[GunboatDiplomat]

>Registration takes ~3-5 months to get an appointment, god forbid you're a foreigner and have to also register at the ausländerbehörde and wait from 3am for the 1 of 50 tickets available that day.

Your bureaucracy makes American bureaucracy seem amazingly efficient in comparison. I did not know such a thing was possible outside defunct communist states.

[wheels]

That's because he's exaggerating:

You can still make an appointment at the Ausländerbehörde (foreigner's office) a couple months in advance, and then you just have to show up on time. And as recently as a year ago, the last time I needed something same-day, showing up two hours before they opened (6 a.m.) was still enough to be at the front of the line. There were at that time not a fixed number of tickets for the day. Historically (meaning over the course of the decade I've lived in Berlin), if you needed an appointment same day, at any time, you'd usually wait less than two hours, no matter when you showed up. Much of this has worsened recently because of the refugee crisis, but it's a temporary overload of the system, not a systematic failure.

[woodcut]

I wish i was.

Where those figures come from is the time my gf had her wallet stolen with her blue card inside, she was travelling outside of the EU and needed to replace it or get a note asap otherwise she would have a lot of trouble re-entering the country. We queued up from 3am on monday morning at the Ausländerbehörde and were turned away by the administrator because my gf was officially registered in mecklin-vorpommmern and she had to travel there to get this temporary pass. Problem is, she could only take the first train on tuesday morning so she got there at ~9:30am, she was ticket 51, and the office only deals with 50 tickets a day. i kid you not. she was the last in the line as turned away at just pass 17:00, and told to come back tomorrow and try again.

[woodcut]

in part it's since the refugee crisis, there just aren't enough skilled administrators in germany to handle the number of people migrating here. That said, once you've got the paperwork, things are relatively easy.

What i mean by registration is that you have to register where you live, to do that you'll need your passport, copy of the contract and a letter from the landlord saying you have the right to live there. Sounds easy, but then not many landlords will rent to you if you're not planning on staying a long time or you don't have a permanent contract for your job...

you need the registration for everything here, you don't really exist without it, you can't get health insurance, you can't pay tax, you can't be paid your salary by a company, and you'll find it hard to open a bank account.

[TillE]

This is a recent issue particular to Berlin caused primarily by a terrible "grand coalition" city government (which is about to be replaced), and then exacerbated somewhat by an influx of refugees. It should be gradually fixed in the near future.

[parennoob]

> Your bureaucracy makes American bureaucracy seem amazingly efficient in comparison.

Yeah, and I thought waiting at the DMV in the USA was a bit of a pain as a foreigner. :)

"Wait from 3am for the 1 of 50 tickets available that day" makes Berlin sound worse than even the third world country I come from.

[GunboatDiplomat]

The DMV is a pain as an American. Even if every worker in the DMV is diligent, helpful, and courteous, the DMV somehow conspires to make the whole process difficult. Go to the front desk. Fill out this form. Stand in that line. Get a stamp on the form. Stand in another line. Get another stamp, pay $5. Go stand on another line, get yet another stamp. Go back to the previous line, get photo taken, get endorsement on license. It's crazy.

[denzil_correa]

Check out the driving license process in Germany.

[parennoob]

Yes, but I was under the impression that getting a driver's license was kind of optional in Germany, with good public transport. Being a foreigner is not :)

[JBlue42]

Yeah, the DMV is probably the most difficult and time consuming part about getting a license in this US.