Ein AusLANDER

There is this popular cliché about the German people or more Germany as a culture that rules and regulations on everything are over the top and the bureaucracy is extreme. In theory it should be a frictionless process for me to move to Berlin because I do not need a visa to live, work, or buy property anywhere in Europe. I have as much right to do it legally as I would to move to any town in England. However, it is going to take a little bit of running around at first.

Not necessarily in any particular order I need to ..

1) Get a ‘Rentenversicherungsnummer’ which is a number to register on a compulsory pension scheme. I need to find a ‘Rentenversicherung’ office and it should be fairly easy to obtain one given that I am an EU citizen. (Yay Europe !!). I might have to have an address before doing this.

2) After I have found a place to live I need to with much haste go to the ‘Buergeramt’ with my passport and give them my address to hopefully obtain an ID number.

3) When I have (hopefully hopefully hopefully) found a job I need to take the aforementioned number to the ‘Finanzamt’ where I register for being taxed.

4) Then I need to sort out health insurance as there is no NHS in Germany.

Okay so that does not actually look too daunting when I write it out like that. Although they are all separate offices that probably rely on me having an address. I cannot get them without an address, and I cannot get a job without those things or an address. It is looking increasingly likely that I will need to rent a place temporarily without a job and just hope that the economy proves to be better than in Edinburgh, Scotland.

This is another post about Germany. Here are two photos I took in Berlin …

Schonefeld Flughafen

Reichstag