They're letting me stay here.

Right after that last note when I said I was going to bed, I ended up staying up past midnight talking entirely in German to one of my roommates. After the conversation ended I was surprised to look back and realize that I had gone an entire 2 hours or so of entirely German. I think I'll survive, I'm not close to fluency...but I'm working on the language.

Day number two started as early as the Ernst & Young days in order to arrive at the Citizen's agency before a large line formed--a tip from one of my roommates. The agency lady was very nice and the application part went smoothly. Then I went to step 2 to get a residency permit--turns out only appointments are accepted on Wednesday mornings and I had to wait until 1:30 before meeting with her.

That meant that I should go shopping. I walked down a fantastic European/German cobblestone street named Kaiser Joseph Strasse lined with small shops, bakeries, and various stores. Most surprising was the amount of people of all ages that were out--on a Wednesday none the less.

Finally after lunch I go back to meet with the residency permit lady, and after showing a lot of documents and calculating my monthly income, I can now officially stay in the Federal Republic of Germany until August 21.

So the next step is to register and finally become a student, BUT the office is only open in the mornings. Great. So my adventure continues for tomorrow.

Other notes- it's really wierd getting all my e-mails after midnight. Time difference, it keeps hitting me that it exists

And I keep forgetting that my roommates speak german. One of them reminds me of an American friend, so I found myself a few times assuming she spoke English. Whoops. I'm in a foreign country. Wow. Bis morgen. (until Tomorrow)

Later Days,
Rick