Aufenthaltsgenehmigung

OK. So I have been in Storkow now well over a month. And one of the first things I did upon my arrival was plow through the 20 pages of burocratic forms i had to fill out to stay here. One of them being my Aufenthaltsgenehmigung, which allows me to stay here longer than my 3 month tourist allowance. This has to be glued into my passport, and so I had to give up my passport, too. I got a card saying they had recieved my application and everything was normal almost a month to the day ago. And had not heard from them since. I was getting worried about not having my passport and not really knowing where it was, so I asked the school secretary to help me call them, because I'm still not so good on the phone with big words. Anyway, we tracked down the Ausländerbehörde for Landkreis Oder-Spree, and talked with the lady there. First she wanted to know why I had chosen "such an expensive apartment", not that it's any of her business, and then told me that my passport has been there, for me to come pick up, for two weeks. apparently, when it came back, she called one of the three Herr Florschützes, and told him that it was there, which she souldn't have done, she should have called the school, where i mailed it from. anyway, he, whichever one it was, never passed the message on to me. so. So today, now that I am done with classes, I am taking a second fieldtrip to Beeskow. to the Ausländerbehörde. To retrieve my passport. I will try and write soon about the songs we're singing in chorus. One really is the german lumberjack song, like you would hear in Monty Python. Only its the real thing. "The very most fun folk are lumberjack-folk, hi holdrio holdrio... With arms full of strength and hearts full of laughter, hi holdrio holdrio... they pick up their axe and tell themselves they're cutting the legs of the devil in two, the very most fun folk are lumberjack-folk, hi holdrio holdrio." Oh yes. The chorus thinks its so cute that i enjoy the music so much, but i can't stop smiling mostly because of how unreal it all seems. That being said, I am off to get back my most important form of ID here. that has been sitting on someone's desk for two weeks. bye!