Wasting my time in the waiting line

On Thursday I tackled the largest obstacle on my journey to becoming a legitimate student in Deutschland – obtaining my visa. There’s only one place you can do this in Berlin – in a nondescript government building in an ugly industrial suburb, which only deigns to do business two and a half days a week.

The last two weeks of my life had been building up to this point. I had been dutifully completing all the necessary prior steps in the correct order. Exemption from the German state health insurance (cutely called AOK) – check. New bank account opened (following a little white lie, for the sake of expediency, about understanding all the terms and conditions) – check. Four biometric photos from the photo booth in Kottbusser Tor that also doubles as a junkie shoot-up spot – check. And I had the documentary evidence of all these little victories safely stored in my “Life Folder”, which I carry as carefully as a baby.

I arrived 15 minutes early, optimistically hoping to avoid the wait I’d been warned about. Instead, I was greeted by the sight of almost 200 wannabe legitimate citizens queuing patiently outside in front of me, stamping their feet in the cold.

Whole families huddled together, drinking tea from thermoses while their kids screamed past and face-planted with humorous regularity. A hungover-looking guard sucked down a cigarette and surveyed the herd. I took a deep breath, reminded myself that I had come to Germany be challenged and joined the queue with a grimace and a groan.

This lovely Turkish woman started talking to me, and we discussed politics and bitched about the bureaucratic disrespect we were being subjected to. An hour later we made it inside the front door and into another queue which curled around and around like a macabre airport check-in line.

When I made it to the front, I was given a number and told to go to one of the 20 waiting rooms spread across the five floors of the building. I trotted off, feeling like I was getting somewhere finally. But alas, how wrong I was.

I can now say that I have supped on the bitter ale that is true boredom. I did my German homework, I tried to learn some verbs, wrote a bit in my diary. But then I stared into space for almost three hours. Watching the shadows move across the room, the motes of dust floating through the air, the people beside me losing their grip on reality, the numbers on the waiting list creeping ever closer to my own (the number “234” will never be forgotten). It was extreme.

When my number finally flashed up I practically skipped to the interview room, ignoring the jealous stares of my co-waitees. But after handing over all my documents, I was told that I needed to return to the waiting pen while they examined everything. Sanity fraying, I did what I was told.

Almost an hour later I was ushered into the final room, where I waited while two bureaucrats cracked jokes with each other for about five minutes before turning their attention to me to tell me this – that I didn’t have enough money and I needed to prove that I was receiving a government scholarship to remain in Germany.

Feeling faint, I sat down and asked them to explain. You don’t have enough money for two years, they said. But ah! I said, feeling incredibly relieved, I’m only staying for 6 months! They made a German-sounding exclamation, shrugged, printed off my student visa, signed it, and told me that was all and I could go. It was probably my imagination but as I left the building the sun broke through the clouds and somewhere a choir of angels started singing.

The final step is to apply for my welcoming money, a 110 Euro gift from the German Government for moving to the country. It would be better called “compensation”. For a country that prides itself on efficiency, the whole registration/legitimisation experience has been very strange. Six hours after I joined the queue I got back on the U-Bahn, relieved to be back on a part of German infrastructure that worked the way it should.