the little wins...

Last week I had received a letter in the mail. It was my 'personal identification number'. The letter looked pretty serious and lengthy, and needed some equally serious translating. It turned out this is my taxation number and the letter simply stated that this number should be used for any tax purposes. I don't need it now, but probably good to have. Problem was that Nordine did not get a similar letter.

We left the letter thing until today, wandering if maybe it would arrive separately but so far it hadn't. We have  presumed that the postman didn't know where to put it as Nordine had registered under her maiden name and this was not listed on our letter box at the time (Just my name stuck on the box).

So we decided that we should go and try to sort it out. How would we do this? Well...back to the old Bürgeramt (district office) we would have to go!

In addition to this story, a little less than three weeks ago we had tried to register for a German language course at the local Volkshochschule. Because it wasn't Tuesday we weren't allowed to ask many questions! - detailed here. The Volkshochschule is next to the Bürgeramt, and of course today was Tuesday. Two birds one stone maybe.

The first stop was the Bürgeramt and I had to speak to the same lady that thought my German was rubbish last time. I gave her a spiel (in German) about how we had registered together, how I got this letter with my number and how my wife did not get one. She said a few things to which I answered and then she turned to Nordine and said in German 'I can't understand his accent'. hah! She printed out a 'waiting ticket' and we went to the same old waiting room once more.

Not long after we were called in and got the officer that we had the very first time we came here. The one that speaks no English. We both bamboozled her with our attempts at German and she seemed to understand the story. We were expecting typical Bürgeramt service, but she pressed a couple of buttons and printed out a letter for Nordine which had her personal identification number on it. Too easy!

It was only a little thing, but it felt like quite a win to go to the office one time only and get a result!

With that done we went next door to the Volkshochschule. 

At the office there were some people waiting outside but no one seemed to be doing anything. 

A sign said placement tests today in room 1103 so we went to have a look. Inside were some people taking test and what looked like officials evaluating the performance.

We weren't really sure if we should go in or not when someone came out of another office and we quickly gained her attention. She told us to go straight in. Inside the room we were quickly attended to by a lady that spoke reasonable English and gave us some useful information. She said the classes were already full for this month, but we could register for next month. It sounds a bit backwards, but in February we have to go to another district to register but we can take the classes here in our own district. At least that's what we understood.

We told the lady that we had already completed the A1 (beginner) level and that we wanted to enrol in A2. We took the test, which she said would get harder as it went on. At the very first question we both stumbled and thought we might have to start back at A1 again. After question 1 things got a little easier, and then soon became to difficult for us to continue. We had been told to stop once we started guess the answers and so we stopped. Another lady that spoke zero English came to assess our results. 

Nordine scored 24, and this put her in the A2 bracket. She then scored my test and I only got 22! I was sweating a bit that I might be downgraded but I just made the cut off (which we think is 21) and also was assigned A2 level. We were quite pleased with this, it would be a waste to start over again, and beyond us to go any higher. We got to keep the test results and will need to take them with us to the registration day in a couple of weeks.

With that sorted we went to the nearby 'Ring Centre' shopping centre. Nordine has bought a mobile phone sim card which has had its credit drained immediately without use (10 Euros worth). We had already been back to the shop and the guy advised that its to do with the roaming and that in order to get it sorted he could ring the company and get them to disable that facility. We didn't have the right details with us that day, but we did today.

At the shop our man was there and he immediately knew what we were there for. He grabbed the details of the sim and made the call for us. A minute on the phone and that was all done. While that was happening I went looking for some inexpensive hair clippers (for myself and the dog) and found some for 9 Euros. We checked out, bought the clippers and some new phone credit and even got a smile from the cashier.

It just seemed that things were going our way today. They might be small little things, but with the success at the drivers license office yesterday and today's smooth ride we felt the barriers were lowering and we were walking taller and more confidently! The talking more confidently happens later I guess.

And of course being Tuesday, we went to cap of the day with the wonderful bargain 6 Euro schnitzels at our local, the Kurhaus Korsakow!