Just about a month.

I have spent just about a month here in Germany and I am so adjusted, that I over-correct my typing end end up pressing the ‘y’ button instead of the ‘z’ (they’re switched in German keyboards). I also walk everywhere and using a tram is as natural as breathing. I really like not having to give a tip at restaurants and always just paying the shown amount (taxes are already included in the price), but the service here is definitely slower and not as friendly as in most places in the USA. I’ve adjusted to that, as I also have learned to deal with the bureaucracy and bad costumer service. I had a problem with my cellphone service a couple of days ago: I decided to change my pre-paid service (O2 Loop) to a post-paid plan service without a contract (O2 Genion S, ohne Handy), since it is much cheaper and it also gives me a local number for my “home zone”, but the salesman somehow put me in the one with a Basispreis (Genion M, with 10€ Basispreis per month, 24 month contract) and not the one below (without a Basispreis and also without a contract) even though I had specifically told him I did not want a contract since I was going to spend less than a year in the country. Anyway, I called costumer service and finally fixed it, but they were not as apologetic and friendly as US costumer service would have been. The number porting from the pre-paid is still an issue, but it is nowhere as important as not having the plan I wanted. In that day I accomplished a lot, specially because I finally got my residence permit after waiting about 2 hours and being the last person before they closed for the day (8-12 Öffnungszeiten). I also registered at the university (Immatrikulation), which means I am finally done with the necessary paper work, though smaller things will come.

Here is a video I took from the Schlossberg here in Freiburg, looking east/south-east:

It’s really interesting to look back at how I perceived the city when I arrived. Now smaller mental maps of the city are falling together as tetris pieces to form a larger mental map of the city in my head (hah! That long sentence is also an example of the that influence Germany and its language is having on me). I can now easily find my way around the old city, since that is where I spend most of my time. The more time I spend in the city the more used I get to the greenness of the city, specially since now I live in a building with solar panels on its roof. The following is a video about solar energy in Freiburg and this is actually in the Vauban area, where I live… that building with the colorful metal panels is where the Alnatura organic market is and it also is diagonal to the tram-stop I take every morning. It’s a bit bizarre seeing such a long segment on this area since, well, it is such an important part of my life now–it’s where I live!