It's always the little things that seem to make my life a bit more stressful and occasionally difficult. It's been about 8 weeks in Germany, and yet there are still things I have trouble tolerating. For one thing, how Deutsche Bank (and I believe all banks) deal with the distribution of one's all-important debit card: it's mailed, which, as a new person in town, one generally doesn't have. Or as in my case, the student dorms were apparently unreachable by mail. Then comes three additional pieces of mail: your PIN, your online PIN, and a bunch of numbers that act as security codes in order to use your online banking. All good and fine, but it took them 4 weeks to get these things to me. And then of course, my EC card is eaten by the machine. Why? Because in all their attempts to mail it to me, they had failed to send out the correct corresponding PIN number, which meant for security reasons, my card had to be confiscated. Again. Imagine not having a Bank of American account - how expensive would it be to continue withdrawing money outside of bank hours.
I'm also not quite used to some of the regulations here, some of which grind pretty uncomfortably against some of my ol' American rights & privacy indoctrination. One must always carry a passport or other form of identification, as the police can ask for this at any time. It's also apparently mandated by law to submit to a blood test (!) if you are suspected of being drunk. Or the fact that you have to put down your religion whenever you fill out a state form, and that taxes can be directly paid to the state level church organization of which you associate, if you wish. Besides the obvious language barrier, it's these sorts of things that sort of make me feel like an outsider, like I don't quite belong here, which is fine, because I don't really. =) I'm here for a temporary stay, and that's how it is.
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