Argh. I've been trying to get the Auslanderbehoerde (Immigration Office) on the phone essentially since I got up this morning. It took an hour to even get connected to the "Hi. You have reached the office of immigration. All our agents are currently busy. Please hold the line" message, which of course costs me money like whoah. So I did that for ten minutes and then gave up...I've got my cell phone set to automatic redial, which it will do for a half hour at a time. Other than that, I'm still looking for another part time job. Or a full time job for the next two weeks, since it's school vacation in Berlin and when school vacation's on, I work *one* hour a week. It sounds like it should be sweet, but it ain't. I've got two call centers and a hostel lined up--all of which sound nightmarish, yet somehow character-building. More material for my memiors, I suppose. The rest of my to-do list is banal beyond belief and includes some minor bill-paying (my weird-ass, probably entirely invalid insurance policy), some housekeeping (taking out the trash, dishes, grocery shopping) and some light deco-work (finishing touches on the bedroom). And waiting for the laundry to dry. Speaking of insurance and oddly banal things, last week we had the insurance salesman at the house two nights in a row, talking about a joint policy for Stephan and I. Not gonna lie, this freaked me out. I mean, all the talk of death and dismemberment (insurance salesmen are macarbre bastards) was enough fun, but I mean...a joint insurance policy?! I mean, that's like "Committment" with a capital "C". The jury's still out on that. But my liability insurance will definitely be over Stephan's policy. It's weird, all this intensely grown-up stuff. The real world has a hell of a lot of fine print.

Christian and Cindy moved in last monday, so the week was spent getting them settled and getting the kitchen and living room and bath made livable and fusing possessions and whatnot. It looks pretty cool, I have to say. The walls of the living room are still blank white, which is driving Stephan a little crazy, but we'll get around to painting them eventually. So far, living with the two of them has been all right...I did have a few homicidal moments, but it was a rough week in general. I don't necessarily take it as an indicator of how thing's are going to be. And when it gets a little too intensely German (for example, discussions of which rooms in the apartment will be heated in the winter) for me, I can always peace out. I'm sure I'll be able to get along with them--they're very very nice, but yeah...I don't have any real desire to make them my best-est friends. They're a little too...beige for me. Conventional, quiet, nice...people that like toast. Perhaps with jam. And tea. They like board games. You know the type. Cindy formulates about 85% of her sentances as questions. You get the idea.

GOD! I swear, I'm going to have to get up at 6:55 in the morning and call these people. The hell of it is, all I want to do is make an appointment so I don't have to spend an entire day of my life sitting down there. Granted, technically I do have the time right about now to spend waiting hours and hours for bad-tempered German beauracrats to tell me I've got the wrong papers for my visa application...but yeah, that's not fun. OOOOh. It just occurred to me, something else I can do while I'm completely and utterly alone in the apartment (tomorrow is the German Unification Day--national holiday, so Cindy and Christian went home, and Stephan is doing a day of "trial work" at some call center and won't be back till 6.) I can finally upload pictures of my apartment to the facebook. Or gmail. Or anyplace, really. Providing the somewhat finicky wireless connection keeps up. Good stuff. But first the visa bill. And maybe a shower.