Integration - the saga

*SIGH* - this pretty much sums it up really... but do read on for the thrills the spills and the oh so drawn out saga of getting into an integration course (official German language course).

Some time ago you will recall our jubilation at receiving Polina's residency permit. To be rather precise that was while we were still in Frankfurt in mid January. Now there's a bit of a lead up to this - after much stressing (mainly caused by the Australian Embassy in Frankfurt telling Polina that she should have applied for the permit in Australia and she pretty much had zero chance of getting one now, even though the Germans in Australia had told us the opposite) and much dotting of t's and crossing of i's we did manage to get this important document that allows Polina to stay in Germany for up to the next three years.

Fatal mistakes occur when you combine

1. trying to provide all of the correct information and
2. officials who do not know what any of this means.

Example: We are in Frankfurt getting the residence permit, we ask about the integration course and also happen to mention that we will be moving to Berlin. This is a real problem as what the woman there should have done is say "Ach ja das ist wunderbar, heir ist deine sehr wichtiges dokument" == "Yeah that's lovely, here is your important document anyway". Unfortunately she chose to say "Well ewes blokes had better gettit done in Berrrlinee then hadntcha" :-(

Not knowing any better at this stage we head off to Berlin. Where we proceed to queue for a rather lengthy period of time only to be told that we should have gotten that letter in Frankfurt. So we come out with "Oh well not to worry, you'll just print that out for us here then yeah *hopeful kitten look*". The answer there is obviously "Nein ve vill do keine printing of the forms like zhis. Ve vill vait until your files are arrivhing von Frankfurt". Which disappointingly in this day and age still takes four weeks. To put this into perspective I can walk from Frankfurt to Berlin in four weeks - farken!

Eventually after the allotted time has passed, several chickens have been sacrificed and we have revised our Octagram to include the appropriate occult symbols the files arrive from Frankfurt, so we get a letter in the post saying you have an appointment on the 9th of March to collect your permission to do the integration course. This is lovely, except we were kinda planning to be in Prague on the 9th of March... hmmm...

So we go to the office very early one morning - these guys open at 7am so you can really start your aggravation early in the day - and queue up again with the other die hard fans. We get to the office and talk to the lady there and explain that on the day of the appointment we will be out of the country and couldn't we just sort things out now please given we have waited for 4 weeks already and it is kinda their fuckup. The answer to that is "Nein - you vill take zhis appointment or zhe next one vhich is 11th April". Things go back and forth a bit along the lines of "what the fuck do you mean the 11th of April???" and "isn't it just one bit of paper you have to print for us???" and "can we actually talk to your supervisor".

With the supervisor it goes around and around in circles where she understands that it isn't our fault and we understand that it isn't her fault but she isn't gonna get off her lumpy arse to actually help us out. In the end we agree to the 9th of March date and go and rearrange our lives in a very depressed state.

9th of March rolls around and we rock up to the office at the appointment time 16:30. The lady lets us in, flicks through the file, check the passport, prints out one bit of paper, stamps it, signs it, hands it over and looks at us strangely when we don't leave. Five minutes of this is really all you need to do? Ja. You're very sure of that? Ja. and at 16:40 we leave....

Many important questions spring to mind:

1. WHY THE FARK COULD THEY NOT JUST POST THAT LETTER TO US AND SAVE US ALL THE TROUBLE????
2. Why instead of arguing for 45 min could they not just do this?
3. Why the fark our file needed to meander from Frankfurt to Berlin to enable all this to happen?
4. And did Chewbaka really live on Endor?

Anyway *relieved sigh* it's all over now...

So 10th of March Polina's first German lesson, we get up and have breaky and head to the school. When we arrive we are greeted by the girl who took our details last time we were there, but she has this kinda strange look on her face and says "Jjjjaaaaahhh?..."

Oh fark not something else - but it turns out that the start of the course has been delayed until 20th March - which isn't all that bad, but it would have been nice if someone had told us.

Please please keep your fingers crossed for us that this one sorts itself out and that the course starts. Alternatively start saving up donations so that we can get a nice little padded room and one of the form fitting white coats... :-)