This morning I went to my appointment at the Auslaenderamt, which translates as either "foreigner officer" or "alien office." I have to register as a foreigner living in Germany (if I move I have to do it again) and prove that I've got income as well as health insurance in order to get my work visa. So I got to the office (where there isn't any sort of secretary or sign telling you what to do) and there was a sign on the door saying that room 9 was closed and people should go to rooms 7, 8, or 10. There appeared to only be a person working in office 8, so I waited outside that door. After finally getting to go in, I told the man my name and gave him my passport and other information. He then told me that I couldn't register then because you have to wait 5 days after registering your address to register as a foreigner. So I'm going back in a week.
Then I went to school. I only sat in on 2 lessons today, but I've got a full day tomorrow. One of the teachers I had today told me not to ask for her class permanently because they don't behave well. The first group was 17 and the second was 12-13. I'm so impressed by how well the older kids spoke English, and I believe that even the younger kids have a pretty good grasp of the language. For some reason, 5 kids out of the first class were on a class trip to Denmark last week, so they acted out 3 situations from their trip in English for us. Their situations told me that going abroad in a group is the same no matter where you're from...they had someone complain about walking while touring a city, mentioned that no one did the homework, and demonstrated trying to convert euros to kroner while shopping. Basically my trip to Holzkirchen in a nutshell...except it was euros to dollars.
After school, I got off the tram at Anger because it was 3:00 and I had nothing better to do. Die Linke (the Left) was having a campaign rally outside the mall, so I stopped and got some information from them (I think German politics are interesting because even smaller parties can have an impact). The thing that surprised me was the age of the activists. When you think of political activists who are handing out information, what do you think of? Probably some young, idealistic person with hope for the future. Not here. These people were all over 65. I was confused at first, but then came to the conclusion that they may be holdovers from the DDR who don't like the political direction the reunified country has taken. (This may be false reasoning, but these people looked pretty DDR-ish to me.) And that, more than anything, made me sad. I don't think communism is the right way for a state to function - people are too greedy for that. But imagine if your country was communist/socialist for almost your entire life and then became capitalist again. If your life totally changed, and you didn't like it, I bet you'd end up as an adorable little old lady passing out leftist political literature as well.
I purchased an ice cube tray today. You can take the girl out of America, but you can't convince the girl that ice cubes aren't necessary in daily life, although I could probably just leave my beverages on the balcony for the same effect. It's 55 degrees outside right now; I only have 1 out of 3 windows open. Bis spaeter!
Song of the Day (it's not German; it's just what I'm listening to right now):
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