Wilkommen ins Land der Burokratie. (Welcome to the land of bureaucracy)

Hello all!

I've finally arrived safe and sound to my new apartment in Salzburg!  It has been an incredibly long week with a mixture of fun and madness, so let me give you a bit of a look into what has been going on.

Last saturday (9/18) we arrived early into the Munich airport on a completely booked flight of tourists (mostly American college aged men), who were on their way to the Oktoberfest.  We too, decided that since we were in Munich on opening day, that despite our lack of sleep or desire to be around THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of people, that we would dress in our Tracht (regional costumes) and join the masses to enjoy some Weißwürstl, rides, and of course, beer.  Unfortunately, we didn't get any beer (and thank god we didn't, or my lack of sleep for 24 hours would have had me pass out on the spot) because we couldn't get into any of the tents, but I did see a curious sight.  Probably the strongest woman that I've seen in a while was carrying 10 beers in her hands.  These are not baby beers, oh no, they are liter masses that are HEAVY, holding onto about 3 or 4 with her hands and 1 on top (in each hand mind you), and had a whistle in her mouth.  So, to keep her tips, she just blows her whistle and expects you to move so she doesn't drop anything.  Now, imagine yourself in a feeding lot with lots of cows.  Cow upon cow upon cow, barely any room to go anywhere, and that is the little area that she has to move around in. Now, I was on the outside of this "cow pin" and saw her blowing her little whistle while a little grandma was in front of her.  Poor grandma could not get away because of the heavily intoxicated drunk cows in front of her and almost got trampled by the whistleblowing lady carrying beers.  Talk about a reality check there.  That's when we decided to get out of the way and not to force ourselves to any table for beer.

After seeing that there were only MORE people coming in despite the fact that you could not get into the fun tents where all the drunk singing was happening (mind you at 1 pm), we decided to head back to Oma's apartment and get our stuff to go down to Attersee.  After 24 hours awake, I was ready to do nothing else, and was glad to grab a little bit of a nap in the car on the way down.  

We arrived to Attersee that Saturday evening, and were staying there until yesterday.  We made a few day trips out to Salzburg, Hallstatt, and Bad Ischl, and of course have been eating our way through every city.  We did get some hiking done though, on the Dachstein and the Schoberstein, and I was lucky that my legs didn't even feel to bad!

Unfortunately, Austria is now notorious in my mind for having the ABSOLUTELY terrible bureaucracy and boy did I find that out this week. We asked where to go to "anmelden" or register with the city and were sent to the wrong building.  After finding the building which we thought was right, we found out that it was closed for the day because what would a government building be if it weren't randomly closed on the day you needed to go there.  We went back the next day to ask how to register, and then they said, "Well of course, everyone knows that you need to go to Schloss Mirabell to do so.  We don't have any of the forms here, but we do have your visa, now you have to get a copy of your lease."  After hearing that we drove 40 minutes to Mondsee to get a copy of the lease, which surprise surprise, they did not have.  Here, nothing is electronic.  Everything is hand written.  They had to wait till EVERY single person in the apartment signed off on the lease, and then had the actual renter sign it, and seeing that it has been summer vacation it was not signed until about a week ago.  After a bit of a blowup at the secretary, she wrote us a letter stating that I had been on the lease and that it was real.  She was also kind enough to give me a "meldezettel" which allows me to register with the city, which must also be signed by the person who leases you the apartment (circular logic?  Me thinks so), but she was kind enough to sign it already.

Fast forward to the next day, we register with the city, and go to pick up the visa (which I spent about a MONTH getting official documents for official documents saying that they were official.  Dumb).  Let me remind you that here in Austria (or in Europe overall), that they have about 1 day where the person who is in charge of the visa is there.  1 day for about 4 hours.  So if you miss it, you must come back.  We went on this day, and found out that my documents had been correctly handed it, I had been correctly registered, but that my Visa was written wrong.  F. That.  1 line on the visa card (like a drivers license) was written wrong by those who processed it, so they had to send it back.  Great.  They also wouldn't accept my lease form, so we had to get another form to go BACK to Mondsee to get filled out to bring back when I can pick up my visa, which will be in 2 weeks since he will most likely be closed after lunch when I get back this friday from my orientation.  Great.  I need that to work on the Monday.  Once again, circular logic.

ON a happier note though, I have a BEAUTIFUL apartment.  My room is bigger than any room I've ever lived in before, and it has beautiful high walls and ceilings :)  I cannot wait to decide what I want to paint on it, or what I want to put on the walls.  The girl who lived here before me was so kind and left me some of her furniture so I would not have to buy EVERYTHING from Ikea again, which makes life a lot easier.  We still spent a hefty penny at Ikea, but went with the discount stuff :)

Anyway, it's about 12:20 here in Salzburg, time for lunch.  All I have with me is a box of raisin bran and some olive oil so I suppose going out to get something else to eat might be a good idea!  I am going to go out and explore a bit since I haven't done too much of that on my own anyway, luckily, I have gps on my phone.  Something not to be taken for granted since I have NO sense of direction.

I hope you all are well and if you are in Minnesota, staying out of the flooding!  I look forward to what the next few days will bring, and will definitely try to keep you posted :)

Herzliche Gruße aus Salzburg,

deine Maija