Foreigners' office, again

I just re-read a post I wrote in 2011 about going to the foreigners' office, the Auslanderamt. And though it has been nearly five years, not much has changed. Brian and I had to go again yesterday to get our visas renewed.

As the time for the appointment comes and goes, and the stuffy corridor smells increasingly like body odor, we knock on the office door. Then a grumpy bureaucrat in stretchy pants tells me to go back to the hallway and wait until I am called. I obey.

Eventually, a woman in leopard-print pants emerges to call us in. She wears a t-shirt with some metal studs on it. The dress code at the Auslanderamt is beyond business casual. It's more like roll-out-of-bed casual. As we sit down I notice she has a big tattoo of a bear face on her forearm.  I would love to know the story of that tattoo; maybe the bear is her spirit animal.

I hand over the paperwork, sign on the line and turn in my mug shot. It's called a biometric photo but it really just looks like a mug shot. This one especially does, since I had just gotten over pink eye and looked like I'd taken a punch or two. I am thinking this over as I get fingerprinted.
Welcome to Germany.

If I sound a little bitter, it's probably just because I am about due to get out of Germany for the summer. Even after living here for years, my tolerance for feeling foreign has its limits. When I get fed up with Germany, or with Germans, I rebel in public by crossing the street while the little red 'don't walk' man is still lit. Old women scold me under their breath, or sometimes out loud. Young men shake their heads. Everyone else pretends not to notice but I know they are astonished.
Take that, you law-abiding people.

My visits to the Auslanderamt are not over yet. I will have to go back in July to pick up the ID cards. Another appointment in another corridor, with different paperwork. And, if I'm lucky, maybe a different spirit animal tattoo.