living in berlin

well, everything so far is going fantastic. we have had a few Adventures in Berlin.

progress:
1. we went to the Auslanderbehörde at first to try and see about our visas, but were told that we needed an "anmeldung" from the B\ürgeramt, which is basically a piece of paper that says that you live at whatever address in germany in order to make an appointment (they have to put your information into the computer at the Bürgeramt so that the Auslanderbehörde people can access it). so we went to the Bürgeramt in Prenzlauer Berg, which is not that far from our apartment. i was really surprised at how easy it is to register yourself- you don't even need anything to prove that you live at the address! we just told them where we lived and the name of the girl who is on the lease, and they found it in the computer and added us. crazy! then we went to get health insurance, which is mandatory here. it seems to shock the germans when i try to explain to them that we don't have health insurance because it's prohibitively expensive for normal people in the united states. they are immediately confused, as if it is unimaginable that an entire nation of people are allowed to live undisturbed without proof of health insurance. i think it's a good sign, personally. so:
2. we went across town to the health insurance office of Hanse-Merkur- it was recommended by a guy in another blog, but it was a complete failure. the lady was mostly mean and she did not believe that we had recently arrived in the country. i showed her my passport and she was still skeptical. weird lady.
3. we went to an internet cafe and did some quick research, and ended up going to the offices of a super nice lady at DKV, which is the best (and, possibly, only) option for foreigners. we are hoping to hear back from them sometime next week.
4. i went to the Auslanderbehörde again yesterday to try to make an appointment again, now that i have my Anmeldung. i kind of like it there. all the other foreign people stand in a long line and talk in about a thousand different languages and they all have plastic folders (which confused me at first, but then i realised how much the germans really love paper and paperwork). i have an appointment in a few weeks to go back and (hopefully) get my visa processed. o hope hope hope.

phil started language school on mondae, which is cool. this way he can talk to people without me, which is important.
we are in the process of looking for a permanent apartment, as well, which is kind of interesting- we went and saw a bunch of apartments. most of the ones in cool neighborhoods are really small and expensive. we finally found this italian guy on craiglist who wants to move closer to his new job and needs someone to take over his lease. we went to check it out- it's a really nice place, two big rooms, and although it's kind of far from the middle of town, it's about ten feet from an U-bahn station, which is awesome. the italian guy is super nice, and got very excited about italian culture. he made us mocha? expresso? (his english and german were not that good) and gave us some olive oil to taste. he really likes jimi hendrix and once got to see roger waters, although he did not get to see rage against the machine in rome (the conversation was a little tricky due to language barriers). i sent a letter off yesterday about the apartment, so we'll see what happens.
sarah is coming through town tommorrow morning, which is le awesome.
it snowed all week here. it is cold and there is a lot of precipitation. falling rain, falling snow, etc. and it is sort of wet. phil swears that it is mostly "not that cold" but i am always frozen. i got some really buena-buena rainboots from allie before i left (to replace the ones she already gave me that are In Evidence) which are superuseful in all of this wetness.

i suppose that is all for now. adios, xoxoxo!