old, the familiar, home.

I could also look at this question, 'how did I end up here' by looking at the quite personal story of how I ended up here; my parents, the coat, that conversation with a friend in a bar, arrriving, leaving, pining and returning. Perhaps I will get to that story a little later on, or in another post some other time. But now is not the time. 

I guess what I was thinking of today is how burocratically I became a part of this system in particular. All the piece of paper that I have picked between 2001 and now. All of the learning that it has taken to know how to work this system. How that system actually works at all. This is my story for today. 

I came here in 2001, with a fixed term contract for 9 months to teach english as a foreign language to business people. My main motivation in looking for that kind of job was simply that I did not want to be wandering around in a strange city jobless in a foreign language. I had just finished my degree and teaching certificate, so I was fresh and employable, and I picked up what I realise now was a very well paid job for the sector. Working for a company was nice, at the very least I had people around me to tell me what I should be doing to keep the German state happy. Because, god knows, you sure as hell will not figure it out on your own. I don't remember who told me fist about 'anmeldung'. Maybe the cheery receptionist, who lost her job the following year during the mini-crash of 2002/03. Somebody must have. Anyway I was informed that within 14 days of moving into a property you have to register with the police. I took this to mean that you should actually go to the police, looked on a map and found the nearest station and asked about 'polizeiliche anmeldung', police registration. I remember being looked at through fairly bemused eyes and being told that you should of course do your police registration with a civil servant at the 'Rathaus', the district town hall. Those early interactions with German burocracy continue to amaze me - I had school German, upper beginners level at best. I hardly spoke a word for my first six months at all. And contrary to reports, at the time, in east Berlin where I lived there was hardly a person that spoke even basic English.(in the meantime all service personnel in my old neighbourhood have caught on, and newbies look at me open mouthed when I described literally not being able to say anything to anyone outside of work until I had pushed my german to the intermediate level. About six months after my arrival). So in short I do not remember how I understood those policemen, how I managed to communicate with the official in the town hall, but somehow I did and I walked out with one of the most important pieces of paper anyone living in Germany can possibly possess - a certificate proving where I lived.

At some point in time the nice receptionist at work shoved some more papers in front of me and asked me to select a Krankenkasse, a statutory public health insurer. Not knowing what this was, I asked her whether there was any difference between krankenkassen and what I would base my decision on. I cannot remember how the conversation proceeded, but I think in the end I must have just select her Krankenkasse just to avoid any further confusion. I have since become somthing of an expert on Krankenkassen, but my acquired expertise should perhaps be the subject of another post. 

Three weeks in, a couple of pieces of paper down, I was ready for my next ordeal/piece of paper at the Ausländerbehörde, the foreigners office. This time I can remember being told that it was far out of the city centre, involved quite a wait and that I should perhaps bring someone with me to translate if I needed. Armed with beginners German and the exaggerated confidence of the newly graduated I decided to brave it alone. This experience stuck with me: I walked in and missed the entrance for EU foreigners and other nice people like Americans and Canadians, and found two other sections, the first of which seemed to be for people from somewhat suspect countries like Russia and India; the second was for people from extremely undesirable countries, most of which were in Africa. I retracted my steps and returned to the nice country section where I poured over a form with a dictionary, hoping that I would give the right answer. I submitted it, came back when they told me, survived my interactions and recieved my final piece of paper for a while, the Aufenthaltselaubnis, permission to stay.  Never mind how bizzare how it seemed to me at the time that an EU citizen who had a right to stay granted under European law had to get a piece of paper confirming it. I just filed my pieces of paper away, and settled into a stint in Friedrichshain, Berlin pondering Germans and their pieces of paper. 

More pieces of paper later or tomorrow ...... 

For now I had errands to run .....