Damn Forms.

I've been here for about 3 days, and I've filled in about 9,000 forms at seven different offices. Germans love their forms. And stamps. And stamping forms. My favorite form is the Furhrungszeugnis - which is a "certificate of good conduct" in Germany. Luckily, since I've been filling out forms for the past 72 hours I haven't had time for any bad conduct. But I am now an official resident alien, with an official address, and hopefully an official bank account (I'm not really sure what happened and the bank today - if I get account information in the mail I'll know I succeeded).

Some good things about being here include my labmates, the bus system, and the fact that starting right now I can refer to "the time I lived in Europe." Some bad things include not speaking German, the exchange rate, and the weather (rain).

I a little concerned about some things - for example, what if I start writing my dates backwards even when I don't have to? Or worse, what if I forget how normal light switches look? On one hand making comments like "Oh, I started putting lines through my sevens when I lived in Europe" will make me seem sophisticated and pretentious - attributes to which I strive. On the other hand I suspect that putting commas instead of decimal points in my numbers could cause a lot of confusion should I return.

I've taken some pictures of my tiny "apartment" that I'll post for you, my fellow Americans, some time in the near future. Until then I'm going to lurk around the other lab members and hope that they invite me to lunch.