Unterwegs. Journey home. July 25th, 2013

Flying back to the US; feels so surreal

As I watch the tiny icon of an airplane inch its way west across the virtual Atlantic on the screen in front of me, I can feel each inch as it tugs me farther away from the German borders to which I have become so accustomed. Each time the friendly, multilingual staff drops by my row, the words that slip off my tongue have defaulted to Germanic tendencies despite the Anglican fluency of all those around me. Preferential, you might say. Flight after flight, checkpoint by checkpoint, I cross the point of no return, or do I? My heart is unable to adjust in such tumultuous situations as it is beckoned in many tongues from many lands; how can it find method of settling if I have no solid plan, no final destination as of yet? Denver. That's where I'll start. Then what? I have two final semesters of my double bachelor's degree at the University of Northern Colorado that will be complemented by workshops, conferences, visits to my family, rebuilding my harp callouses and desperately seeking both franco and germanophones to keep the polyglot, that is multilingual, version of myself adrift.

Managing to take root on rock
(Mallorca, July, 2013)

A word of my own language struck me today as I mindlessly glanced at the episode of the Big Bang Theory playing on the airline's entertainment program: Roots. I picture a tree, a flower, a tracing of origin to that which fed and built you. Trees grow, harbor life, shelter life, give life, but they do not move except when adjusting to wind patterns and changing climate. Flowers can be moved, picked, transplanted just as a tree. Traditional doctrine teaches us that roots are the beginning, the foundation, the lifeline, the nourishment. Can we ever change our roots? Can we take them with us or will we always leave some piece of us, some straggler of a memory or life behind in the ground from whence we came? Pardon the extended metaphor, but I feel completely uprooted and am also contemplating the notion of searching for a new garden.

Step Four: Moving to Cologne

The next two pieces of information that I will give you are by far the most crucial factors according the city of Cologne. As an American student and according to laws as they stand in 2012, you must register with the city upon arrival (as soon as you have a physical address) and apply for a Residence Permit. Because the US and Germany have a fairly open border agreement, you can enter the country with only a passport and apply for your living permit from within their borders. You will not need a visa to live here or to enter, but if you plan on staying past your 90 day travel limit, then you will need a Residence Permit. Depending on the length of your program this information may or may not apply to you.

The next step is registering with the city; for this step it does not matter in which district you are living as you can register at any of the offices around the city. However, you must apply for your Residence Permit within your own district so I would recommend doing both at the same time in your own district to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. I did not know this when I started the process so I hit several speed bumps along the way.


I made my way on that first day in Cologne to the Kundenzentrum-Innenstadt (Inner City Customer Center); because of its proximity to the Dom and the Hauptbahnhof (Central Train Station). I thought I could pop in, get my papers and head back to Siegen without paying extra for a hotel as I wouldn’t be able to move in until the week after. I entered the building and found myself in a large room with no English signage and no one to greet me at the door. I have found that, in Germany at least, administration runs on self-initiative; this has been a valuable life lesson along the way, though a difficult one in terms of cultural assimilation. Thus, I presented myself to an official looking gentleman at a desk and kindly asked, “sprechen Sie Englisch?” His limited vocabulary soon had me standing alone in a waiting room full of people; I took a number and proceeded to wait for 90 minutes before my number popped onto the screen overhead. The process of registering was simple, quick and easy! Well, if the advisor spoke better English, it would have been. She asked questions by gesticulating and showing me examples through her broken English and slow, articulated German. After 15 minutes she had made copies and entered the necessary information. When you go to register, you will need:


-registration form (they fill this out with you)
-a valid passport
-the name and address of the landlord (the rental agreement/subtenancy agreement)

Afterward, I asked her where the office was to apply for my Residence Permit. She walked me to the door because she couldn’t explain in directions due to the language barrier; we both then discovered that the office had closed while I was sitting with her and would not take me even though I had been in their building for near two hours. She apologized and wrote down the opening hours for me to come in the morning.