A Milestone

Today I started to feel like I live in Berlin. Like I’m supposed to be here. Maybe some of the Berliner sense of entitlement has rubbed off on me, but I finally feel like I have the right to be here.

Maybe it’s because I do. Today I finally got my Aufenthaltserlaubnis, my residence permit. I can't show you the whole thing because it has my passport number on it and stuff. But here's the "biometric" pass photo.



Because of my own miscalculations and because I forgot my map, I was ten minutes late for my appointment at the permit office, so I was scared they would send me away again or make me wait until the end of the day or something.

Stymied. I’ve been looking for that word ever since I got here! I’ve been stymied every time I want to accomplish some simple task. But slowly everything is being destymiefied. I wonder what the German word for stymie is. And destymiefied.

But first here’s a thing. I don’t know what is up with closed doors in Berlin. I never know when I’m supposed to knock and when I’m supposed to barge right in.

So I got to the waiting room today at the permit office and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. There was one of these old familiar things:



And there was this closed door:



I asked the people in the waiting room where one obtained a number. They gestured to the door. So I just barged in. I’ve done that before and been kicked out. But this time I was right. Oh, that reminds me of another thing.

Berliners know what you’re supposed to be doing at all times. And if you do it wrong, they’ll tell you.

When I got on the bus without showing my ticket, the bus driver said “Uh, do you have a ticket?” “Yeah, here” I said. “Well if you have a ticket then you need to show it to me!” he said in a not entirely compassionate tone.

When a young man got on the train before the people had gotten off, an old lady told him “You should let us get off first!”

And today, when a girl in the permit office waiting room failed to go to the correct room after her number was called, a middle-aged woman came out and excoriated her.

My attitude toward the public rebuke is ambivalent. On the one hand, it’s rude to berate someone in mixed company. Also, it’s a little bit spiteful to tell people what they *should have* done after they’ve already failed to do it.

But at the same time, if you don’t mind the embarrassment, it’s really nice to have someone tell you how things are supposed to be done. It’s very direct, and then you won’t make the same mistake later. That kind of directness with strangers reminds me of New York.

Anyway, it only took about 40 minutes to get my residence permit. And now I’m legal! It feels really good. It raised my spirits.



And then, on the train ride back from the permit office, I had one of my favorite Berlin experiences so far.

I don’t know if I’ve told you that guys walk around drinking from bottles of beer here. I’ve never seen a woman doing it. Usually, it’s a group of guys, and, go figure, they’re often loud and obnoxious.

Today at about 12:30 in the afternoon I saw five guys with open bottles hanging out on the U-Bahn. I wanted so much to take a picture, but I didn’t have the courage to just be like, “So, you guys like to drink beer, huh? Mind if I take a photo of that?”

Then the subway stopped and a group of twenty kids got on. They surrounded the five cool guys who were drinking beer. The guys lost about 96% of their coolness as soon as the kids swarmed them.

Without hesitating, I grabbed my camera. The guys were distracted. Everyone would think I was taking a picture of the cute kids. Here’s the result.



Echt Berlin!