When I moved abroad I knew that there were going to be some tricky hurdles to overcome.
However, what I had on my mind was: loneliness, struggling to find a job, dealing with culture shock.
Which are all things that I encountered.
But I forgot about good ol’ bureaucracy and paperwork.
Hey everyone! I’m Dana and you’re watching Wanted Adventure Living Abroad.
Quick disclaimer here: bureaucracy and paperwork are not things that are unique to Germany.
Definitely not.
There’s also a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork in the U.S.
But it is the German bureaucracy and paperwork that I have the most experience with.
So here are a few times that the paperwork and bureaucracy that I encountered living
abroad in Germany made me cry.
Before moving to Germany I lived in Prague, where I got a job at a company that basically
took care of all my visa paperwork for me.
I pretty much just had to sign where I was told and then show up at the right office
on the right day and at time.
Which was nice, but left me absolutely unprepared for what was to come when I moved to Germany.
The day that Mr. German Man and I made the decision that I would move to Germany was
super exciting. It was really lovely.
But then the next day, however, we started researching the visa stuff.
And, yeah...it didn't take very long for the tears to come.
We spent months trying to figure out what I needed to do, and how I could possibly go
about getting a longer stay visa in Germany.
And even then we really weren’t all that sure about it.
So much time spent getting lost down rabbit holes of online forums and websites, just
trying to figure it all out.
It was so frustrating.
When it finally came time for me to actually apply for the visa at the office, I was, for
some reason, very optimistic about it.
We had filled out all the paperwork that we’d been told we needed.
I had taken and passed a couple German courses.
I had a job as an English teacher.
And an American friend of mine, who also taught at the same English school that I worked at,
had gone to the same office just a few days before, and had breezed in and out in a matter
of minutes with then a two year visa.
So yeah, I was pretty optimistic about it.
But yeah...from my experience it ended up seeming like exactly what paperwork and which
documents you actually needed varied depending, I guess, on who you got at the office and
what kind of a mood they were in, because after getting up super early in the morning,
waiting outside in the cold, and then waiting in a really long line inside, we were told that
we’d have to come back with more documents that we hadn’t been told about in the first
place, hadn’t found any information about needing online, and that my American friend
at the English school had not needed for her visa just a few days earlier.
What’s that they say about not getting your hopes up? Yeah, I cried that day.
This one could really count double or even triple, because there were at least three or four
painful incidents involving paperwork and bureaucracy surrounding
getting married here in Germany.
But for now I will just say three little words: apostilled birth certificate.
No idea what that is?
Neither did I, nor my parents, nor anyone else that I asked.
But it was required for me to get married in Germany, so I needed to figure it out.
After several hours of research, I learned that it’s basically a way of getting a document
authenticated that is even more than notarizing.
But of course, it's more complicated too.
First, I had to obtain a copy of my birth certificate from the state in the U.S. where I was born.
And then that birth certificate needed to go to another office to be apostilled.
Now, explaining this out loud, actually makes it sound pretty simple, but somehow this process
ended up being really stressful and taking several phone calls just to make it happen.
I just ended up feeling like nobody in the offices actually knew what an apostilled birth
certificate was.
I don’t know, maybe they don't get a request for that very often?
But also, when searching for answers online - as with all of the visa paperwork in general
and all the marriage paperwork - if just often really felt like I ended up spending hours
just going around in circles, without ever really getting to the bottom of what I needed
to actually do in order to move forward with the bureaucracy and paperwork.
And the icing on the cake of bureaucratic frustration is that when I actually ordered
my birth certificate, the state that I was born in said that they could print an official
copy in, like, 10 different languages, including German, isn't that convenient?
But the office in Germany said no.
They would not accept an American birth certificate printed in German.
I had to get the copy printed in English and then pay around 100 euros to have a certified
translator in Germany translate the birth certificate from English into German.
Name - Name.
Date - Datum.
Yeah, we paid 100 euros for that.
So my question for you is: When has paperwork and bureaucracy made you cry or at least made
you really, really frustrated?
What is the most frustrating paperwork or bureaucracy that you’ve had to deal with?
Please let me know in the comments below.
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Until next time, auf Wiedersehen!
Surrounding getting married here in Germany...
Just trying to f...
Getting lost down these rabbit holes of online...
Paperwork. Yay!
Before moving to Germany I lived in Prague.
Which...
Good? - Uh-huh. - Okay.