Quest for a German Drivers' License

Patiently posing in front of our rental

I meet a Canadian at the rental car desk. While he filled out my reservation, we exchanged stories about ending up in Germany. His hometown was up the road from mine, Kitchener-Waterloo. Like many folks from there, he's of German descent, so it wasn't too hard for him to get a work visa and come over during a gap year that turned into a few years.

While we talked about life in Germany as a Canadian, he asked me about my address. Like every time I rent a car in Germany, there was a pause as I reminded myself to provide my Canadian address instead of my German one. He understood right away.

As a permanent resident, German authorities would prefer if I got a German drivers' license. When I rent a car I let them believe I'm visiting from Canada. It's not illegal, since my license is valid, but I should have a German drivers' license if I live in Germany. My new Canadian acquaintance had recently done this, and understood the patience and strength it takes to drive through that part of the German Kafka-cracy.

If Germany decides your country is on its level of driving excellence, you simply exchange your foreign license for a German license. Of course, you need the right papers.

A First Aid Course in German

German drivers must pull over to help someone in distress, rather than the traditional North American Let's-Slow-Down-And-Rubber-Neck as you pass by. This means, you need a first aid certificate.

The course I found was in a hotel basement, where they also threw in an eye test, which is also needed for a license exchange. The course was in German, so it was a first aid lesson, an eye test, and a German lesson all rolled into one. Good deal. The only other non-German speaker was an IT worker from India. He was also taking a driving course because Germany doesn't look as favourably on Indian licenses as my Canadian license and wouldn't exchange it. He had to earn his German drivers license from scratch, so this was one stop on a longer journey for him. The two of us muddled through the German details of the course together and followed along with the demonstrations.

I apologize in advance if I pull over to help you on a German roadside.

The 1st Government Appointment

Like my other bureaucratic adventure in Germany, the rule of thumb for a foreigner is that you won't get it done in one appointment. There is always some paper you're missing. I find this frustrating, but friends who grew up in East Bloc communist dictatorships find this comfortingly familiar.

Of course, I forgot about this rule. I strutted into the office. I spoke my crappy German and proudly laid out my documents. The man looked it over and asked me for a driver history. Why? I have all my papers! Nope, I did not. I had gotten my Canadian drivers' license renewed after I arrived in Germany, which suggests to the German Powers-That-Be that I only recently earned my drivers' license. I needed a driving history from my home province to prove that I've been driving for 20 years.

Oh, and the translation of my Canadian drivers license wasn't acceptable either. It must be translated by someone certified by the government. The only place for that is the ADAC, Germany's version of CAA, which  shares the building with the government's transport office that I was in. How convenient!

Playing the Waiting Game

To get a complete driving history I wrote a letter asking for my drivers' license history, not the history of all my vehicular brushes with death or maiming. I signed the letter and mailed it, like my forefathers. It's a bureaucracy, so they don't accept Visa. I wrote a cheque, also like my forefathers and I waited… And waited…

Over a month later, I received my reply. My request required a different kind of request because I was in foreign country, so the amount in the cheque was not sufficient. Could I send another cheque? I wrote another polite, formal letter. Signed another cheque. Did my walk of shame to the post office, and then I waited again for the Ontario government to open my letter, walk to the bank, cash my cheque, chat idly with the bank teller about the weather, then return to the office to write my official drivers' with ink and quill.

The Waiting Game Continues…

Months later, the drivers' history finally arrived. I went to the ADAC with all my papers and said it my crappy German, "Frau! I would like a translation, please." She copied all the important driving papers and I got a receipt.

Like so many times, I'm my own worst enemy. I was so accustomed to waiting months for important papers that I didn't read the German fine print on my receipt. I waited two months and started muttering about the awful ADAC. I had a mind to call and vent, so I dug up my receipt looking for some contact information and discovered the pick-up date for my drivers' license translation was a month ago. Yep! I'm a genius.

I picked up my papers and marched into the drivers' license government office. Triumphantly laying out all my papers. Speaking my still-crappy German. When I laid out my first aid stuff, the lady waved it away. She did carefully examine my drivers' history, so that wait was worth it. When everything was signed and stamped, I was told the drivers' license would arrive in two weeks. And wouldn't you know it, it arrived in two weeks. The rusty cogs of German bureaucracy certainly get moving when you have all your papers.

See you on the Autobahn!

Random Blogs of 2018

I wrote fewer blog post this year then in previous years, but I had plenty of notes and rough drafts of ideas that didn't grow into full blogs. So, here are the best ideas that never became blogs in 2018.

Getting my Permanent Residence in Germany

It was certainly a year of turning points. A new era in the career. A new marital status. A new dependent. In this flurry of life-changing status changes, I never got around to writing about how I became a permanent resident in Germany.

And no, this won't turn into a rant about Germany's Kafkeaucracy. There was actually nothing absurd about it. I got an email asking me to prepare my documents. I went in prepared for an EU Blue Card (a work permit) and was told that with my German language level and contributions to the national pension scheme – the stuff that really matters here – I qualified for permanent residency.

It was simple and not the slog I intended it to be. An American colleague can't believe I got mine so quickly. An old roommate took the German language proficiency test that I never took several times and didn't get his permanent residence. Another Canadian acquaintance is scrambling to get hers before her Blue Card expires.

What makes me so different? I'd like to think it's because I'm special. In reality it's probably because I was over prepared. I had all my required documents and then some, and I was punctual. That matters if you want results from the German bureaucracy.

That Hungarian Election

Viktor Orban and his ruling Fidesz party cruised to another super-majority over a right-wing Jobbik party struggling to be less like its traditional far right self and a divided opposition that couldn't agree on whose local candidates should step down to unite behind one anti-Fidesz candidate.

"Papers, Please"

Some, but not all, of my papers. In Germany, you are nothing without your papers.
You need papers to do stuff and you get papers for doing stuff.
Save them all. 

Long ago there was blog that showed flat lay photos of objects people would grab from their home if it was on fire. They photographed their most important, prized possessions – the things they couldn't live without. 

They were mostly designers, so the items they'd save were typically designer-ish: sunglasses, laptops, and hard drives. An awful lot of handguns appeared in the careful arrangements because, well, it was an American blog.

Put in the same situation in Germany, I would grab people before possessions and then I would grab my papers, all my important papers, because you are nobody in Germany without your papers.

When you arrive to Germany, you must register at the city's civil office. They give you a paper, an Anmeldung, that says you do indeed live where you say you live. You will need this for everything. If you lose it, no one will believe you exist, because they don't know if you really have a home. There's no paper to prove it.

You will sign a contract at your job. You must hold on to this. Your landlord will want to see it. And to get your Anmeldung, your landlord must give you a copy of your rental agreement. So, you can't get one paper without the other paper. 

You will show most of these papers when you open a bank account – you won't remember which papers you need, so you will bring them all to the bank, just in case. 

You will need the bank account to get paid by your job and pay your landlord. You will get papers from both: payslips and invoices. You must save these papers to prove people pay you and that you pay people. You may need your bank papers for later, but you don't know for what, so you keep them just in case the need arises.

As you bank with your bank, they will print out records of your transactions and mail them to you. You should keep those papers too, because, well, you might need them when someone official asks for them.

Did you keep those pay slips I mentioned earlier? Good. You need those papers to file your income tax statement. You will need more papers for your taxes, like receipts, statements, and bills of sale. 

After you file your taxes, they will send you a statement stating what they did with your tax papers. Keep that paper too. You should also keep a paper copy of your original tax return, just in case someone official asks for it. 

All these papers go somewhere. A box or a binder or somewhere safe. Because if you move, you will need to prove it with papers at the civil office and update your Anmeldung (remember that important piece of paper?), after you get new contract papers from your landlord.

If you renew your work permit, you need to go to the Pension Office and show a bunch of your papers to get another piece of paper that proves you've been paying into the pension fund. If you're like me, and they recorded you as a woman, they will correct that error in the system and give you a piece of paper saying that a piece of paper has been sent to someone upstairs who will correct that error in the records.

If you lose your job, you will go to the job agency and register as a jobseeker. In order to do this, you will need most of your papers. Make sure you have every single one of those papers. Your EU Blue Card comes with a piece of paper too big to fit in your wallet. It stays at home safe. You might forget that piece of paper and will have to return the next day with all your papers and that little piece of paper to get registered, for which you are given another piece of paper, for your records.

And so, if I am unlucky enough to see my home burn down, I will get everyone out and then run back into the inferno to rescue my papers, because what good is a laptop, disk drive, sunglasses, or a handgun if I don't have my papers in Germany.