Quiet Sunday

(Okay, this entry kind of requires a preface. Not only because it's long enough to be printed and bound, but  I also feel obligated to apologize for being boring and whatnot. But hey, every one of these entries is Read At Your Own Risk. So yeah, sorry it gets a bit dry, and it might take a little while to read. Proceed if you dare.)

:)

Oh good, the program rotated it upright for me!

I have noticed that a few of my comrades' blogs have included a picture of the first drink they had in their co-op towns. I decided to do the same, since I kept the bottle. I refer you to the picture above. :D

Have you ever tried to count how many different words you use in a conversation? I went to a biergarten with people from work last night, and I was thinking this morning about what word I heard the most. Wouldn’t it be all the filler words that would be said the most in a conversation? Then I started thinking about recording a discussion, and seeing just how many different words are said. That must be an insanely large number!

So, last month my blog had 404 views. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is mostly due to the tux ladies impulsively checking every other waking moment to see if I’ve posted anything. Am I right, or am I right?? There’s no way in the world that I could rack up that high a number otherwise... *shifty eyes* On a slightly similar note, I guess it was in a dream I had, that my roommate Maria read my blog, since the US is still the only country lit up on the world map, haha.

Maria said she prefers to go by “Mary.” Pronounced the same as at home and everything. Fascinating!

I KNEW “Erlangen” sounded familiar!!! There’s a city just north of Nürnberg named Erlangen. Every time I heard the name, my brain would ping around and try to place the name, but I couldn’t remember a thing. I thought I was paranoid, until I read a newspaper article from the Enquirer about people from Erlanger. Thought I was losing my mind!

I'm official!

I love this billboard: "You can read, right? PICK UP YOUR PACKAGE!!"
Or at least, that's what I'd like to believe it says.

Okay, so you might have noticed I took a short break from the blog posts. The tedioscity (tediousness? Not "monotony," that would be incorrect... ) well anyways, whatever it was about all the bureaucratic procedures I needed to get done, it was starting to get to me. Last things I mentioned about the paperwork or things I needed to get done, I had registered and opened a bank account. Since then, I have gone to the financial office, the social security whatever-it-is building, and to that place where I applied for a residence permit. Once everything’s processed, I should be completely legal. The only time-sensitive thing I had to do was get registered, and that seemed like no problem at all on Wednesday. Well anyways, we come first to the tax card (Lohnsteuerkarte). For some weird reason, their hours on Thursdays run longer than on all the other days, so I decided to try to go after work. (I get off work at 4 usually, and the Finanzamt was open until 5.) It was a lovely 30-minute walk. So I walk into the building, and just stand there gaping at the building layout and all the signs telling me where I should go for what. Well, as well as I could make out, I needed to go to another place on another street. Awesome. Good thing I could find it quickly on my map. So I walk around the block to this place, and start searching for the address. Wouldn’t you know, the displayed numbers skipped right over the number I needed. i.e., the street numbers went straight from 3 to 7. There was a driveway where 5 shoulda been. So what the heck, why not? I walked up the driveway, and sought out the door nearest to the driveway tunnel. Well, I found one who had doorbell buttons with signs which included german finance-related terms. I rang them, and a man answered the door, and I explained what I needed, and so we climbed two flights of stairs, in what seemed like a residential building, to his office. At least it was furnished like a place of business. He talked really fast, but thankfully used mostly basic words I could comprehend.

(ohhh goodness, “Ya Got Trouble” came up on iTunes at random. I now have an insatiable hankering to watch The Music Man. Sigh.)

Anyways, as I was saying, this very nice, helpful man went and fetched me a form to fill out and give to Siemens, even though it was 5:20 by the time I left. Shoowee. Then I had to book it over the Deutsche Rentenversicherung. Yeah, don’t ask me what that means. I have no clue! Well anyways, earlier in the week, when the HR girl (who looks like she’s about 16. Waitaminute, who am I to talk? People think I look like I’m 17!) told me where I needed to go to get my Sozialversicherungsausweiss (social security card?), and so I searched on the Deutsche Rentenversicherung’s website, searching for a place in Nürnberg where I can go to get this thing. No such luck. So I emailed her, asking for help, and she sent me an email back saying she just called their number, and found a rough address for the place I could file paperwork. And they close at 6 PM on Thursdays. It being 5:20, I had to book it! I neglected to write down the address (which was odd anyways: when I searched it in google, it spit back a map showing that it was on a differently-named street than the address said), so I picked a spot on my map which I remembered was in the vicinity of the address, and walked reallyfast. Well, I found the Deutschebahn Museum. And the Nürnberg theater. And a huge building with a mosaic on it. As I was walking past this building, staring at the mosaic (on the left), I turn to my right and see this very official building, and in huge letters, lasting the length of the building-side, it yelled “DEUTSCHE RENTENVERSICHERUNG” at me. Oooookay, I guess I found it! I walk in and go up the stairs and asked the receptionist if this was where I could get an Einwohnererlaubnis. She thought I was in the wrong place. I knew I was in the right place, and told her somebody told me I needed to come here to get my Einwohnererlaubnis. So she says the equivalent of “...ooooookay...” and tells me to take a seat and wait to be called. Wait for what? It’s 5:30, there’s nobody here! But I didn’t say that out loud, of course (that’s too rude, anyway), and took my seat. I was sitting there for a minute before I realized I had asked for a residence permit in the social security building. No wonder she kinda laughed at me! Oh well, at least now I knew precisely what I was there for. So when my name was called, I went upstairs to a man’s office and was processed, copied, stamped and out of there by 5:50. BOOM! Awesome.

Then when I get home, Mary tells me that she’s going out on the town, disappears into the bathroom for an hour-and-a-half, and emerges, transformed. I guess she was serious! She looked fierce! (In a good way.) Cue the techno! nn-ss-nn-ss-nn-ss...

And the final thing on my list to do was to get that Einwohnererlaubnis (residence permit). For this I needed passport photos. They cost 5 euros. Awesome. By “awesome” I mean “not awesome.” So Friday morning, I walk over to where it said it was, and once again, they skipped over the street number. Whaaaat?! So I walk around to where I knew there was a sign confirming its existence, reaffirm the address, and walk back up to where it was supposed to be. Ah. Now I see it. Usually, the numbers are on a little blue sign, but this street address was in huge, silver numbers. And of course, I missed noticing them, since I was set on looking for that little blue sign. My tunnel vision is ridiculous, sometimes. Erik can attest to that. Ha, ha. Anyway, I go in to the info desk (refusing to stop and try to read the sign telling me where to go), and talk to the lady about an Einwohnererlaubnis. She looks at me like I’m dumb. I’m pretty sure I botched the exchange that followed, because she told me to go down the steps to some other place. Okay. I do so, and it’s a short labyrinth through the building, and I emerge at the place where I registered earlier in the week. Whaaaat?! Awesome. The girl there was much more pleasant. And sent me back to the earlier woman, telling me to say “Aufenthaltserlaubnis.” Okay! I love chasing my tail. It turns out that Aufenthaltserlaubnis is the real term for residence permit. And apparently I just made up the “einwohnererlaubnis” word. Sigh. But it’s their language, and if you break up the word into its two pieces, the terms fit the situation, so they should sorta know what I’m talking about!! Gah. I talk to miss grumpy pants again, and she hands me a form to fill out. Woot! Progress! Fill that out, hand it to her, and try to give her my passport pictures, and she won’t take them because I’m smiling in them. 5 Euros, wasted. Awesome. So I left, since I was done. And for 10 minutes straight, I was in an extremely bad mood.

And that concludes my paperwork completion quest. There are still things to come in the mail, but for the most part, everything has been either processed or initiated. Goodness, that was exhausting. It didn’t help that all the offices opened at 8 AM and closed before work was over, usually.

This Mauer (wall) around the Altstadt (old city) is beautiful

Nürnberg Hauptbahnhof! (Nuremberg main train station). I made it big so you can see it!

I WANT DORITOS!! Yes, the nasty nacho-cheesier kind, Mel. Why would I possibly want any other flavor?

I finally got a gmail email address. I want a calendar on which I can attempt to plan out all my sightseeing while in Germany, and since I can’t seem to find a calendar anywhere (and I didn’t pack away my 2011 Sunsets Calendar. Schade.) I made an email account. I probably didn’t need to create an email address, since I already had a google account (different from gmail address, trust me), but whatevs.

This is the road underneath the train tracks
directly next to the Hauptbahnhof. It kind
of reminded me of a bridge Erik and I drove
under/through in Indianapolis.

So I noticed that the awesome pens my boss gave me to use at work are staples brand. I apologize for the earlier slanderous comment I made against staples pens, calling them “crappy.” Even though it sufficed to get my point across, it was apparently unfounded and inaccurate. Staples, please don’t sue me.

I ALSO misspoke in saying that Mary’s parents were coming in town this weekend. Mary travelled to Regensburg to see THEM. Though, now, I’m puzzled as to how that second couch is being delivered if she went to visit them. She doesn’t have a car, and couches don’t exactly fit well on a bike.

Corey and Ben (the two who work at LEONI. We call them the Leoni twins. Well, at least I do...) came in town Friday. They live and work in Kitzingen, which is about an hour away by train. Although, they are in the same “region” as Nürnberg, so the train ride was really cheap. The primary reason for their visit was to do their laundry. Apparently there is absolutely zero Laundromats in Kitzingen! There  IS a drycleaner, but that’s super expensive and takes forever. So they came in town. We went out to eat when they got here, and found this little place a block away from my apartment called Landbierparadies. It was awesome! They served beer to us in clay biersteins! So cool. Wukie came over after he spent all evening fetching the bed frame he bought, then we all headed out to try find a pub or bar that had darts. Hopefully an irish pub. Well, we found one place immediately, but it was expensive, so we didn’t even go in. Then we were sent in circles by people we asked for directions (we strongly suspect they were intentionally messing with us), and FINALLY found another, less expensive irish pub who had soccer playing on their tvs. Spaß. (fun.) So we sat in there and watched the game for a while. Afterwards, we ended up at this place called Brown Sugar. They were just like a bar back in the states, sorta, but anyways they had a dart board!!! And somehow I played well. No idea how that happened. I had played darts ONCE before, with Erik, but that ended badly. As in, I didn’t even make it past the first “goal” and he won. So up until last night, darts was on my “Do Not Play Ever Again” list.

Went to a flea market Yesterday. I keep forgetting that “flea” means “junk.” Though, one guy had a stand where he was selling guitars. I told Ben, and he showed up and bought one, because he was pining after his guitar (in the states) somethin’ fierce. It was funny hearing him haggle with the guy, I had to turn away to laugh, because of course, since I was Ben’s friend standing there while he was trying to get a better price, I was obligated to have my game face on.

We sat outside and squinted the entire time to
see past all the smokers standing in our line of
vision to the soccer game on the TV inside the pub.

The Nürnberg soccer team was playing Munich yesterday. It’s a huge rivalry, so Corey, Ben, and I went back to that one Irish pub to watch it (Wukie was busy constructing the bed frame he brought home on Friday). It ended up tied, which was good for Nürnberg, since Munchen is higher-ranked. We got into it, a little, and after the game went to the fan shop, where I bought a mug (in Bearcat colors, no less!) and we all got tickets to go to an actual game in a month. I’m going back to the shop on Wednesday, when the scarves are half price! Woot!

So, I mentioned that I went to a biergarten last night with people from work. Might I add that it was the same place Corey, Ben, and I went Friday night? Same name, different (and bigger) place though. It was a little intimidating, but fun.

I've started to take pictures of everyone I see who is staring out their window at the people below. I find it extremely amusing.

Man, I’m all story-ed out. This is an extremely long blog entry. Quality might have faltered there at the end, and monotony might have been adopted, but hey. That happens. I’m sorry. :D I’m having fun here, but I miss you all! The End.