Cologne, Classes, and "Counterfeit?" Oh My!

To My Followers (aka Mom),

My sincerest apologies for not writing in over a month! Things got a little hectic here, start of the semester and all. I am, however, resolved to begin blogging again.

That aside, here’s a bit of what’s happened in the last month (surely missing several things that I’ve since reorganized as “not-as-important now as I thought they were then”).

1. Went to Köln (Cologne).

Cologne is a great city! I went there on a day trip organized through the International Student Services office at my university. It involved a reasonable bus ride there, a guided tour, free roam time, and a reasonable bus ride home. The highlight of the trip was seeing the Kölner Dom or “Cologne Cathedral” (pictured above, arguably the most famous church in Germany, and a building I’ve wanted to see for years). Even better (after the fact) was climbing the 500+ steps to the top of the cathedral, which, bare in mind, is the second tallest Gothic church in Europe. The gallons of sweat, hyperventilation and foot pain ended up being SO worth it! The view was AWESOME. Pictured below is just one of the photos I took of Cologne from the top of the Dom.

2. Began classes.

This was an interesting experience for several reasons.

A. All of my classes are in German. I was expecting this one, but it is still WAY too much for your brain to handle the first couple times. Only exception to this statement? French Grundkurs A1, a 101 equivalent course, which only consists of about 15 minutes of German per 1.5 hour class.

B.  There are traditions in the classroom that, as an exchange student, you are usually completely unaware of. For example, at the end of every class session, students knock on their desks as a way of commending the professor on their lecture. I think this is really cool, but the first time it happens, you’re confused, and by the time you realize YOU should be knocking as well (and begin to do so), everyone else is finishing. This means YOU are that weird kid that knocked an uncomfortable amount of time (even if short) past the rest of the group.

C. I had NO CLUE what the final project options were. You generally have a choice of a Referat (30-40 minute speech to the class about a researched topic) or Hausarbeit “House Work” (12-15 pages written on a researched topic). These may seem hard already, but also add that, in most classes, this final project is your only grade for the entire semester! I freaked out about it for a while, but lately, I’m realizing that I AM learning a lot, and that (at least with the paper) I can proof it over and over until it is nearly perfect.

3. Got My Papers to Stay!!!

This was a multiple day process, not because it had to be, but because the office made an error on my first permit, and once it was fixed, admitted they'd made another. On the first day that I had to return, the issue, from what I understand, was that they had made an error with a critical date on the residency permit. This, as they explained to me, could have been bad if I would’ve shown these papers when trying to reenter the country after any out-of-country travel. “In fact, they [the authorities] could refuse you entry to the country,” said the woman helping me (in perfect English), "They might think they're counterfeits." My response? "Counterfeit? Great… Good think I've not left the country yet."

The most important order of business, she explained, was removing the page with the bad date. Easier said than done, since they are meant to stay in the passport. It was a process involving her peeling the half in question out of my passport, and me wincing every time she shredded another little patch off the page of my passport. (This 30-minute ordeal was like watching someone try to separate a piece of flypaper and a piece of tissue paper from one another. Very IMPORTANT tissue paper.) Once the page was removed, the new one was inserted, and I was assured all was fine. From this solution though, grew the next problem.

They (the employees in the Foreigners’ Office) had tried to be fairly commonsensical, and reprinted (of the two-part document) only the half in question. The issue resulted from the fact that the two halves, which are later permanently affixed (or rather, fairly permanently affixed) to your passport, come connected in like-numbered pairs. All a Foreigners’ Office has to do is put one’s information into a template on the computer and print it (leaving them with two identically numbered halves). These numbers absolutely have to match. Otherwise, it’s a sign that your papers are quite likely to have been forged. Guess who didn't have matching numbers on their permit pages... Yeah, it’s actually kind of ironic if you think about it, legal papers that look falsified…

Luckily, someone alerted the employee who had helped me to this fact two days later when they were speaking about it. This is why, to my surprise, I received another phone call. When I returned, I handed over my passport, expecting another traumatic peel and wince session, but instead, she crossed out the incorrect number, and wrote the correct one with a regular old pen. I inquired as to if that wouldn’t look even MORE suspicious to national-level authorities. Her response? A stamp. It’s as some of us international students joke sometimes. If it isn’t on paper and/or stamped, it’s not real here. Apparently this one stamp makes my incredibly odd residency documents perfectly normal… hopefully...

Either way, I have them, and that’s what’s most important.

Anyway, I’ll save you the reading (and time) of more stories. If I keep writing entries like this, I might actually lose a couple of readers, meaning everyone who reads my Blog.

So much has happened, and it doesn’t feel like I’ve already been here for two months. Time is going by MUCH too quickly. Even with the quirks (not bad, just different) and rare annoying situation, this place is amazing (in a way that is hard to wrap your head around)... hence the root word "amaze" I guess. That, though, is a subject for a different day.

I hope everyone reading this back in the States is doing well. I wish all of you at home a Happy Holiday Season, and especially a very Happy Thanksgiving this Thursday. I will truly miss spending this one at home, but I’ll be celebrating it here with many great friends, which is always a wonderful substitute for family. (Stories to come…)

Bis Bald!

"Til Soon!"