Registration

A few comments:

1. It is not possible to look good whilst running to catch the bus/tram/train. It’s downright amusing, the more accompanying bags, the better.
2. It is possible to get lost in a town with four streets.
3. There are people who have made it to age 18 without ever having cooked rice.
4. Scottish, Australian, British, and American accents are quite different upon comparison.
5. German bureaucracy is, well, bureaucracy.

Registering at the university requires a long list of documents, plenty of patience, several hours, and the ability to speak German. I felt like a ping pong ball, swatted here and there as I tried to jump through the required hoops, sign the required forms. First pay money at the bursar’s office. Collect following documents:

1. Visa – this required having previously gone to both the police and the Foreigner’s Office, registering your residence, providing proof of financial support and various other documents.
2. Letter of acceptance
3. Proof of insurance – I had requested mine from my scholarship organization extra.
4. Proof of payment – the little slip from the Bursar’s office.
5. Filled-out enrollment form.
6. Two passport photos.

I headed up to the Senatesaal, where I was supposed to register. Nobody stirred, not even a mouse. Well, then. I managed to figure out which room I was supposed to be in, waited in the (short!) line. Sat down at the desk.

Enrollment form? Check.
Bursar’s slip? Check.
Letter? Check.
Insurance? Well, you have a problem.

Turns out what I had wasn’t what I needed, and I had to go across the street to the state insurance company and get a letter from them saying I was privately insured. I waited in line, went in when it was my turn, handed the gentleman my letter from DAAD.

“You have a problem,” he says. As part of my scholarship I am covered by the organization’s private insurance. This is, I thought, a good thing—everyone has to be insured, and not having to pay 50 euros a month can only be good. Except, if you are ever privately insured in Germany, you waive your right to be insured by a public company for the rest of your life.

So, I am now publicly insured. The main difference is that, instead of being reimbursed later for the full costs (which I pay upfront), I pay my 10 euro co-pay and fertig. Also, if I break stuff in the store, I have to pay for it. Sounds normal? Germans insure everything—even themselves against possible accident. The running joke is that Germans have insurance for everything—Americans just have lawyers.