Oktoberfest

The first week in Cottbus has flown by in a whirlwind. There have been approximately three million administrative details, plus an ongoing language class. It’s an unexpected situation of hurry-up-and-wait.

I say unexpected because this is Germany. The stereotype is that Germans are efficient, the country runs on time, and everything should be very streamlined…right?

Well, that’s mostly been true. I arrived on Tuesday and was able to get my registration 80% done, my housing figured out, and basic supplies for my room. The next few days were definitely not so organized, however…I’ll save all the exciting administrative details, but here’s a quick list of what’s been accomplished:

• Registering for German health insurance
• Printing passport photos in a photo booth that exclusively yells instructions in German
• A trip to the official city office to register with the local administration
• Three visits to banks as I try to create a German bank account

Plus I’m taking four hours of German language course per day, in a class full of people who have mostly studied German already. I’m the doofus in class who is still figuring out how to pronounce the extra letters in the German alphabet…and everybody else is asking for clarification about the future tense of verbs.

I was definitely ready for a break this weekend, and fortunately the town provided. Cottbus hosted a mini Oktoberfest that went from Saturday through Sunday. I stopped in to see the festivities on Sunday, expecting it to be mostly tourists. Instead, it seemed to be almost entirely German parents day drinking for 8+ hours and dancing rambunctiously to a live band covering old American hits. In other words — a wild time!