Immigration Office

I went for my interview with the Immigration Officials. Several people at work assured me it is no big deal, and mostly a formality, but perhaps unconscious bias left over from a Cold War childhood had me nervous about dealing with a German bureaucracy.

Fortunately most of my transition to Germany has been shepherded by Relocation Agency, hired by my school, and they have overall done a very good job of taking care of me. My agent, Cathy, met my wife and me at West Banhof Station, and drove us to the Immigration Office in downtown Frankfurt. Frankfurt is not really that big a city, but it seemed to take a long time to get there. Maybe there were one way roads the forced a circuitous route. Although I usually have a very good sense of direction, I lost track of the turns until we pulled alongside a long building that had the feel of "government offices."

As we pulled into a parking spot I noted a long line of people waiting to get into the building. We exited the car and joined the line. The line did not move at all. I assumed we were all there for appointments with an immigration official, although the building itself seemed to be a generic government office building, with a variety of departments.

At some point the guard began letting people in. He'd check their proof of having an appointment, and let them in by ones or twos. I didn't worry about it at the time, but I suppose we were the only trio in line.

When we got to the guard, our Relocation Agent showed the letter confirming our appointment and told the guard, "we have an appointment." He indicated she can go ahead, and my wife an I tried to follow. He stopped us. I tried to pantomime that I'm with her, pointing at the Relo Agent, and he seemed to accept that. But he wouldn't let my wife through. It was as though he couldn't conceive that there might be a grouping of three. We stopped, tried to explain, the Relo Agent noticed and came back, waved the appointment letter. The guard wasn't buying it.

Finally he let us through, but as his parting shot, scolded my wife for having her mask a bit too low on her nose.

Into the building. Down a hallway. Up a stairway. And from that point on, all frames of reference disappeared. It was a loooooong hallway, uniformly grey, with doors on both sides. The only markings were generic office numbers -- 1.073, 1.074, 1.075, and so on, door after door, down the almost featureless hallway. Finally we got to the end of the hallway and turned left. To another long featureless hallway. How long can this continue? I felt as though I was in a Kafka story. The hallway ended in a doorway to the outside, which I saw led to a bridge to the next building. Where I found yet another long hallway.

Eventually we got to a waiting room, where we were to wait to be called. The appointment was just for the two of us - the Relo Agent could not go in with us - so she prepped us for what to expect, but still reassured us that it was essentially a formality.

And it was mostly a formality, except I got scolded for working prior to getting a work visa. For a few moments they had me sweating. Then the interviewer said it would be okay since it was only a few weeks, so she'd ignore it.

From there it was bureaucracy. She filled out forms. She glued my ID photo to one of the forms. She scanned four of my fingerprints (both index fingers and both thumbs). She gave me a voucher and told me to go down to the payment office to pay the registration fee. I did so and brought back the receipt. She put an official-looking stamp on one of the papers and handed it to me, and said that was my temporary permit, and I should receive the actual permit in the mail. She repeated the process for my wife. And we were on our way.

And thus went my interaction with German bureaucracy. I have legal permission to work here, as does my wife. and we continue to adjust to our life.

Norway 2019

Visited Norway again this summer. This time we decided to rent a car and drive the various places we wanted to go, rather than try to deal with public transportation and suitcases. So we flew to Oslo to start.

Stayed at the Thon Rosenkrantz Hotel. Thon has dozens of hotels in Norway, Holland, and Belgium, but most Americans have likely never heard of the chain. Their HQ is in Oslo, and the Rosenkrantz is one of their nicer offerings. They told me their breakfast won a competition for "best breakfast in Oslo," and I would agree it seems deserving.

It is named Rosenkrantz because its address is on Rosenkrantz Gate ("gate" is Norwegian for "street") not far from the theater. It is a convenient location to reach many sites in Oslo. Our first day included a trip to the Munch Museum. *sigh* disappointing.

We had seen the various Munch paintings at the National Gallery last year, as well as the holdings on display at KODE in Bergen. The organization and quality of the works on display at the museum bearing his name just didn't measure up. So much of their display seemed geared towards self-promotional PR. The works on the wall, to my untrained eye, didn't seem so important. There was no exposition, explaining how Munch developed his style into the characteristic that almost all Westerners recognize from The Scream.

If I understood the story correctly, the current museum will be closing, and they will move to a new location closer to the National Theater.

Following Munch, we decided to head over to Bygdøy to walk through the Norsk Folkemuseum. The peninsula is a pleasant ferry ride from the docks by City Hall. On our trip last year we had already seen the Fram Museum (about arctic explorers -- recommended) and the Kon-Tiki Museum (ho-hum), but had missed the open-air museum with its collection of buildings.

I was intrigued by the style of fencing they had on display. Over our trip I found that this style is very common in Norway.

Scandinavia seems to have many of these open-air folk museums. On our trip last year we went to Skansen in Stockholm, which is part of why we skipped the Norsk on that trip. But for this trip we went to several. The idea doesn't make much sense in the USA, where our pre-industrial history was rather short, but many places in Norway have over 1000 years of cultural history. The museums try to gather the actual buildings from various parts of the country, and then reproduce in an actual landscape setting how people lived and worked in those areas and those days.

Lots of intricate metalwork.

A scarecrow. I doubt this is actually a historical design, but very photogenic nonetheless.

Detailed woodcarving at the entrance-ways to buildings.

A mangle, for flattening wrinkles out of linen cloth.

A container.

The Gol Stave Church, likely from the first half of the 13th century. The key architectural element that makes it a stave church are the vertical bearing posts (staves) in the wall structures.

Some shots of the church interior.

Hmmm. I think it's another modern design element.

We ended the day by heading to the outskirts of town and to the Vigeland Park inside Frogner Park. We had become much more comfortable with public transit, and so took a trolley to the park. This entails a ride through several neighborhoods of Oslo, getting a view we might not otherwise have seen.

Gustav Vigeland has a very distinct style, and he convinced Oslo to let him place some 200 sculptures in this portion of Frogner Park. 

Walking around center city Oslo there is a very prominent Freia sign.

Freia is a large confectionery company. I believe they are now owned my Kraft. Much of the chocolate candy sold in Norway is marketed under Freia branding. One of their products is the Kvikk Lunsj (pronounced so it almost sounds like "quick lunch"), which is almost indistinguishable from a Kit Kat bar.

The next morning we checked out of the Rosenkrantz, picked up a rental car, and drove to Lillehammer, host city of the 1994 Winter Olympics. 25 years later, there isn't a big imprint of the Olympics, but one very visible site is the ski-jump, still looming over the city high up the mountainside. The Olympic torch from 1994 is also at the same location, flame extinguished.

During the daytime it's possible to ride the chair lift up to the top of the jump hill. At any time the park is open it's possible to physically climb the stairs of the viewing stands, which a number of people were doing, apparently for exercise.

We stayed overnight at a hotel that was in a building that had been a grain mill until the 1990s. They retained much of the feel of the old building, leaving some of the milling machinery in place in what became the restaurant. A stream ran right by the building, not surprising for a mill. It was a charming place to stay.

We had wanted to stop at another open-air museum in Lillehammer, called Maihaugen, but arrived shortly before closing time and taking the advice of the hotel clerk did not go up there. In retrospect, we realized we should have gone directly to Maihaugen, and checked in to the hotel later.

Maihaugen is described as Norway's largest open-air folk museum outside Oslo. I'll not be able to confirm that, as I did not get there this trip.

**** this is where the draft ended****

Travelling around Frankfurt

 Germany offers drivers license reciprocity with many jurisdictions, meaning that if you hold a valid drivers license it is fairly simple to transfer that to a German license within the first six months after entering the country. Unfortunately, New York is not one of those jurisdictions. If I want a drivers license in Germany I will have to take driver safety classes, sit for a written test, and take a road test. Total cost for all this is quite expensive, and so I have given up on the idea of driving here.

There are a few other options. Germany has a well-developed public transit system. And bicycles are everywhere.

The transit company for most of the Frankfurt region is called RMV. As a senior citizen (defined as over 65 years) I qualified for an all-transport monthly pass for 72 euro. The allows me to take any train, tram, trolley, or bus in the central Frankfurt zone. Had I wanted to travel in outer zones too, it would have been a bit more, but for many it is cheaper to get the monthly pass, and buy an add-on ticket when traveling outside the central zone.

Commuter trains operate mainly radially, into and out of downtown Frankfurt. To travel across you mostly must use a bus. The bus system is more complicated, although RMV has an app to help you find connections. For the most part, in my life so far, I don't need the buses that much, so I haven't explored the app thoroughly.

Today I splurged an bought myself a bicycle. There has been a shortage of bicycles since the COVID lockdown in the spring. One bike shop owner I spoke with said the main issue has not been the bicycles themselves, but rather the parts produced by Shimano. Shimano has pretty much a grip on the entire world market for derailleurs, and no matter how many frames you can buy, you can't assemble the bicycle without a derailleur.

I did find a bike shop who actually had a bike in my size in stock. (I was warned that ordering a bicycle was futile, as there would be no way to predict when, or even if it would come in.) So I bought it. It is a Hercules Tourer 21. I got the bike, a UVEX helmet, and a Trelock lock. I had my first ride bringing the bike back home from the shop.

I was worried about riding a bike in traffic, but once on the road, it seemed quite safe. There was a bike lane most of the way, and the cars and buses did not attempt to crowd me. I was a little unsure how to handle intersections with a dedicated right turn lane where I wanted to go straight if there was a red light. The bike lane seemed to veer off to the right, but I felt exposed in the "go straight" lane. Nevertheless, I managed. Successfully home.

Symbolic Hangings

In the early 2000s I worked for a software company in Stamford CT.  At the time I was in Tech Support, and all of us were in a sort of cubicle farm, each with our own work area, separated by partitions about five or so feet high. People would personalize their work areas, bringing in photos, or plants, or souvenirs of vacations. One coworker, Kim, brought in a few beanie babies.

One day I came in to work, and walking towards my cubicle noticed that someone had taken one of Kim's beanie babies and hanged it by the neck from one of the air conditioning vents. At the time I didn't understand why it upset and angered me so, but I got a chair to stand on, cut it down, put the toy back on Kim's desk, and continued on to my desk. Over the next few days it happened again and again several times. I knew it was only a toy, but the imagery really bothered me. And each time, I "rescued" the beanie baby.

After about a week, another coworker, John, approached me and asked if I'm the one who kept cutting down the hanging victim. Yes, it was me. He became upset with me. How DARE I disturb his hanging scene (that he created with someone else's property)? A few other workers took his side.

If this happened today, I'm pretty sure John would have been fired, or at the very least, disciplined. But at the time, I was made to feel insecure, as though there is something wrong with me for being disturbed by hanging imagery.

Recent events brought this to mind.